Colombia's president mocked for using aide as a laptop stand
The staffer was seen lying on the floor beside Gustavo Petro, with his arm in the air, holding up the laptop for the president to refer to during his speech.
Filmed on a smartphone and shared on social media, the moment prompted mockery of the president online for using a 'human tripod'.
In one reaction video, Right-wing podcasters fell about with laughter as they noted the irony of the Left-wing president referencing anti-slavery policies in his speech.
The full official footage was posted online by the president's own office.
Many in the audience appeared to have been preoccupied with their phones during the nearly two-and-a-half-hour speech. At least two audience members could be seen sitting on the floor in the middle of the auditorium.
Nor did anyone in the room seem surprised when the aide proceeded to take a prone position an hour and a half into the speech, and Mr Petro appears to make no secret of the task he has handed to his staffer.
The aide appeared by Mr Petro's side during a portion of the address in which he referred to a series of slides displaying various graphs regarding proposed healthcare reforms.
He was seen gesturing at the laptop and leaning in to take a closer look at the data on the screen. The aide's face appeared occasionally over the top of the desk.
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The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump's immigration raids are hitting farms hard. So what's next?
And they must be picked by hand. Lots of them. Finding those hands locally can be a challenge. Like other growers, some of her workers are foreign-born, whose presence is reflected in the Hispanic restaurants in the nearby 3,300-resident town of Mattawa. But this summer the harvest coincided with President Donald Trump's mass deportation sweeps. Rumors swirled of roadway checkpoints. More than 100 workers who started Lyall's harvest dwindled to 30 by the second week, leading her farm to struggle to get cherries picked in time. Some were picked too late, she said, but the financial hit to her farm was likely to be far less than what some other growers experienced. "There's a lot of farms that didn't pick because they didn't have enough labor," she said. Lyall is a Trump supporter in a conservative farming region. She favors stricter border security because of worries of drug cartels. But she wants to see a path toward a stable workforce. "There needs to be some solutions put on the table," Lyall told USA TODAY. Across the country, Trump's immigration raids have roiled farms and farming communities - with cases of worker shortages and fears of unpicked crops. And it has fueled growing calls for the Trump administration to protect agricultural workers critical to the U.S. food supply. Of the 2.6 million people working on U.S. farms, about 42% lack legal status, according to the Department of Agriculture and other estimates. Farmers say few native-born residents will pick fruit or tend cows. The country's foreign agriculture worker visa program can be costly, burdensome and limited. And farmers say Congress has failed for decades to pass comprehensive immigration reforms. Those long-standing struggles are now compounded by the lurking presence of Trump's masked immigration forces as harvest season approaches or is underway. Earlier this month, raids on farms in California left hundreds detained, and soon after, a group of farmworkers in California held a three-day strike and called for boycotts. At stake are potential disruptions to the U.S. food supply and higher consumer costs. "Farm employers are holding their breath, trying to keep operations afloat without knowing whether their workforce will show up tomorrow -- or stay away for fear of a raid," said Ben Tindall, head of the Save Family Farming advocacy group, based in Washington state. The Trump administration in June suspended farm enforcement but then reversed that decision. More recently, Trump has cited the importance of farm labor and said his administration would look into ways for farmworkers to "be here legally, they can pay taxes and everything." Other administration officials, including border czar Tom Holman, said there would be no "amnesty" but cited ongoing discussions about policy changes related to farmworkers. A bill in Congress would create a legal pathway for longtime workers and streamline worker visas. The push for changes comes amid signs of a shift in public attitudes reflected in a recent Gallup poll that found a record-high of 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is good for the country, while only 35% said they approve of Trump's handling of the issue. Manuel Cunha, the president of the Nisei Farmers League, which represents 500 farmers employing about 75,000 California farmworkers, said he's hopeful that policies will change. For now, he said, workers in places like the San Joaquin Valley are holding steady despite raids that have caused temporary shortages. Still, farmers are on edge, knowing it could change at any moment. Why foreign-born workers are critical to farmers In Lincoln County, Wisconsin, where the rural landscape of pastures and fields is dotted with barns and silos, Hans Breitenmoser's parents emigrated