JANUARY 13, 2019

NEWS AND VIEWS

JUST ON GENERAL PRINCIPLES I WOULD LIKE TO GET RID OF THIS GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN PROVISION, THOUGH THE REASONS FOR THE LAW DO MAKE SENSE. IN THIS CASE, THE SITUATION DOESN’T WARRANT IT, BEING INSTEAD FOR PURELY POLITICAL WRESTLING AND NOT OUT OF A CONCERN FOR SERIOUS ECONOMIC HARDSHIP IN THE USA. THE PRESIDENT IS TRYING TO FORCE OVERSPENDING RATHER THAN PREVENTING IT. THAT’S THE KIND OF INSANE POSITION OUR COUNTRY IS IN THESE DAYS. PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS THREATENED TO FORCE PAYMENT FOR HIS “W A L L,” WHICH IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE AND ONLY MARGINALLY EFFECTIVE MEANS OF PREVENTING WOULD-BE IMMIGRANTS FROM ENTERING THE COUNTRY. WE NEED TO REVISE THE RULES FOR HOW THE ADA OPERATES, OR ABOLISH THE LAW ENTIRELY. IT DOES PROVIDE FOR LEGAL PENALTIES AGAINST THOSE WHO WOULD ABUSE IT, BUT ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA, NOBODY IN A POSITION OF POWER HAS EVER BEEN ACTUALLY PUNISHED FOR MISUSE OF THE LAW.

BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS DON’T PLAY BALL BY HIS DIRTY RULES, HE IS REFUSING TO OPEN THE GOVERNMENT AGAIN, AND PEOPLE WHO ARE DEPENDENT ON THEIR PAYCHECKS ARE GOING TO FOOD BANKS TO MAKE ENDS MEET. THEY CAN’T PAY RENT. MOST JOBS IN THIS COUNTRY DON’T PAY ENOUGH THAT THE AVERAGE WORKER CAN BUILD UP THE RECOMMENDED “PRUDENT RESERVE,” IN THEIR ACCOUNTS, SO THEY ARE QUICKLY FACING SERIOUS PROBLEMS BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T BEEN PAID YET. THE DEMS ARE SAYING, NO WAY. WE WON’T BE BULLIED. THIS ISN’T GOING TO GET HIM HIS (FOOLISHLY) PROMISED “BIG BEAUTIFUL WALL.” IT WILL PREVENT HIS HAVING ANY 2020 REELECTION – IF THERE IS ANY CHANCE OF THAT ANYWAY – AND THAT WILL MAKE HIM SORRY FOR HIS ACTION, I FEEL SURE.

SEE THE NEXT TWO ARTICLES ON THE SHUTDOWN.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/01/13/biggest-news-you-missed-weekend/2563702002/
Here's the biggest news you missed this weekend
Editors, USA TODAY Published 4:58 p.m. ET Jan. 13, 2019

IMAGE -- TSA employee Marae Persson (left) protesting the government shutdown at the James V. Hansen Federal Building on January 10, 2019 in Ogden, Utah. (Photo: Natalie Behring, Getty Images)

The shutdown is now the longest ever, with no end in sight

The partial government shutdown is now the longest in American history, with a fourth of the federal government still shuttered as the standoff enters a fourth week with no end in sight. The shutdown hit its 22nd day on Saturday, surpassing the 21-day record set in 1996 during the Clinton administration. Lawmakers won’t return to Washington until Monday, guaranteeing the government will remain partially closed at least through early this week.

Americans widely blame the shutdown on President Donald Trump, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll found. Trump's demands for border wall funding remain central to the prolonged shutdown, with Democrats doubting the effectiveness of a physical barrier. Last week, Mexican authorities uncovered a tunnel across from Arizona that they believe was used to smuggle drugs and people across the U.S.-Mexico border — the third such discovery in less than a month.

According to new polls, President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are losing the battle on who is to blame for the partial government shutdown.


SHUTDOWNS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_United_States
Government shutdowns in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[NOTE: For the current government shutdown, see United States federal government shutdown of 2018–2019.]

In United States politics, a government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass sufficient appropriation bills or continuing resolutions to fund federal government operations and agencies, or when the President refuses to sign into law such bills or resolutions. In such cases, the current interpretation of the Antideficiency Act requires that the federal government begin a "shutdown" of the affected activities involving the furlough of non-essential personnel and curtailment of agency activities and services. Essential employees are still required to work without pay until the government reopens, when they may then receive back pay. These employees may include medical professionals in the Veterans Hospitals and TSA agents.

Since 1976, when the current budget and appropriations process was enacted, there have been 22 gaps in budget funding, 10 of which led to federal employees being furloughed. Prior to 1990, funding gaps did not always lead to government shutdowns, but since 1990 the practice has been to shut down the government for all funding gaps. Shutdowns have also occurred at the state, territorial, and local levels of government.

During the Ronald Reagan administration, there were a total of eight shutdowns lasting four days or less. Reasons were arguments over the fairness doctrine, welfare package, water/crime fighting packages, foreign aid cuts, MX missile funding, needed spending bills and cuts in defense. A funding gap in 1990 during the George H. W. Bush administration caused a weekend shutdown. During the Bill Clinton administration, there were two full government shutdowns during 1995 and 1996 lasting five and 21 days respectively, based on disagreement on whether to cut government services. During the Barack Obama administration, a 16-day government shutdown occurred during October 2013 over Democrats and Republicans not coming to an agreement for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as Obamacare.[1] Three funding gaps have occurred during the Donald Trump administration: a three-day shutdown during January 2018; a funding gap that occurred overnight on February 9, 2018, which did not result in workers being furloughed (not included in list below);[2][3] and an ongoing shutdown that began during December 2018, over proposed funding for a US–Mexico border wall.[4][5]

Government shutdowns have the effect of disrupting government services and increasing costs to the government due to lost labor. During the 2013 shutdown, Standard & Poor's, the financial ratings agency, stated on October 16 that the shutdown had "to date taken $24 billion out of the economy", and "shaved at least 0.6 percent off annualized fourth-quarter 2013 GDP growth".[6]


