Mulino, after the talks with the top US diplomat in Panama City, signalled he would review agreements involving China and Chinese businesses, and announced further cooperation with the US on migration, but reiterated that his country’s sovereignty over the world’s second busiest waterway is not up for discussion.

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The Florida Republican made his remarks in a Wednesday tweet.

He wrote, “There are between 80,000 to 120,000 migrants transiting various countries headed towards the U.S. and under Biden a de facto open border (t)he worse is yet to come.”

Rubio did not provide any further details in his tweet.

Both Republicans and Democrats have criticized the Biden administration after nearly 15,000 Haitian migrants, gathered along the southern border in and around the small Texas town of Del Rio, were either expelled back to Haiti or dispersed into the U.S. with notices to appear at an immigration office within 60 days.

Rubio’s tweet came just two days after former President Donald Trump criticized President Joe Biden and said 20,000 Haitians were staged in Colombia preparing to make their trek to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Just eight months ago, the whole world knew that if you illegally violated America’s borders, no matter where you came from, you’d be immediately caught, promptly detained, and swiftly removed — perfect precision clockwork,” Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC.

“Our border was the envy of nations. Now, our border is the laughingstock of the globe. Anyone, from anywhere, can just illegally walk across our border, turn themselves in, and then be on to the city of their choice. No testing, no masking, no mandates. Free healthcare, deliveries, and medical services in our emergency rooms, all paid for by taxpayers. Drugs pour through like water.”

Source: https://www.newsmax.com/politics/rubio-migrants-border-trump/2021/09/30/id/1038541/

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Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) torched the Democrats during an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday calling them “radical left-wing nutcases” over their massive spending bill push. Sen. Rubio argued they are trying to “re-make America” even as internal party divisions threaten to derail the passage of the legislation.

SEN. KENNEDY: BIDEN’S INFRASTRUCTURE BILL WILL ‘TURN AMERICA INTO CUBA’

MARCO RUBIO: They have an internal party problem, and they have these radical left-wing nutcases who basically want it to be seven trillion, not three and a half trillion. And they think three and a half trillion is a compromise. And then you’ve got a handful of people that haven’t gone Marxist yet, who aren’t necessarily conservatives or anything of that nature, but they’re sort of more normal in their view of what government’s role in our country should be, and they’re pushing back. So you got this internal fight going on and that’s a big problem they have on their hands. 

Look, Joe Biden doesn’t have a base. I mean, Joe Biden wasn’t elected because he was Joe Biden. He was elected as a vessel. He’s there because he became sort of an instrument for the far left and now dominates the Democratic Party to pursue their agenda, and that’s what they’re doing here. These guys are acting like they have a 60 or 70-vote majority in the Senate, and a 50-vote majority in the House, and that they were elected with some sort of mandate to remake America into a socialist, almost Marxist-type economy. I think that’s the pushback you’re seeing from people that have to go back home in November and get re-elected. They know they can’t run on this.

See entire interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQZhiTyIufo

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/marco-rubio-dems-spending-bill-nutcases-left-wing-socialist-economy

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The ban on President Trump and his allies by Big Tech companies following the US Capitol riot is part of an effort to silence right-wing voices by firms that have “monopoly power,” Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Fla.) said Sunday.

“We are now living in a country where four or five companies, unelected, unaccountable, have the monopoly power to decide, we’re gonna wipe people out, we’re going to erase them, from any digital platform, whether it’s selling things and the like,” Rubio, of Miami, said on FOX’s Sunday Morning Futures.

“This is also an opportunity for [the left] to go and put pressure on social media companies to literally not just erase the president but erase everybody,” Rubio said.

His comments came two days after Twitter booted Trump — along with allies former Gen. Mike Flynn and lawyer Sidney Powell, who backed his claims that fraud led to President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Facebook also permanently suspended Trump from the social media platform in what it called an effort to reduce politically fueled violence.

On Saturday, Parler — a social media service popular with the right — was booted off Amazon’s web hosting service.

But Rubio claimed social media companies are actually banning Trump and his supporters in order to get on the good side of powerful left-wing elected officials.

“It’s also very cynical,” he said. ”Facebook, Twitter, these are not moral champions here. The reason why these guys are doing it is because Democrats are about to take power, and they view this as a way to get on their good side to avoid restrictions or any sort of laws being passed that hurt them.”

Last year,  Rubio co-sponsored a bill that gives people the ability to sue tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter if they engage in selective censorship of political commentary.

Source: https://nypost.com/2021/01/10/sen-rubio-warns-of-big-tech-monopoly-power-following-censorship/

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The post Why the US-China ‘Trade War’ remains a war of words first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“This has turned into from a rescue to a recovery operation,” Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, a public information officer for the Miami Dade Police Department, told reporters early Friday morning.

Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Dave Downey had said Thursday night his crew was still using high-tech listening devices, trained sniffing dogs and search cameras in a race to find anyone still alive.

In addition to the six people who were killed, at least nine others were injured and taken to local hospitals; officials at one point said 10 were injured.

As Florida authorities work to identify the people who died in Thursday’s catastrophic collapse, state and federal investigators will begin the task of figuring out how and why the five-day-old span failed.