here in 1968 from Switzerland to raise dairy cows on a small farm. He grew up amid the daily rhythms of feeding and milking. When the farm grew, they had to hire more workers. But they could find few native-born residents willing to take the jobs in the sparsely populated area. And over time, fewer younger people were sticking around the farms. Now, the 56-year-old relies on about a dozen foreign-born workers, mostly from Mexico, to operate the 460-cow farm, not far from a shuttered church with peeling paint about five miles outside a town of 9,000 residents. "If it wouldn't be for immigrants, my dairy farm wouldn't run," he said. In recent months, dairy farms in Texas reported absenteeism while ICE has detained or deported people at dairy farms in New York and Vermont, where one Trump-voting farmer told a news outlet he didn't think deportations would impact the industry's workers. Dairies are particularly vulnerable to labor shortages because cows need daily care to survive, Brietenmoser said, and cannot be temporarily shut down like a construction site or restaurant. "Am I concerned about it? Absolutely," said Breitenmoser, who said he was among a minority in Lincoln County who did not support Trump in 2024. "They don't get fed and they don't get watered, and they don't get milked and they don't get cleaned up after, they will die." Across the nation today, about 70% of workers in the U.S. farm sector are foreign born, according to the Federal Reserve of Kansas City. The National Milk Producers Federation says milk prices could nearly double if the U.S. dairy industry loses its foreign-born workforce, the group said. "The uncertainty that undergirds agricultural labor and immigration in the U.S. continues to harm workers and their families, farm employers, rural communities and national food security," according to the federation. Farmers typically hire workers with documentation such as Social Security cards or permits the government says must "reasonably appear to be genuine." The government's E-Verify system, required in some places, isn't foolproof. Breitenmoser argues Trump's political rhetoric painting immigrants as criminals and invaders, when most are workers filling jobs no one else will, is a self-defeating strategy. "We've built an economy that relies on people, but we have a public policy that demonizes them. And to my way of thinking that just doesn't make any sense," he said. "American farming cannot survive without foreign-born staff." The dairy farmer noted that "we had immigration reform in front of the Congress prior to the election, but because all of the Republicans were scared of Donald Trump, it didn't happen." The solution, he said, is "stupid simple:" Accept the realities of farm labor. Hand out more work visas. And create pathways to vet longtime workers who need legal work permits. He hopes the recent turmoil will lead to long-needed changes. "Somebody's going to drive through McDonald's to buy a freaking latte and a hamburger. And guess where that comes from? It comes from my farm. And it doesn't happen magically. It takes human beings, be they brown, Black, White, green or otherwise, to get the job done," he said. "And that's what our public policy should reflect." Workers face stains, worry In a Colorado agricultural area northeast of Denver, Maria has worked in fields of watermelon, pumpkins and tomatoes for years. But not now. The 56-year-old, who didn't want to use her full name because she doesn't have legal status, emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico 20 years ago to escape violence and find better pay. Jobs on farms are hot, grueling and physically challenging. But some farmworkers can earn in one hour what they'd make in a full day back in Mexico. She said she sees an ICE presence in her part of Colorado. One friend's brother was detained on the street earlier this year. Her husband is still working in a dairy to make ends meet, but she said some farms have had to look for workers out of state. For now they want to stick it out. Their lives are here. They have children and U.S. citizen grandchildren who live in the United States and are concerned about them. "There's a lot of anxiety about, you know, grandmother, are they going to take you away?" she said. Many have reluctantly returned to work after raids that have taken place in places like California's San Joaquin Valley for financial reasons, said Teresa Romero, head of United Farm Workers. "It is a little misconception, assuming that workers are not going back to work. Some workers are, of course, scared of what could happen," she said. "They might be scared for a day or so, but they go back to work. They need their jobs and they need to support their families." Romero said the crackdown is also impacting the communities in which they live and work. Many are staying inside and not going to parks, school functions, churches and restaurants. In raids earlier this month at cannabis farms in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, immigration agents descended on Glass House Farms near Camarillo and in Carpinteria. They clashed with protesters and detained more than 200 farmworkers. A Mexican farmworker, Jaime Alanis Garcia, 57, died after falling from a greenhouse roof he'd climbed atop in an alleged attempt to evade officers, according to multiple reports, "The farmworkers detained in these raids are clearly in the United States to fill jobs that employers cannot otherwise fill," U.S. Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Thousand Oaks, said in a letter to federal officials. "Their undocumented status is not by choice, but a direct result of Congress' ongoing failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would allow a sufficient number of workers into the country and provide a viable pathway to citizenship." That's what Gabriel, a 42-year-old from Puebla, Mexico, who didn't want to use his name because he lacks legal status and fears detention, would like to see, too. The farmwork in California's Central Valley has lived in the U.S. for 25 years. He has worked in fields of crops from eggplant to pumpkin, waking up at 4 a.m. and earning $16.50 an hour. He said the majority of his fellow workers are also immigrants without papers and are still working, but some are considering going home. He blames past and current administrations for failing to deliver on immigration reform. He said some longtime workers were angry at former President Joe Biden for enacting more legal pathways to migrate and not focusing on legalizing the status of longtime workers. "Let workers work," he said. "These are people who help feed the country and pay taxes." Even legally present farmworkers are uneasy. ICE officials have argued they don't need probable cause to detain people and the agency could deport people with just six hours' notice. Maurico Sol, an H-2A worker who supervises dozens of fellow visa holders on a farm that spans Idaho and Oregon, said some colleagues have asked if it's safe to go to Walmart on weekends. He advised them to always carry their passport and visa. "I've also heard people that say, well, maybe this is going to be my last year," he said. "Because it feels different ... Even when we are in a good space here, where it's not happening a lot, you feel like, eh, we don't know. We don't want to go out. Because maybe they're going to confuse me if they see me in the mall and I'm going to be chained for, I don't know, 48 hours, or maybe they're going to deport me even though I have papers." A search for a solution Sol works for Shay Myers, a farmer whose onions grow in fields not far from where the Snake River separates Oregon and Idaho. The third-generation farmer operates Owyhee Produce, which grows one in every 20 onions consumed in America. Myers, 45, is also TikTok influencer with 692,000 followers and posts videos about his farm and the intricacies of agriculture. But lately the Republican farmer has been highlighting his mostly foreign-born laborers - from Mexico, Central America, Peru and Colombia - who he says are critical. The majority of his workers, which can number 350 during harvests, are here on H-2A visas. While such workers represent about 13% of the nation's farmworkers, the number of certified H-2A workers grew by 64.7% between 2017 and 2022. Meanwhile, the share of unauthorized workers has dropped to about 42% from from 55% in 2001. But it's also a bureaucratic and expensive program, he said. Farmers have to prove no domestic workers are available or willing to do the job. They provide housing and adhere to wage-premiums meant to keep the program from pushing down wages of U.S. residents who do similar jobs, and must follow rules such as overtime that differ among states. And it's time-limited. Labor groups also criticize the H-2A visa program, saying it often requires workers to stick with one employer which makes them vulnerable to wage theft or poor housing. Myers said that's not the case at his farm. He grew up and went to school in the area with undocumented families. And today his children do, too. "We lose from every angle. The right-wingers come at us ... 'You won't give jobs to Americans," Myers said. "And then the left wing side of the discussion is, well, all you do is bring H-2A workers and they work for you like slaves." He, too, wants a more flexible worker program and creating a path to legal status for undocumented workers here for 10 years and longer. He said the deportations have proved a problem both ethically for farm families and economically for the industry. "Let's find a solution," he said on one video. Earlier this month, Trump suggested in Iowa - a leading corn and pork producer that relies heavily on migrant workers - that his administration would seek to permit some migrants without legal status to stay on farms, the Des Moines Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. "If a farmer's willing to vouch for these people, in some way, Kristi, I think we're going to have to just say that's going to be good, right?" he said, referencing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who was with him on the Iowa trip. "You know, we're going to be good with it. Because we don't want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms. We want the farms to do great like they're doing right now." U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins cited plans to make the H-2A program "cheaper, more efficient and more effective for those farmers." The United Farm Workers favors paths to legal status for those already here over simply expanding the guestworker program for new arrivals, who they say would still be more prone to labor abuses. In Congress, Republican U.S. Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, and Veronica Escobar of Texas introduced the DIGNITY Act. Among its many provisions is a seven-year earned legal status program allowing undocumented immigrants to live and work legally, with renewable status based on good conduct and restitution. "We have 10 million people or more working in construction, hospitality, agriculture, dairy, fisheries, slaughterhouses who are undocumented but are not criminals," Salazar said at a news conference. But House Speaker Mike Johnson told the Wall Street Journal that immigration overhauls would face an uphill battle. Rollins has also suggested that the country could fill jobs with Americans who will face Medicaid work requirements, something farmers immediately shot down. Farming groups call for realism Cunha, head of Nisei Farmers League, was among those very blunt about that idea: "That's just not going to work," he said. He knows firsthand. In 1998, during President Bill Clinton's Welfare-to-Work push, Cunha helped launch an effort in 10 California counties to recruit welfare recipients and unemployed workers to help fill tens of thousands of farmworker jobs. People would be aided with child care, transportation and training. Just 500 people applied. And only three took jobs. None of them lasted more than two days, he said. Crops were lost. 'It was a total disaster," he said. A similar result took place in North Carolina, according to a 2013 report by the Partnership for a New American Economy and the Center for Global Development. When North Carolina had more than 489,000 unemployed residents, a growers association offered 6,500 jobs. Of 245 domestic workers hired, only seven lasted the entire season. It's not likely he contended that higher wages alone would have Americans flocking to the jobs, he argued. Not only can the work be physically grueling or dangerous, Cunha said it is not the unskilled work that many people assume. It takes experience and skill to prune a fruit tree or know which fruits to pick now and which to return for later. At a recent farm training in California that included topics like heat illness, Cunha said workers instead were full of questions about avoiding run-ins with ICE. Should they drive different routes or not wear hats and bandanas? One asked if he should shave his beard to look less like a farmworker. For now, he said, as the area's remaining harvests are closing in, it's stressful for both farmers and farmworkers. "Labor is tight, but it's holding. And as long as - we pray every day - they stay out of the valley, then we'll make it through this season," he said. "But we do need to deal with it. We should not have to go through this type of tension. And workers should not have to worry about shaving their beard."
Reuters
5 hours ago
- Reuters
Epstein furor undermines public trust, Republican election hopes, two US lawmakers say
WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) - The uproar over disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein could undermine public trust in the Trump administration, as well as Republican hopes of retaining control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections, two U.S. lawmakers said on Sunday. Republican Representative Thomas Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, who want the House of Representatives to vote on their bipartisan resolution requiring full release of the government's Epstein files, said the lack of transparency is reinforcing public perceptions that the rich and powerful live beyond the reach of the judicial system. "This is going to hurt Republicans in the midterms. The voters will be apathetic if we don't hold the rich and powerful accountable," Massie, a hardline conservative from Kentucky, told NBC's "Meet the Press" program. Republicans hope to add to their current 219-212 House majority - with four seats currently vacant - and 53-47 Senate majority in November 2026, although the U.S. political cycle traditionally punishes the party of the sitting president during midterm elections. The Washington Post reported late on Sunday that Trump was increasingly frustrated with his administration's handling of the furor around Epstein. Even so, the president was hesitant to make personnel changes to avoid creating a "bigger spectacle" as his top officials underestimated the outrage from Trump's own base over the issue, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources. Khanna said Attorney General Pam Bondi triggered "a crisis of trust" by saying there was no list of Epstein clients after previously implying that one existed. The change in position unleashed a tsunami of calls for her resignation from Trump's MAGA base. "This is about trust in government," the California Democrat told "Meet the Press." "This is about being a reform agent of transparency." President Donald Trump, who on Sunday announced an EU trade deal in Scotland, has been frustrated by continued questions about his administration's handling of investigative files related to Epstein's criminal charges and 2019 death by suicide in prison. Massie and Khanna