THE ANTIDEFICIENCY ACT, OR ADA – WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT EXISTS. IT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE USED TO PURCHASE THE FULFILLMENT OF A CAMPAIGN PROMISE AT AN OUTRAGEOUS COST, BUT TO PREVENT OVERSPENDING.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antideficiency_Act
Antideficiency Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Antideficiency Act (ADA), Pub.L. 97–258, 96 Stat. 923, is legislation enacted by the United States Congress to prevent the incurring of obligations or the making of expenditures (outlays) in excess of amounts available in appropriations or funds. The law was initially enacted in 1884, with major amendments occurring in 1950 (64 Stat. 765) and 1982 (96 Stat. 923). It is now codified at 31 U.S.C. § 1341. The ADA prohibits the federal government of the United States from entering into a contract that is not "fully funded" because doing so would obligate the government in the absence of an appropriation adequate to the needs of the contract. This Act of Congress is sometimes known as Section 3679 of the Revised Statutes, as amended.

Provisions

The Antideficiency Act has evolved over time in response to various abuses. The earliest version of the legislation was enacted in 1870 (16 Stat. 251), after the Civil War, to end the executive branch's long history of creating coercive deficiencies. Many agencies, particularly the military, would intentionally run out of money, obligating Congress to provide additional funds to avoid breaching contracts. Some went as far as to spend their entire budget in the first few months of the fiscal year, funding the rest of the year after the fact with additional appropriations from Congress.[1][2] The act provided:

... that it shall not be lawful for any department of the government to expend in any one fiscal year any sum in excess of appropriations made by Congress for that fiscal year, or to involve the government in any contract for the future payment of money in excess of such appropriations.[3]

Amendments in 1905 and 1906 mandated all appropriations to be apportioned in monthly installments and criminal penalties were imposed for violations.[citation needed]

The "Antideficiency Act" actually includes provisions of Title 31 that are not always associated with the principal provision of the Act which is found at 31 USC 1341. Thus, the ADA also includes 31 USC 1342, a provision which prohibits voluntary services.[4] It also includes 31 USC 1501-1519, provisions which require that appropriated funds be subdivided, "apportioned" and "allocated" before any of the appropriated funds can be expended by the Executive Branch.[citation needed]

Legislative history

The earliest version of the legislation was enacted in 1870 (16 Stat. 251). The Antideficiency Act (Pub.L. 97–258, 96 Stat. 923) was initially enacted in 1884.

The Act was amended and expanded several times, most significantly in 1905 and 1906. It was further modified by an executive order in 1933 and significantly revamped in 1950 (64 Stat. 765).[5] The current version was enacted on September 12, 1982 (96 Stat. 923). It is now codified at 31 U.S.C. § 1341.

Constitutional authority

To some extent, but not entirely, it implements the provisions of Article One of the United States Constitution, Section 9, Clause 7 (the "power of the purse"), which provides that "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law."

Enforcement

The Government Accountability Office, inspectors general, and individual agencies investigate potential violations of the Antideficiency Act every year. The act has ramifications for agencies and individual employees alike.[2]

Although the ADA and its predecessors are over 120 years old, no one has ever been convicted or indicted for its violation.[6] However, agreements have been changed and reported due to ADA violations,[7] and punitive administrative actions are routinely taken against government employees.[8]

The ADA is cited as the reason for a government shutdown when Congress misses a deadline for passing an interim or full-year appropriations bill.[2]


THE STARTLINGLY TRUMPISH REQUEST FOR “PLANS TO ATTACK IRAN” CAME FROM A TRUMP APPOINTEE WHO HAD TENSE DISAGREEMENTS WITH MANY PEOPLE IN THE WHITE HOUSE, MOST FAMOUSLY MELANIA TRUMP, WHO DEMANDED THAT SHE BE FIRED. SHE WAS. THERE’S NO COMMENT ON THE CAUSE OF THE DISAGREEMENT, BUT IT SEEMINGLY WASN’T HER ASSERTIVENESS OVER IRAN.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/13/politics/white-house-iran-airstrikes-national-security-council/index.html
Wall Street Journal: White House requested plans last year from Pentagon to attack Iran
Devan Cole byline
By Devan Cole
Updated 2:37 PM ET, Sun January 13, 2019

Washington (CNN)The White House's National Security Council asked the Pentagon last year for plans for launching a military attack against Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported early Sunday, citing current and former US officials.

The request from the council, which is led by national security adviser John Bolton, came after an attack in September on the US Embassy in Baghdad by a militant group aligned with Iran, according to the Journal.

According to the paper, Mira Ricardel, the former deputy national security adviser, described the attacks in Iraq as "an act of war," and said that the US needed to respond accordingly.

The request was met with concern by both the Pentagon and the State Department, according to the Journal, with one former administration official telling the paper that people were "shocked" by the request.

A senior administration official told CNN on Sunday that it's not accurate to say the Pentagon and State Department were caught off guard by the request, but would not confirm any other details from the Journal's report.

Although the Pentagon obeyed the request by the council, the Journal reported, it is unknown whether or not the plans for striking Iran were ever fully developed or even provided to the White House. The Journal also said that it is unknown whether President Donald Trump had knowledge of the request.

In a statement provided to CNN on Sunday, Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the council, said that it "coordinates policy and provides the President with options to anticipate and respond to a variety of threats."

"We continue to review the status of our personnel following attempted attacks on our embassy in Baghdad and our Basra consulate, and we will consider a full range of options to preserve their safety and our interests," the statement read. Marquis also provided the Journal with the same response.

Later Sunday, Defense Department spokesman Col. Rob Manning told CNN that the department "is a planning organization and provides the President military options for a variety of threats; routinely reviewing and updating plans and activities to deal with a host of threats, including those posed by Iran, to deter and, if necessary, to respond to aggression."