The $14.2 million pedestrian bridge was supposed to open in 2019 as a safe way for students to cross the busy road beneath. It linked the community of Sweetwater with the campus of Florida International University.

• Questions raised over construction of pedestrian bridge that collapsed at FIU
• Witnesses describe hearing victims trapped in Miami bridge collapse

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio attended an evening briefing.

Rubio said the public and the families of the dead and injured deserve to know “what went wrong.”

Scott added that an investigation will get to the bottom of “why this happened and what happened.” He said if anyone did anything wrong, “we will hold them accountable.”

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt III said a team of specialists planned to begin its investigation Friday morning.

Rubio, who is an adjunct professor at the school, noted the pedestrian bridge was intended to be an innovative and “one-of-a-kind engineering design.”

An accelerated construction method was supposed to reduce risks to workers and pedestrians and minimize traffic disruption, the university said. The school has long been interested in this kind of bridge design; in 2010, it opened “The ABC (accelerated bridge construction) Center,” to help bridge professionals. Other universities around the country partnered with FIU to “provide the transportation industry with the tools needed to effectively and economically utilize the principles of ABC to enhance mobility and safety, and produce safe, environmentally friendly, long-lasting bridges.”

Renderings showed a tall, off-center tower with cables attached to the walkway to support it. When the bridge collapsed, the main tower had not yet been installed, and it was unclear what the builders were using as temporary supports.

The project was a collaboration between MCM Construction, a Miami-based contractor, and Figg Bridge Design, based in Tallahassee. Figg is responsible for the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay.

Figg issued a statement Thursday saying the company was “stunned” by the collapse and promising to cooperate with investigations.

“In our 40-year history, nothing like this has ever happened before,” the company’s statement said. “Our entire team mourns the loss of life and injuries associated with this devastating tragedy, and our prayers go out to all involved.”

MCM Construction Management, which was building the bridge, posted a message on the company’s Facebook page promising “a full investigation to determine exactly what went wrong.”

Robert Bea, a professor of engineering and construction management at the University of California, Berkeley, said it was too early to know exactly what happened, but the decision to use what the bridge builders called an “innovative installation” was risky, especially because the bridge spanned a heavily traveled thoroughfare.

“Innovations take a design firm into an area where they don’t have applicable experience, and then we have another unexpected failure on our hands,” Bea said after reviewing the bridge’s design and photos of the collapse.

The FIU community, along with Sweetwater and county officials, held a “bridge watch party” March 10. That’s when the span was lifted from its temporary supports, rotated 90 degrees across an eight-lane thoroughfare and lowered into its permanent position over the busy road.

FIU President Mark Rosenberg said during a news conference that tests were being done on Thursday. Authorities said two construction workers were on the bridge when it collapsed; it’s unclear what the tests were or if they contributed to the failure.

“This bridge was about goodness, not sadness,” Rosenberg said. “Now we’re feeling immense sadness, uncontrollable sadness. And our hearts go out to all those affected, their friends and their families. We’re committed to assist in all efforts necessary, and our hope is that this sadness can galvanize the entire community to stay the course, a course of goodness, of hope, of opportunity.”

Mayor Orlando Lopez of Sweetwater, Florida, said he was notified of the bridge collapse by a local business owner who called him with the devastating news.

“My heart stopped. I could hear the crackle in his voice as he explained to me that the bridge collapsed and there are vehicles trapped under it. I couldn’t believe that this very bridge that was being erected to provide safe transfer between students of FIU to the city of Sweetwater actually collapsed. It is a very tragic day.”

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-bridge-collapse-death-toll-6-2018-03-16-live-updates/

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Washington (CNN) Less than a month after a gunman stormed a Florida high school and killed 17 people, the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed sweeping legislation this week to combat gun violence, acting at a rapid pace as students demanded that lawmakers tackle the emotionally charged issue.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill Friday.

Meanwhile, in Washington gun-related legislation is moving at a glacial speed — if at all. Activists and lawmakers are asking why a state legislature can pass a measure with at least six major provisions while Congress hasn’t held a single vote on any proposal.

To be clear, the US House of Representatives is set to hold a vote next week on a bill that gives schools money to strengthen security, which is similar to one of the provisions in the Florida bill. But there are no signs that the US House or Senate plans to take up any gun control-related bills in the near future.

Florida’s unique circumstances

The Legislature in the Sunshine State meets once a year for 60 days, and it happened to be in session this winter when the shooting occurred last month. Republicans have majority control in the state House and Senate, as well as the governor’s office — a combination that can make laws move quickly.

While Washington is also controlled by one party, it faces a unique set of challenges that not all state legislatures have, Rubio says. For starters, Congress is a diverse body made up of representatives from all 50 states.

“As a result, you know, there are people in different parts of the country that have different views on these issues. Some very strong in one direction, some very strong in the other,” Rubio said. “Everyone in the Florida Legislature represents Florida, or a part of Florida.”

