45 and 45 Minutes: As he contemplates closing the Southern border to stop immigration,Donald Trump said he could do in 45 minutes what Congress has been unable to do for years; fix the country’s immigration laws.

  “Congress has to meet quickly and make a deal. I could do it in 45 minutes. We need to get rid of chain migration,” Trump said in the Oval Office

  As an increasing number of migrants are flooding the border looking for asylum in the US. They are being released after processing because authorities don’t have space to keep them all. It’s known as “catch and release.”

  Nonetheless, Trump said, “We need to get rid of catch and release and visa lottery. And we have to do something about asylum. And to be honest with you, we have to get rid of judges.” He said he no longer wants to catch people trying to illegally cross the Southern border and “bring them to a court.” 

  Trump said, “It is the worst, dumbest immigration system in the world”  He said, “The Democrats can change it in one meeting. Everyone would agree. But they don’t want to change it because they don’t want to give Republicans a victory. “

  Closing the border would cause economic chaos with one of America’s biggest trading partners. Half the vegetables consumed in the US come from Mexico. Auto parts come across the border and a border closure could shut down the car industry. Nobetheless, Trump said in the White House, “Security is more important to me than trade.”

Flight Control:Several news outlets report that the anti-stall software on a doomed Ethiopian Airlines jet re-engaged as many as four times after the crew turned it off to stop the plane from going into a dive.Investigators don’t know yet whether the pilots turned the system back on or if it re-engaged automatically.

  Boeing’s anti-stall software, known as MCAS, is at the center of investigations into both the Ethiopian Airlines crash last month and a Lion Air accident in Indonesia in October that together killed nearly 350 people.

Da Mare: Lori Lightfoot, a former prosecutor who has never held elective office, was elected to be the next mayor of Chicago, succeeding Rahm Emanuel. Not only will she be the first black female mayor of the city, she’s gay.

  The 56-year-old Lightfoot beat Toni Preckwinkle, a former alderman who is president of the Cook County Board and was considered a formidable candidate for mayor.

 Lightfoot’s status as an outsider appealed to voters in a city famous for its established machine politics, famous for the saying, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.”

Goodbye Joe:Two more women have come forward to The NY Timessaying that the tactile former Vice President Joe Biden made them uncomfortable with unwanted touching.

  Caitlyn Caruso, a former college student and victim of sexual assault, said she was 19 when Biden rested his hand on her and hugged her “just a little bit too long” at an event on sexual assault at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 

  DJ Hill, 59, a writer, said that at a  2012 Minneapolis fundraiser she and her husband had their picture taken with Biden. She said that Biden put his hand on her shoulder and then started dropping it down her back, which made her “very uncomfortable.”

Security Breach: Over the weekend a Chinese woman carrying a thumb drive loaded with computer malware talked her way past security at Mar-a-Lago saying she was meeting a friend at the pool. Because of language difficulties, security thought Yujing Zhang was related to a club member with the same name.

  A receptionist figured out Zhang didn’t belong there. She didn’t have a bathing suit with her.

Uninsured: The chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and three other influential Republicans has been charged in connection with attempts to bribe the state’s insurance commissioner through campaign donations, according to a federal indictment. 

 Robin Hayes, was charged with five counts, including bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. The former congressman is accused of helping to funnel $250,000 in bribes to the re-election campaign of Mike Causey, the insurance commissioner.

 John Strong, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Charlotte said, “These men crossed the line from fundraising to felonies.”  

The First Cheater:Donald Trump loves golf and evidently also loves to cheat at golf. Veteran sportswriter Rick Reilly says, “He cheats like a mafia accountant. He cheats crazy. He cheats whether you’re watching or not. He cheats whether you like it or not.”

  Reilly has written a book called “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.” He says Trump claims to have a 2.8 handicap even though professionals say he’s more like a 9 or 10. Average is 15.

  The writer says Trump sometimes brazenly kicks another player’s ball and that when he played Tiger Woods he shot two balls in the water and then claimed to have tied with Woods. Reilly said — “He kicks the ball out of the rough so many times, the caddies call him ‘Pele.'” 

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