The Journal, citing conversations with people familiar with the talks, also reported that the council requested options for launching strikes at both Iraq and Syria when they made the request for Iran.

CNN's Sarah Westwood and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.


BERNIE, THE TIME IS NEAR. THIS CAN'T HAPPEN WITHOUT YOU. STILL, OF COURSE, IT HAS TO BE YOUR DECISION. I'M IN THE GROUP WHO DOESN'T MERELY LIKE YOU, WE BELIEVE IN YOU. THE "BERNIE BRO" IMAGE IS A PROBLEM, AND SEXUAL MALFEASANCE WILL HURT YOU MUCH MORE THAN IT WOULD DONALD TRUMP, BECAUSE NOBODY IS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT TRUMP IS A DECENT PERSON. IT'S THE DISAPPOINTMENT FACTOR THAT IS A KILLER. IF THERE ARE OTHER MEN IN YOUR ORGANIZATION WHO HAVE BEEN ABUSIVE TO ANYBODY AT ALL, MAN WOMAN OR CHILD, GET THEM OUT. THAT'S MY ADVICE. STILL, I HOPE YOU WILL TRY IT. I WILL BEAT MY LITTLE TIN DRUM FOR YOU AS LONG AS I'M ABLE TO WRITE THIS BLOG. BLESS YOU FOR CARING ABOUT AMERICA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paloma/the-trailer/2019/01/13/the-trailer-will-sanders-s-2016-supporters-rally-behind-him-this-time/5c3954241b326b66fc5a1c2e/
Politics Analysis
The Trailer: Will Sanders's 2016 supporters rally behind him this time?
By David Weigel
January 13 at 5:52 PM

In this edition: The old Sanders magic, Tulsi Gabbard and her enemies, and the start of Castro 2020.

I've escaped the snowstorm, and don't worry, I feel guilty about it. This is The Trailer.

PHOTOGRAPH -- An organizing event in Greenbelt, Md. (David Weigel/The Washington Post)

GREENBELT, Md. — On Saturday afternoon, as Julián Castro was announcing his presidential campaign in Texas and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was making her first campaign stop in New Hampshire, around 50 activists filed into a Maryland coffee shop with a mission: to draft Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) into the 2020 primary.

"We've been told the Bernie is not going to announce today," said Paul Butterworth, the scientist and political activist who'd organized the party. "Don't expect a surprise today. But I think it's inevitable that he will run."

It's not inevitable — Sanders seems genuinely conflicted about running again — but Butterfield's event was one of at least 400 house parties Saturday, from Alaska to Austria, designed to nudge him in. For 30 minutes, activists at each party watched a live stream of prominent Sanders supporters explaining to them that the only questions for a Sanders victory were whether he ran and whether his movement was ready.

“We want the man that was in the arena in 2016 to continue this journey, and we will be by his side,” Nina Turner, the president of Our Revolution, said on the live stream.

The idea and organizing structure came from Our Revolution (a group the senator himself co-founded), People for Bernie (which he didn't), and Organizing for Bernie (which grew out of People for Bernie).

"This is about getting into formation," said Winnie Wong, a co-founder of People for Bernie and organizer of next week's Women's March, in an interview. "I told Bernie we were doing this, and he seemed really shocked at the number of sign-ups and events. Frankly, I’m a little shocked, because I thought we’d only get 150 or 200. If every volunteer sticks with this, that's an army."

No one considering a Democratic primary campaign has the built-in support of Sanders, whose 2016 bid left him with around 14 million votes, 46 percent of nearly 4,000 pledged delegates, and the largest donor email list in politics.

At the same time, no potential candidate entered 2019 with so much negative coverage — two waves of stories about sexual harassment on the 2016 campaign — and so much competition for voters who once supported him. The best summary of the left's pro-Sanders case might be the one Amber A'Lee Frost wrote in the Baffler this week: "Bernie pressured Amazon into raising wages, followed up by going after Walmart, condemned Saudi Arabia and sponsored the resolution to end support for the war in Yemen, introduced the No Money Bail Act, committed to a federal job guarantee, campaigned so powerfully for Medicare for All that he shifted the entire Democratic Party, and saved a woman from being hit by a car."

Still, this weekend began with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), one of just three members of the House who endorsed Sanders before his or her state's 2016 primary, announcing her own campaign. The previous weekend saw Warren, with a message that shares plenty of DNA with Sanders's, make a successful five-stop tour of Iowa. Even Castro, who entered the race on Saturday, used his subsequent media hits to embrace Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and a higher tax rate on the super-rich.

The looming question: How many of the people who got behind Sanders in 2016 are still ready to support him in a contest that's not a binary "establishment vs. outsider" choice? While the house parties were unfolding, Warren was filling a room in Manchester; more than a few of the people who’d shown up had backed Sanders.

“I was with him even before the first rallies in New Hampshire, but I think this is wide open,” John Hall, 68, said at Warren's Manchester event. “There’s been a shift in the Democratic Party; there’ve been young people coming into the party who see what Bernie saw. I think that Elizabeth Warren is one of the people who sees what Bernie saw.”

The voters who backed Sanders in 2016 fit into roughly three camps. The first, like Hall, agreed with the senator’s message and wanted to — at least — move Hillary Clinton to the left before her inevitable nomination. The second, smaller camp, backed Sanders with no real intention of voting Democratic in November; around 33 percent of Democrats who voted in West Virginia’s 2016 primary*, which Sanders won, said they would support Donald Trump.

THE WEST VA EXIT POLLING: https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/primaries/polls/wv/Dem

The third camp, represented at the weekend house parties, believed that Sanders would have won the presidency, that he would win it in 2020, and that no other Democrat could be trusted to deliver radical, substantive change if elected. At the Greenbelt party, held at the New Deal Café (“ensuring domestic tranquility since 1995”), activists confronted the reality that Sanders was in a strong but not commanding position if he ran again.