believe they can win enough support from fellow lawmakers to force a vote on their resolution when Congress returns from its summer recess in September. But they face opposition from Republican leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who sent lawmakers home a day early to stymie Democratic efforts to force a vote before the break. Johnson, who also appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he favors a non-binding alternative resolution that calls for release of "credible" evidence, but which he said would better protect victims including minors. "The Massie and Khanna discharge petition is reckless in the way that it is drafted and presented," Johnson said. "It does not adequately include those protections." Massie dismissed Johnson's claim as "a straw man" excuse. "Ro and I carefully crafted this legislation so that the victims' names will be redacted," he said. "They're hiding behind that." Trump has tried and failed so far to distract attention from the Epstein controversy six months into his second term. On Saturday, Trump repeated his claims without evidence that 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and other Democrats should be prosecuted over payment for endorsements from celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce and the Reverend Al Sharpton. Last week he accused former President Barack Obama of "treason" over how the Obama administration treated intelligence about Russian interference in U.S. elections nine years ago, drawing a rebuke from an Obama spokesperson. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, said on Sunday that Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, had found new information that investigators initially discovered no evidence of Russian election interference but changed their position after Obama told them to keep looking. "I'm not alleging he committed treason, but I am saying it bothers me," Graham told "Meet the Press." Democratic Representative Jason Crow dismissed Gabbard's claims, telling the "Fox News Sunday" program that the national intelligence director had turned herself into "a weapon of mass distraction." The Department of Justice has said it is forming a strike force to assess Gabbard's claims.
The Independent
9 hours ago
- The Independent
Number of Democratic voters who are ‘extremely motivated' to vote in next election skyrockets
Nearly three-quarters of Democratic voters say they are 'extremely motivated' to cast their ballots in the 2026 midterm elections, a dramatic uptick from four years ago, polling shows. Just six months after Republicans took control of the White House and Congress, 72 percent of Democrats and Democratic-aligned voters say they are 'extremely motivated' to vote in the next election, a CNN poll conducted by SSRS this month found. By contrast, only 50 percent of Republicans say the same. Democrats are now looking to enter midterm elections in 2026 under similar circumstances as 2018 in an attempt to break up the GOP's control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. During the 2018 elections, voters dealt a massive blow to President Donald Trump's first-term agenda, with House Democrats gaining 23 seats to take control of the House. In October 2022, two years into President Joe Biden's term when Democrats narrowly controlled the trifecta, just 44 percent of Democratic voters expressed the same motivation to vote in the midterm. That figure was just slightly higher for Republicans, with 48 percent saying they were eager to vote. In that election, Republicans clinched the House of Representatives while Democrats retained control of the Senate. Still, the poll shows Democrats could have some work cut out for them. Just 28 percent of respondents said they view the Democratic Party favorably. Meanwhile, 33 percent expressed a favorable view of the Republican Party. 'I think that the Democratic Party, we have a lot of work to do to make sure we are meeting voters where they are, listening to what they have to say, and talking to them about issues that they want us to take action on,' Virginia Democratic Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan told CNN in response to the poll. "What's going to matter is what we're doing on the ground in these districts.' Recovering from Kamala Harris' defeat to Trump in 2024, Democrats are looking to harness an electorate that they lost in the last election. A separate poll by Lake Research Partners and Way to Win analyzed 'Biden skippers,' those living in battleground states who voted for Biden in 2020 but sat out of the 2024 presidential election. The survey poked holes in the idea that Harris was 'too far left.' Progressive lawmaker Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez topped the list of public figures respondents viewed positively, with 78 percent having a favorable view of Sanders and 67 percent having a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez. Republicans are also making moves ahead of the 2026 midterms. The White House is already strategizing to ensure the GOP retains the trifecta. The plan reportedly includes Trump returning to the campaign trail as well as him having a hand in advising which candidates run and which 'stay put' in the upcoming election, sources told Politico.