The US Senate also has a steep 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation, a rule designed to ensure at least some bipartisan support. Republicans hold only a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, making it difficult to hit that magic number of 60, especially on controversial legislation when members tend to stick to a party line vote. So even though Republicans control Congress, that’s far from a guarantee that they’ll get their legislation passed.

Business in Washington is also largely beholden to major national news of the day. Gun control was a dominant topic soon after the shooting, but in the last week alone, the Senate has been tied up with a banking bill and questions about President Donald Trump’s tariff proposals.

“I was amazed today on the morning shows. I was on one of them and nothing, nothing,” Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, told CNN this week, saying he wasn’t asked about guns. “It’s gone.”

Legislative efforts on the state and federal level

Along with funding more school security and mental health services, the Florida bill raise requires a three-day waiting period for firearm purchases (with some exceptions), bans the sale or possession of bump fire stocks, gives law enforcement the authority to seize weapons from potentially dangerous people,and raises the age requirement for all gun purchases to 21 from 18 (the federal age minimum is 18 for a rifle and 21 for a handgun).

In Washington, members have introduced a flurry of bills since the Parkland shooting. Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rolled out a bill that would allow federal courts to issue gun restraining orders against potentially dangerous people. And both senators from Florida — Rubio and Democrat Bill Nelson — introduced legislation that would encourage states to adopt similar proposals.

Other recent bills include a bipartisan Senate bill to raise the age requirement to buy a rifle and a House Democratic bill to ban assault weapons.

But there’s been little to no movement on any of them, as it’s doubtful they could get 60 votes.

The bill that has the most potential at this point is a bipartisan bill to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to prevent those with domestic assault convictions from getting weapons. That bill, known as “Fix NICS,” was introduced last fall after a gunman killed 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and it’s led by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Senate Judiciary to hold hearing on Parkland shooting, curbing gun violence

With more than 60 cosponsors, the bill would usually be poised for smooth passage. But not all the Democratic cosponsors are promising to advance the legislation. Since the Parkland shooting, many are demanding that the measure include more gun control amendments, seeing this as a rare opportunity to address gun laws further.

In another stumbling block, the bill is being held up procedurally by at least one Republican. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is also a cosponsor and has expressed support for the bill multiple times, could still move it to the floor, but he has not indicated his plans.

“We are looking at all available options, but I don’t have an announcement for you yet,” said his spokesman Don Stewart.

If McConnell were to bring the bill to the floor, Democrats would demand that he open it up to debate more amendments. If he doesn’t agree to that and pushes ahead with a clean Fix NICS bill, it’s still unclear whether all Democratic cosponsors of the bill, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, would support it, since, in their view, it doesn’t do enough to address mass shootings.

Even if it passed the Senate, House Speaker Paul Ryan hasn’t committed to taking it up in the House.

For leverage, Democrats are also eyeing a massive rally in Washington on March 24 with students, activists and celebrities demanding more gun control laws. Schumer told reporters this week that Democrats will attempt to “force floor action” after that rally. The could involve attempting to block unrelated votes.

For now, however, many Democrats feel a diminishing sense of optimism for an imminent debate on gun control. “We may still see some movement if the President personally pushes for it,” said one Democratic aide, though the aide wasn’t holding out hope.

Nelson was asked this week by a reporter whether Congress can pass a muscular bill on gun control, beyond the bill he introduced with Rubio, which simply encourages states to adopt gun restraining orders.

“The answer is no,” Nelson said. “Not now.”

CNN’s Lauren Fox and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/10/politics/florida-gun-law-washington/index.html

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“They responded to the storm the way we respond to storms. They responded to it in a way no different than Texas or Florida in terms of the assets. And what that is is the federal government says, ‘We are here,’ to the local government or to the state government, and in the case of Puerto Rico the territorial government there. ‘We’re here to help. Tell us what you need,'” Rubio said.

“That model generally works. It’s worked in Florida a couple weeks ago. It’s helped in Texas. It didn’t work in Puerto Rico. And the reason why it didn’t work is because the government of Puerto Rico itself is a victim of the storm.

“There are 78 municipalities. Some of those mayors themselves couldn’t communicate with San Juan. And even if they could, and even if you could get to them and deliver aid to those mayors, they didn’t have enough municipal employees to be able to deliver the aid.”

President Trump has been criticized for his administration’s response to the storm in recent days, especially after he spent much of Saturday criticizing Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan.

Rubio said he’s hopeful the recovery effort has turned a corner now that the Department of Defense is in charge.

He said the Pentagon is the only government department with the resources to truly take control of the situation on the island.

“The problem is, as I said to someone yesterday, there’s aid getting to Puerto Rico, but it wasn’t getting to Puerto Ricans because it had to be distributed from San Juan to the different municipalities and then within those municipalities distributed to people,” he said. “They had established this sort of hub and spoke system where all the aid came in and then had to be distributed out.”

“Those distribution systems were victims of the storm themselves. They were broken. And so I felt and continue to feel that the Department of Defense are the only people that could have gone out and reestablished that. And I hope that that’s what’s begun to happen.”

Source: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/marco-rubio-response-to-hurricane-maria-slowed-because-puerto-rico-distribution-infrastructure-destroyed/article/2636216

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