“It looks like it’s going to be a brutal primary,” said Cecilia Hall, the 2016 volunteer engagement manager for the Sanders campaign, on the live stream. “In 2015, we had the advantage of surprise.”

Claire Sandberg, the digital organizing director for the 2016 campaign, said in an interview that the senator’s strength was being underrated — especially if he moved quickly. The “who’s this guy?” factor of the last campaign had been replaced with name recognition, which most other Democrats would spend the year working to build. Sanders, who spent the midterms helping other insurgent candidates create campaigns from scratch, was waiting for the next call.

“Last time around, Bernie started out with 5 percent name recognition, and the biggest challenge for the campaign was that voters didn’t know who he was,” said Sandberg, standing at the back of the New Deal Café. “Broadcast media completely blocked out coverage of him. We ran out of runway by the time everyone was voting. Now, we start out with everyone knowing who Bernie is, and he’s the most popular politician in the country.”

But with that name recognition have come scrutiny and negativity that have made Sanders supporters bristle. Some of Sanders’s allies have also attacked the coverage of the 2016 campaign’s harassment complaints, which Sanders himself has apologized for, and which one of Saturday’s presentations (from Sheila Healy, discussing the senator’s 2018 reelection campaign training) suggested could never happen again. Nomiki Konst, a Sanders delegate now running for New York City public advocate, said last week that the harassment story was being used to hurt activists who had nothing to do with it.

"I think, unfortunately, the 'Me Too' movement has been used as a political weapon in this case. It has to be dealt with no matter what, but it is not something that feeds into this old 'Bernie bro'* narrative," Konst told interviewers from The Hill.

“Bernie bro” – SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Bro.

Near the end of Saturday’s meeting, activists ran down their potential persuasion targets: voters who considered Sanders too radical, voters who did not think he was radical enough, and voters who believed that the electoral system was “rigged” and not worth participating in.

There would be more meetings. Four hundred house parties in January — that was more than any other candidates' supporters were doing. But reaching out to Democrats who liked much of Sanders's agenda and could be sold on a new candidate would not be easy.

“I hear people say: 'I love Bernie, but he’s too old now,'” Butterworth said. “He’s ‘an old white man.’ That is the phrase I keep hearing.”

Ben Terris contributed reporting from New Hampshire.


I’M AFRAID ELIZABETH WARREN IS NOT INTERESTED IN “RADICAL” REFORM, AS THIS ARTICLE STATES. SHE SPOKE AGAINST THE WHOLE “SOCIALIST” NOMENCLATURE, EVEN IF IT IS “DEMOCRATIC” SOCIALISM RECENTLY WHEN ASKED HOW SHE WAS DIFFERENT FROM SANDERS. WHEN I HEAR THAT TERM “RADICAL REFORM,” I THINK OF FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT WHO SAVED AMERICA AFTER THE RADICAL RIGHT HAD ALMOST DESTROYED IT, THOUGH ROOSEVELT IS RARELY CALLED A “SOCIALIST.” HE WAS A “SOCIAL DEMOCRAT.” SANDERS IS A MODERN-DAY ROOSEVELT DEMOCRAT, IN MY VIEW. SOCIAL SECURITY WAS RADICAL IN ROOSEVELT’S TIME PERIOD, AND IT IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF OUR COUNTRY NOW.

THAT’S BECAUSE HE HAD A VISION AND THE GUTS TO PUSH IT THROUGH. BERNIE IS EXACTLY LIKE THAT ALSO. PEOPLE WHO COME FROM WORKING CLASS BACKGROUNDS CAN APPRECIATE THE DIFFERENCE THERE. WARREN RECENTLY SAID, “I BELIEVE IN MARKETS,” MEANING THE FREE MARKET SYSTEM. I MUST SAY, I THINK A TOTALLY FREE MARKET SYSTEM HAS A STRONG BUILT-IN BIAS FOR THE WEALTHY, IS RUINOUS FOR THE DAILY LIFE OF THE PEOPLE IN THE WAY IT SHAPES PAY SCALES, THE PLAYING FIELD OF BUSINESS / UNION ACTIONS AND THE UNCONTROLLED COST OF LIVING, ALL OF WHICH TOGETHER KEEPS PREJUDICING OUR SYSTEM TOWARD THE RIGHT POLITICALLY AND TOWARD TOO GREAT AN INEQUALITY TIME AFTER TIME. THE “FREE MARKET” DOESN’T SWING LIKE PENDULUM, BUT HANGS TO ONE END – THE WEALTHY END.

I DON’T LIKE WARREN. SHE’S A PHYSICALLY ATTRACTIVE LADY, BUT SHE ISN’T MY KIND OF “PROGRESSIVE.” SHE JUST THINK’S IT’S A WINNING MANTRA THESE DAYS, I’M AFRAID. I’LL NEVER FORGET THE LOOK ON HER FACE WHEN A NEWS GROUP ASKED HER IF SHE WOULD BE INTERESTED IN BEING BERNIE SANDERS’ VICE PRESIDENT. IT WAS A FACE OF QUICKLY MASKED FURY. I KNOW WHY. SHE WANTED THE REPORTERS TO BE ASKING WHETHER SHE WOULD HAVE BERNIE AS HER VICE PRESIDENT, INSTEAD. BERNIE SAYS SHE IS “A FRIEND OF HIS,” BUT SHE IS NO FRIEND TO HIM. SHE IS JEALOUS OF HIM.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/12/politics/elizabeth-warren-new-hampshire/index.html
Elizabeth Warren makes her pitch for radical reform in Washington
Greg Krieg
By Gregory Krieg, CNN
Updated 5:38 PM ET, Sat January 12, 2019

VIDEO -- Source: CNN -- Warren: I'm in this fight because I'm grateful 00:52

Manchester, N.H. (CNN)Sen. Elizabeth Warren in her first visit to New Hampshire in more than two years made the case for radical reform in Washington, telling voters here that the time for "change at the margins" has passed.

