Conservatives had a quick message for President Donald Trump after he announced a deal to end the government shutdown without funds for his border wall: You caved!

“Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States,” tweeted conservative commentator Ann Coulter.

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“Nancy Pelosi is alpha,” tweeted conservative film maker Mike Cernovich.

And right wing commentator Michael Malice opined: “Apparently a wall isn’t as good as a cave.”

Conservative outlets, from the Drudge Report to Breitbart News, also blasted headlines in dramatic font declaring Trump caved with “NO WALL.”

The response came like clockwork, only minutes after Trump announced the deal to reopen the government for three weeks with no guarantee of wall funds. It was unsurprising considering conservative figures including Coulter were some of the initial instigators who prodded Trump to shut down the government to get his wall.

After the White House revealed in December it could back off from Trump’s demands for over $5 billion in border wall funding to avoid a shutdown, Coulter mocked the president on Twitter, leading to a feud in which Trump unfollowed one of his biggest campaign supporters.

“The chant wasn’t ‘SIGN A BILL WITH B.S. PROMISES ABOUT “BORDER SECURITY” AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE, GUARANTEED TO FAIL!’ It was “BUILD A WALL!” Coulter tweeted in December.

During a March interview with The New York Times’ Frank Bruni, Coulter said Trump should feel the “fear of God” if he doesn’t build the wall, arguing his supporters would leave him en masse unless he fulfills his campaign promise.

“He could sell Ivanka Trump merchandise from the Oval Office if he would just build the wall,” Coulter said. “If he doesn’t change course, no, they’re never coming back.”

Trump announced the deal with Democrats during an address in the Rose Garden on Friday afternoon, where he continued to emphasize the need for physical barriers on the border. The deal will reopen the government only until Feb. 15, after which Trump said he would reshutter the government or declare a national emergency if he does not secure funding for the wall by then.

But Trump’s description of what kind of wall he wants has evolved in a notable concession to his critics. Trump said Friday that natural barriers already provide ample protection in some parts of the border, and that resources for border control should also focus on ports of entry and technology developments beyond a physical barrier.

“The walls that we are building are not medieval walls. They are smart walls designed to meet the needs of front-line border agents and are operationally effective,” Trump said. “We do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shining sea, we never did, we never proposed that.”

He did propose that, however. Many times. And it was what many of his most ardent conservative followers called on him to do. But with the government shutdown stretching past a month and vital government services reaching a breaking point, the president apparently calculated that he had little choice but to concede. Trump’s approval rating also suffered from the standoff, with The Associated Press showing about 60 percent of Americans blaming Trump for the shutdown.

But Malice didn’t think conceding to Democrats was likely to help Trump among his most core base.

“Jeb Bush is laughing so hard rn that he’s about to choke on his own puke,” Malice tweeted.

Qatar’s preparations for hosting the 2022 football World Cup are not being hindered by a blockade imposed on it by some of its Gulf neighbours amid a major diplomatic crisis, according to the head of the tournament’s organising committee.

Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary-general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, said despite the unilateral action by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, as well as Egypt, who have severed ties with Doha, the Gulf state is on track to organise global football’s mega event.

“I think it’s a testimony to the resilience of the state of Qatar and the people of Qatar in terms of being able to overcome such an obstacle,” he told Al Jazeera on Friday.

“And now we are focusing on the delivery, which is coming along very well,” he added, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss city of Davos. “The projects in the pipeline are  on schedule and we are ready to deliver and host the world in 2022.”

Qatar beat bid rivals Australia, Japan, South Korea and the US in 2010 to claim the hosting rights, becoming the first Arab country to do so.

One of its stated aims was to create a legacy for the Middle East, but in June 2017, its Gulf neighbours Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain cut all political, diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar, imposing a land, sea and air embargo on the peninsula.

The quartet accuses Qatar of supporting “terrorism” and destabilising the region, charges Doha has consistently denied.

“We’ve always said that this World Cup is a regional tournament, it’s a tournament for the people of the region…. and we are working very hard to ensure that the people of the region benefit from it,” Thawadi reiterated.

‘Benefits beyond Qatar’

Qatar’s national team is currently in the UAE for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, where it qualified for the semi-finals for first time after a stunning upset victory over two-time champions South Korea. 

Thawadi said hosting the World Cup in three year’s time will not only invigorate the young national team but will have a “knock-on” effect on the region as a whole, economically and socially.

“We are working very hard to capture as much as possible the benefits so that they are felt beyond the state of Qatar – in the Middle East and the Arab world,” he said. 

Preparations are under way in the country, with seven new state-of-the-art stadiums with advanced open-air cooling technology being built from scratch for the tournament. 

But FIFA has said it is considering expanding the 2022 event from 32 to 48 teams with the possibility of Doha sharing the tournament with some other Gulf nations.

A final decision over the feasibility of the expansion is expected at the FIFA Council meeting in Miami in March.

Labour reforms

Qatar has come under increasing scrutiny over its treatment of migrant workers, with rights groups expressing concern about the safety of workers building the football stadiums. 

To date, there have been three work-related fatalities and nine non-work related deaths of workers engaged in the construction of Qatar’s World Cup stadiums, according to the tournament organisers.

Thawadi said “significant progress” has been made in protecting workers’ welfare, but “more work needs to be done”. 

“I don’t think any nation can rest on its laurels and say that everything has been done in relation to labour reforms and the state of Qatar is no different.” 

In 2017, the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) dismissed all complaints lodged against Qatar after the government approved a new draft bill introducing a minimum wage and legal protection for the foreign workforce.