Returning to the trail a week after making her debut as a likely presidential candidate in Iowa, Warren again hammered a government, led now by President Donald Trump, that she described as fatally compromised by wealthy influence peddlers.

"This is about who the rules work for," Warren said. "We need to make change in this country. Not little, itty-bitty change. Not change at the margins. Not a nibble around the edges. Not even pass one good law here and one good law there. We need to make systemic change in this country."

New Hampshire could be an electoral linchpin for Warren, who will arrive here next year with outsize expectations -- the two most recent Democratic presidential nominees from Massachusetts won the next-door primary -- and likely at least one other likely high-powered 2020 rival in Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who also represents a bordering state. Sanders defeated Clinton in New Hampshire by more than 20 percentage points three years ago.

Nancy Johnson, who voted for Sanders then but drove down 20 miles down from Northwood to see Warren on Saturday, said the 2020 contest would, for her, be a two-horse race -- with Warren currently a few lengths ahead.

"She's younger and she's female. I wish Bernie had gotten the nomination in 2016. I really, really wish that he had," Johnson said. Of Warren, she added: "I like her the way she is. I don't think she needs to change anything. I liked the way she delivers her message. She's very precise in what she says. I've heard people call her strident but I've never heard her be strident -- maybe people think that because she's female and she's standing up for herself."

On her second straight Saturday on the stump, after making her pitch -- five times in less than 48 hours -- to overflow rooms across Iowa last weekend, Warren again led with the progressive populist message that has over a decade entrenched her as a favorite among the party's feistier liberal wing.
Based on her remarks in these early stages, Warren appears to believe winning over the party, and perhaps the country, does not, for now, require attacking Trump by name, head-on.

"I think we need to talk about our affirmative vision," Warren told reporters after being asked why she didn't talk about the President more directly. "I'm willing to fight. Everybody knows that. The question is: How do we build an America that works?"

Her argument to voters in New Hampshire, 1,200 miles from Iowa, was largely the same as it has been, even if her company was a bit more varied. Warren's husband Bruce Mann and their dog, Bailey, who had a GoPro camera strapped to his back, joined her at the beginning of the event.

Warren went to a house party with organizers in Concord after she wrapped at Manchester Community College, an appearance that marked her first visit to the state since she rallied for Hillary Clinton and then-Gov. Maggie Hassan, who was on her way winning a Senate seat, in September 2016. Warren spent a few hours of Election Day that year in the state before returning home.

Warren received an in-state boost this week when the New Hampshire Democratic Party invited her to deliver the keynote speech at their McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner. First held in 1959 to trumpet the candidacy of a future president, John F. Kennedy, who headlined it then, the gathering in 2019 will put Warren in close quarters with prominent activists and party officials.

Thirteen months out from the first round of primary voting, Warren is still working to build her appeal as a presidential contender with the party's most engaged and energetic ranks. She did not run television ads during her own Senate re-election campaign in Massachusetts last year, forgoing a chance to get a word in with the voters next door -- Boston and Manchester are largely part of the same media market -- but did lend a pair of staffers to the state party and send it $5,000 from her own campaign coffers, part of a larger outlay to state parties in all 50 states. She also hosted a fundraising event for New Hampshire Democrats in Boston last year.

Democrats are on the rise in New Hampshire. In 2018, the party took back control of both chambers of the state legislature and all four of its representatives on Capitol Hill, two in the Senate -- Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen -- and both of its House members -- Chris Pappas and Annie Kuster -- are Democrats.

But Clinton only won the state by about 3,000 votes, or less than .5%, in 2016, and the Democrats' one blemish here in 2018, the re-election of Republican Gov. Chris Sununu over Democrat Molly Kelly, suggests the state could remain a battleground beyond its primary, all the way through to November of 2020.

CNN's MJ Lee and Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.



DOES AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT ELECTED IN A FAIRLY LARGE MEASURE BY RUSSIAN AID AND COOPERATION CONSTITUTE “A POSSIBLE THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY?” HAS HE SEEMINGLY FAVORED RUSSIA AND PUTIN IN THE PURSUIT OF HIS WORK? HOW COULD AN HONEST OBSERVER OF THIS SITUATION THINK OTHERWISE? STILL, I THINK THAT TRUMP IS MOTIVATED BY MONEY MORE THAN BY PHILOSOPHY OF ANY KIND. HE’S NOT A PHILOSOPHER.

THE RUSSIANS HELPED HIM DO BUSINESS IN RUSSIA, AND THAT DISGUSTING / BARELY BELIEVABLE “GOLDEN SPRINKLES” CONNECTION IS ENOUGH TO HOLD HIM IN THEIR THRALL EVEN WITHOUT THAT. TRUMP HAS THREE GODS – MONEY, PERSONAL POWER AND SEX. RUSSIA IS THE SOURCE OF ALL OF THOSE IN THIS SITUATION. I PERSONALLY SUSPECT STRONGLY THAT HE ISN’T AS WEALTHY AS HE MAKES HIMSELF OUT TO BE. IF HE WERE, WHY WOULD HE WITHHOLD HIS INCOME TAX FILINGS? BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHY DID OUR PEOPLE ELECT HIM? RACE, PERHAPS?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html
F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
By Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Nicholas Fandos
Jan. 11, 2019

PHOTOGRAPH -- Following President Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, the bureau grew increasingly concerned about whether the president’s actions constituted anti-American activity.CreditCreditSarah Silbiger/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

RELATED: [Trump responds to the Times's report on the FBI investigation via Twitter.]

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. officials opened it. That inquiry is part of Mr. Mueller’s broader examination of how Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Trump associates conspired with them. It is unclear whether Mr. Mueller is still pursuing the counterintelligence matter, and some former law enforcement officials outside the investigation have questioned whether agents overstepped in opening it.

The criminal and counterintelligence elements were coupled together into one investigation, former law enforcement officials said in interviews in recent weeks, because if Mr. Trump had ousted the head of the F.B.I. to impede or even end the Russia investigation, that was both a possible crime and a national security concern. The F.B.I.’s counterintelligence division handles national security matters.

If the president had fired Mr. Comey to stop the Russia investigation, the action would have been a national security issue because it naturally would have hurt the bureau’s effort to learn how Moscow interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Americans were involved, according to James A. Baker, who served as F.B.I. general counsel until late 2017. He privately testified in October before House investigators who were examining the F.B.I.’s handling of the full Russia inquiry.

Image -- The F.B.I. investigated whether the firing of Mr. Comey was a national security threat.CreditErik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock

“Not only would it be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the Russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security,” Mr. Baker said in his testimony, portions of which were read to The New York Times. Mr. Baker did not explicitly acknowledge the existence of the investigation of Mr. Trump to congressional investigators.

No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel’s office both declined to comment.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, a lawyer for the president, sought to play down the significance of the investigation. “The fact that it goes back a year and a half and nothing came of it that showed a breach of national security means they found nothing,” Mr. Giuliani said on Friday, though he acknowledged that he had no insight into the inquiry.

The cloud of the Russia investigation has hung over Mr. Trump since even before he took office, though he has long vigorously denied any illicit connection to Moscow. The obstruction inquiry, revealed by The Washington Post a few weeks after Mr. Mueller was appointed, represented a direct threat that he was unable to simply brush off as an overzealous examination of a handful of advisers. But few details have been made public about the counterintelligence aspect of the investigation.

The decision to investigate Mr. Trump himself was an aggressive move by F.B.I. officials who were confronting the chaotic aftermath of the firing of Mr. Comey and enduring the president’s verbal assaults on the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt.”

A vigorous debate has taken shape among some former law enforcement officials outside the case over whether F.B.I. investigators overreacted in opening the counterintelligence inquiry during a tumultuous period at the Justice Department. Other former officials noted that those critics were not privy to all of the evidence and argued that sitting on it would have been an abdication of duty.

The F.B.I. conducts two types of inquiries, criminal and counterintelligence investigations. Unlike criminal investigations, which are typically aimed at solving a crime and can result in arrests and convictions, counterintelligence inquiries are generally fact-finding missions to understand what a foreign power is doing and to stop any anti-American activity, like thefts of United States government secrets or covert efforts to influence policy. In most cases, the investigations are carried out quietly, sometimes for years. Often, they result in no arrests.

Mr. Trump had caught the attention of F.B.I. counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.

RELATED: How the Mueller Investigation Could Play Out for Trump

If Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finds evidence that Mr. Trump broke the law, he will have decisions to make about how to proceed. We explain them.

May 23, 2018

Other factors fueled the F.B.I.’s concerns, according to the people familiar with the inquiry. Christopher Steele, a former British spy who worked as an F.B.I. informant, had compiled memos in mid-2016 containing unsubstantiated claims that Russian officials tried to obtain influence over Mr. Trump by preparing to blackmail and bribe him.

In the months before the 2016 election, the F.B.I. was also already investigating four of Mr. Trump’s associates over their ties to Russia. The constellation of events disquieted F.B.I. officials who were simultaneously watching as Russia’s campaign unfolded to undermine the presidential election by exploiting existing divisions among Americans.

“In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself, you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability, America’s ability and the West’s ability to spread our democratic ideals,” Lisa Page, a former bureau lawyer, told House investigators in private testimony reviewed by The Times.

“That’s the goal, to make us less of a moral authority to spread democratic values,” she added. Parts of her testimony were first reported by The Epoch Times.

And when a newly inaugurated Mr. Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Mr. Comey and later asked that he end an investigation into the president’s national security adviser, the requests set off discussions among F.B.I. officials about opening an inquiry into whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct that case.

But law enforcement officials put off the decision to open the investigation until they had learned more, according to people familiar with their thinking. As for a counterintelligence inquiry, they concluded that they would need strong evidence to take the sensitive step of investigating the president, and they were also concerned that the existence of such an inquiry could be leaked to the news media, undermining the entire investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election.

After Mr. Comey was fired on May 9, 2017, two more of Mr. Trump’s actions prompted them to quickly abandon those reservations.

The first was a letter Mr. Trump wanted to send to Mr. Comey about his firing, but never did, in which he mentioned the Russia investigation. In the letter, Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Comey for previously telling him he was not a subject of the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation.

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Even after the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, wrote a more restrained draft of the letter and told Mr. Trump that he did not have to mention the Russia investigation — Mr. Comey’s poor handling of the Clinton email investigation would suffice as a fireable offense, he explained — Mr. Trump directed Mr. Rosenstein to mention the Russia investigation anyway.

He disregarded the president’s order, irritating Mr. Trump. The president ultimately added a reference to the Russia investigation to the note he had delivered, thanking Mr. Comey for telling him three times that he was not under investigation.

The second event that troubled investigators was an NBC News interview two days after Mr. Comey’s firing in which Mr. Trump appeared to say he had dismissed Mr. Comey because of the Russia inquiry.

“I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it,” he said. “And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself — I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.”

Mr. Trump’s aides have said that a fuller examination of his comments demonstrates that he did not fire Mr. Comey to end the Russia inquiry. “I might even lengthen out the investigation, but I have to do the right thing for the American people,” Mr. Trump added. “He’s the wrong man for that position.”

As F.B.I. officials debated whether to open the investigation, some of them pushed to move quickly before Mr. Trump appointed a director who might slow down or even end their investigation into Russia’s interference. Many involved in the case viewed Russia as the chief threat to American democratic values.

“With respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life,” Ms. Page told investigators for a joint House Judiciary and Oversight Committee investigation into Moscow’s election interference.

F.B.I. officials viewed their decision to move quickly as validated when a comment the president made to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office shortly after he fired Mr. Comey was revealed days later.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Follow Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Nicholas Fandos on Twitter: @adamgoldmanNYT, @nytmike and @npfandos.