Qatar is breaking tradition with a winter kick-off as it looks to avoid the scorching summer heat.

The tournament will begin on November 21, 2022, with the final played on December 18.

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US President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone said on Thursday that he will plead not guilty to charges of lying to Congress about the release of stolen Democratic Party emails during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Stone was arrested in Florida on Friday before dawn, prompting Trump to lash out again about a “Witch Hunt” against him.

“I am falsely accused,” Stone said outside the court in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, declaring himself “troubled by the political motivations of the prosecutors”. 

He also pledged his support for Trump – one of his “oldest friends” – saying, “I have made it clear that I will not testify against the president because I would have to bear false witness against him.”

Stone was charged with seven criminal counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, witness tampering and making false statements.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller said in court papers that Stone had advance knowledge of a plan by WikiLeaks to release the emails, which analysts say may have contributed to Trump’s stunning defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Stone, a veteran political operative, is one of the closest Trump associates to be charged by Mueller, who is examining potential collusion between Trump”s campaign and Russia. 

“Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION!,” Trump said on Twitter, using his most common slur for the Mueller probe.

The Kremlin has denied interfering with the 2016 election.

Profanity-laced messages 

The indictment showed Stone using language evoking mob bosses – and even citing a “Godfather” movie – as he called an unnamed associate facing FBI inquiries “a rat” and “a stoolie” in a series of profanity-laced messages.

Stone was an early Trump backer whose reputation as an aggressive political operative and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” dates back to the Watergate scandal of the 1970s when he was working for Richard Nixon. He has a tattoo of Nixon’s face on his back.

His lawyer, Grant Smith, told Reuters that Stone would “vigorously” contest the charges.

“There was no collusion,” Smith said. “He forgot to tell something to Congress and what it was was immaterial.”

He appeared briefly in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, wearing blue jeans and a blue polo. A judge released him on a $250,000 bond and ordered him to limit his travel to South Florida, New York City and Washington.

WikiLeaks, which is referred to as “Organisation 1” in the indictment, did not respond to a request for comment.

Thirty-five people have pleaded guilty, been indicted or otherwise swept up in the Russia inquiry, which has clouded Trump’s two-year-old presidency.

Those people include former close associates of Trump such as his one-time lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort as well as 12 Russian intelligence officers.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the Stone indictment was unrelated to the president.

“The charges brought against Mr Stone have nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with the White House,” she told CNN. “The president did nothing wrong.”

‘Damaging information’

The charging documents included new details about the alleged activities of Trump aides, including an incident in which a senior campaign official “was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organisation 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign”. 

The indictment referred to an October 2016 email from the “high-ranking Trump Campaign official” asking Stone to inquire about future releases of emails by “Organisation 1”. 

Stone responded that “Organisation 1” would release “a load every week going forward”. 

The high-ranking official is Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chief, according to a person familiar with the matter. Bannon did not respond to a request for comment.

“The indictment was not unexpected, but it is still significant because it alleges coordination between the Trump Campaign and WikiLeaks,” said Barbara McQuade, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor, said the new details in the indictment were damaging politically to Trump but that it remained unclear if there was criminal exposure for anyone else in Trump’s orbit.

He noted that Mueller made a point of portraying WikiLeaks as an organisation that has repeatedly been involved in posting stolen documents from US citizens.

“In Mueller’s mind this is a campaign cavorting with the enemy,” Zeldin said. “Politically there is a lot here that is pretty ugly. Legally it’s not clear to me if there is evidence of people having colluded in a criminal sense.”

Trump’s critics noted that the arrest showed Mueller’s probe getting closer to the president himself.

“This is not some casual, low-level contributor to the Trump Campaign. This is someone who had been very active in Republican Party politics for a long time,” Democratic US Senator Chris Coons told MSNBC in an interview.

Stone’s ties to Trump go back decades.

He had urged Trump to run for president since 1988, was chairman of his presidential exploratory committee in 2000 and was a consultant when Trump considered running in 2012, according to Stone’s 2017 book about Trump’s campaign for the White House.

Stone briefly worked for the Trump campaign but left in August 2015. The campaign said it fired him after he tried to grab too much of the spotlight while Stone insisted that he quit.

Tax preparers are confronting numerous problems with IRS services because of the partial government shutdown, including an inability to challenge asset seizure warnings, difficulty accessing taxpayer transcripts and a lack of clarity on some aspects of the new tax law, a prominent trade group said Friday.

“According to our members, many IRS services and processes are not functioning, or are not functioning at their normal levels, which creates more problematic issues,” the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig.

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The IRS has recalled thousands of furloughed workers and hopes to have about 57 percent of its total workforce on the job for the tax filing season, which begins Monday. But less than half have reported to work this week, and the tax industry fears the recall won’t be enough to avert disruptions, including quick processing of refunds.

AICPA outlined numerous challenges it said tax professionals are already facing.

For instance, the IRS continues to mail automated collection, levy and asset seizure warnings, but “there is no staff to respond to taxpayers’ attempted replies to resolve the issue or prevent the IRS threatened action from occurring,” the letter said.

Online systems and accounts are either not available or experiencing interruptions. Taxpayers and preparers “need, but are not able, to timely access IRS transcripts for verifying financial information when preparing tax returns or for addressing time-sensitive audit correspondence,” AICPA wrote.

The letter also said implementation forms and guidance for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1 (115), have been slowed.

AICPA called on Treasury and the IRS to provide automatic extensions of notices and collections until 90 days after the shutdown ends, and to stop assessing penalties and interest. The group also said the IRS needs full staffing during the filing season and more attorneys to work on TCJA guidance.

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