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 12, 2019, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: F.B.I. Investigated if Trump Worked for the Russians. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe



TRUMP FIGHTS BACK AGAINST THE FBI IN HIS OWN WAY. BY CALLING THEM “DISGRACED LOSERS,” TWEETED OUT A SERIES OF LIES ABOUT THEM, BLUDGEONED HILLARY CLINTON A LITTLE JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT, CALLS QUESTIONS OF HIS LOYALTY TO AMERICA “INSULTING,” CLAIMED THAT HE HAS BEEN “FAR TOUGHER” ON RUSSIA THAN OBAMA AND OTHERS. INSULT, DENY AND LIE.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/us/politics/trump-fbi-counterintelligence-investigation.html?action=click&module=inline&pgtype=Article
Trump Tweets Lengthy Attack on F.B.I. Over Inquiry Into Possible Aid to Russia
By Nicholas Fandos and Michael S. Schmidt
Jan. 12, 2019

PHOTOGRAPH -- President Trump said on Twitter on Saturday that now-departed F.B.I. officials had “tried to do a number on your President” by investigating whether he had acted on behalf of Russia.CreditCreditSarah Silbiger/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Saturday unleashed an extended assault on the F.B.I. and the special counsel’s investigation, knitting together a comprehensive alternative story in which he had been framed by disgraced “losers” at the bureau’s highest levels.

In a two-hour span starting at 7 a.m., the president made a series of false claims on Twitter about his adversaries and the events surrounding the inquiry. He was responding to a report in The New York Times that, after he fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director in 2017, the bureau began investigating whether the president had acted on behalf of Russia.

In his tweets, the president accused Hillary Clinton, without evidence, of breaking the law by lying to the F.B.I. He claimed that Mr. Comey was corrupt and best friends with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. He said Mr. Mueller was employing a team of Democrats — another misleading assertion — bent on taking him down.

Individually, the president’s claims were familiar. But as the special counsel’s inquiry edges ever closer to him, Democrats vow a blizzard of investigations of their own and the government shutdown reaches record lengths, Mr. Trump compiled all the threads of the conspiracy theory he has pushed for many months in an effort to discredit the investigation.

Hours later, Mr. Trump continued his broadside on a friendly television venue, Jeanine Pirro’s show on Fox News. Asked “are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?” Mr. Trump did not directly answer the question.

“I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked,” he said by telephone. “I think it’s the most insulting article I’ve ever had written.”

He also denied a report in The Washington Post that he had taken extensive steps to conceal from other high-ranking officials his conversations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over the past two years.

Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that his panel would hold hearings on “the mysteries swirling around Trump’s bizarre relationship with Putin and his cronies, and how those dark dealings affect our national security.”

PHOTOGRAPH -- James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, responded to Mr. Trump with a quotation attributed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt: “I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”CreditTom Brenner for The New York Times

In his Twitter outburst earlier in the day, Mr. Trump accused the F.B.I. of opening “for no reason” and “with no proof” an investigation in 2017 into whether he had been working against American interests on behalf of Russia, painting his own actions toward Russia as actually “FAR tougher” than those of his predecessors.

The Times article, published Friday evening, reported that law enforcement officials became so alarmed by Mr. Trump’s behavior surrounding his firing of Mr. Comey that they took the explosive step of opening a counterintelligence investigation against him.

Naming several of the bureau’s now-departed top officials, including Mr. Comey and his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe, Mr. Trump said the F.B.I. had “tried to do a number on your President,” accusing the “losers” of essentially fabricating a case. “Part of the Witch Hunt,” he wrote — referring dismissively to the investigation now being overseen by Mr. Mueller.


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!

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7:05 AM - Jan 12, 2019
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At the time he was fired in May 2017, Mr. Comey had been leading the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election, and the officials believed that his removal, in hindering the inquiry, posed a possible threat to national security. Their decision to open the case was informed, in part, by two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the firing to the Russia investigation.

The inquiry they opened had two aspects, including both the newly disclosed counterintelligence element and a criminal element that has long been publicly known: whether the firing constituted obstruction of justice.

When Mr. Mueller was appointed days later, he took over the joint inquiry as part of his larger investigation of Russia’s action in 2016 and whether anyone on the Trump campaign conspired with Moscow. It is not clear whether he is still pursuing the counterintelligence matter, and no public evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump himself secretly conspired with the Russian government or took directions from it.

Mr. Trump indicated on Saturday that he had not known of the existence of the counterintelligence investigation before the Times article, and he did not dispute the newspaper’s reporting.

But he made clear that he viewed any such inquiry as illegitimate from the start. He presented it, without evidence, as part of a vast, yearslong conspiracy to undo his presidency.

In the tweets, Mr. Trump defended his decision to fire Mr. Comey — “a total sleaze!” — at length, accusing the former director of overseeing a “rigged & botched” investigation of Mrs. Clinton, and leading the agency into “complete turmoil.” Democrats and Republicans alike wanted Mr. Comey removed, he said.

“My firing of James Comey was a great day for America,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He was a Crooked Cop.”


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
...Funny thing about James Comey. Everybody wanted him fired, Republican and Democrat alike. After the rigged & botched Crooked Hillary investigation, where she was interviewed on July 4th Weekend, not recorded or sworn in, and where she said she didn’t know anything (a lie),....

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Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
....the FBI was in complete turmoil (see N.Y. Post) because of Comey’s poor leadership and the way he handled the Clinton mess (not to mention his usurpation of powers from the Justice Department). My firing of James Comey was a great day for America. He was a Crooked Cop......

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But an investigation conducted by the Justice Department’s inspector general and internal surveys of F.B.I. agents have undercut Mr. Trump’s portrayal of Mr. Comey as corrupt and unpopular within the bureau.

PHOTOGRAPH -- Andrew G. McCabe has argued that his firing by Mr. Trump as deputy F.B.I. director was politically motivated and designed to hinder the Russia investigation.CreditPete Marovich/Getty Images

Mr. Trump’s comments echoed those that his White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, released on Friday night.

“This is absurd. James Comey was fired because he’s a disgraced partisan hack, and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, who was in charge at the time, is a known liar fired by the F.B.I.,” Ms. Sanders said. “Unlike President Obama, who let Russia and other foreign adversaries push America around, President Trump has actually been tough on Russia.”

Parts of the statements by Mr. Trump and Ms. Sanders are at odds with the public record and with the findings of the inspector general’s report. While Democrats were furious with Mr. Comey over his public statements about the Clinton email server case — at a news conference and in a pair of letters in the middle of the campaign — they were deeply alarmed by his removal, given his role in the Russia investigation.

In his report, the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, pointedly criticized Mr. Comey for breaking with longstanding policy to publicly discuss the Clinton case, and he castigated “insubordinate” senior officials who worked with Mr. Comey for privately criticizing Mr. Trump even as they investigated him. But he ultimately said he had found no evidence to believe that the decisions not to charge Mrs. Clinton for her use of a private email server in handling classified information “were affected by bias or other improper considerations.”

“Rather, we concluded that they were based on the prosecutor’s assessment of facts, the law and past department practice,” he wrote.

Mr. McCabe, who briefly served as acting director after Mr. Comey was removed, was fired last March for failing to be forthcoming with investigators about an unrelated conversation he had authorized between F.B.I. officials and a journalist. Mr. McCabe argued that the firing was politically motivated and designed to hinder the Russia investigation. Other members of Mr. Comey’s team have also been fired or left the bureau.

Mr. Comey responded on Twitter on Saturday with a quotation attributed to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt: “I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”

The Times report cited former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation, as well as private testimony that the F.B.I.’s former general counsel, James A. Baker, delivered to Congress related to the inquiry.

“Not only would it be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the Russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security,” Mr. Baker said in his testimony, portions of which were read to The New York Times.

Some former law enforcement officials outside the case have since debated whether F.B.I. investigators overreacted in opening the counterintelligence inquiry during a chaotic period after Mr. Comey’s firing. Other former officials noted that those critics were not privy to all of the evidence and argued that sitting on it would have been an abdication of duty.

NOTE TITLE OF PRINT ARTICLE 1/13 -- A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 13, 2019, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Assails F.B.I. Inquiry Into Possible Russia Sympathies. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe


THERE’S BEEN ANOTHER AIRLINE GOOF-UP, THIS TIME IN BRITAIN. THE AIRLINE AT FIRST TRIED TO WEASEL OUT OF THE MATTER, BUT WHEN CONFRONTED BY A BRITISH CONSUMER GROUP, THEY REFUNDED THE WHOLE FAMILY’S TICKET PRICE. ACCORDING TO THIS STORY IT WAS DUE TO A SWITCH IN THE AIRCRAFT CAUSING A DIFFERENT SEATING ARRANGEMENT. THE FAMILY IS BIRACIAL, IF THAT MATTERS.

THE AIRLINE COULD HAVE AVOIDED THE BAD PUBLICITY BY DEALING WITH THE FAMILY MORE FAIRLY IN THE FIRST PLACE, EVEN IF IT WASN’T AVOIDABLE. THE REFUND OF THEIR AIRFARE HELPS A GREAT DEAL, I’M SURE, UNLESS THERE IS MORE TO THIS STORY. THE COMPLAINT WILL BE AIRED ON THE POPULAR TV SHOW RIP OFF BRITAIN AT https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wck32.
FOR THE GERMANY BASED COMPANY TOURISM UNION INTERNATIONAL (TUI) SEE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TUI_Group

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-46858249
Family had to sit on floor of TUI plane
JANUARY 13, 2019 2 hours ago

PHOTOGRAPH -- PAULA TAYLOR
Paula Taylor and her daughter spent part of the flight sitting on the floor

A family returning from holiday found they had no seats once they had boarded their plane and spent part of the flight sitting on the floor.

Despite having boarding passes, the Taylor family found empty spaces where their seats should have been.

The family, from Alcester, Warwickshire, had paid £1,300 and were flying from Mahon in Menorca to Birmingham with TUI airlines.

The Civil Aviation Authority is looking into the matter.

The family raised the issue with BBC One programme Rip Off Britain: Holiday.

Image copyrightPAULA TAYLOR
Image caption
Mrs Taylor and her husband were given flip-up seats but the plane's food and other items were stored behind them, she said

Paula Taylor told the show that she, her husband and 10-year-old daughter had got to the airport early, in June, to make sure they were seated together.

Their seat numbers were 41 D, E and F. But when they got on the plane there was an empty space underneath the numbers.

"We all just looked at each other as if to say 'where's our seats gone?'," Mrs Taylor said.

Once all the passengers had boarded there was just one seat left. Mrs Taylor's daughter Brooke was given that seat while she and her husband were given flip-up seats in the crew section.

Image caption -- Paula Taylor says she was given short shrift when she tried to raise the matter with TUI afterwards

But once the flight had taken off, crew were busy serving food and other items stored behind those seats and Mr and Mrs Taylor had to go and sit on the floor, in the space their seats should have been. They were joined by Brooke as she did not want to sit alone.

The family say they were thanked by the plane crew for their understanding.

But Mrs Taylor says she was given short shrift when she raised the matter with TUI and was eventually offered a goodwill gesture of £30.

After the family contacted Rip Off Britain, TUI refunded their fares and said a "last-minute aircraft change" meant the family's assigned seats were unavailable, as the alternative aircraft had a different seating configuration.

It said it was "sorry for the way the situation was initially handled" and will contact the family directly to apologise.

The company has been contacted for further comment by BBC Online.

Image caption
The family were flying from Mahon in Menorca to Birmingham and had paid £1,300 in fares
The Civil Aviation Authority says while passengers are allowed to sit in crew seats under certain conditions, they must not be left unseated during any stage of the flight.

It told Rip-Off Britain it would be contacting TUI for an explanation.

The episode will be broadcast on BBC One at 9.15am on Tuesday 15 January