US Politics

An Oklahoma senator and a union boss squared off in a congressional hearing on Tuesday, each daring the other to “stand your butt up” and fight in an exchange the chair of the Senate labor committee, Bernie Sanders, struggled to contain.“Sit down!” Sanders shouted at Markwayne Mullin, the Republican on the dais beside him. “You’re a United States senator!”Mullin, 46, called Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters union, a “thug”.O’Brien, 51, said Mullin was acting like “a schoolyard bully”.Sanders, 82, banged his gavel in vain.The face-off began when Mullin read out a tweet O’Brien sent earlier this year, after another committee-room confrontation.In the tweet, O’Brien called Mullin a “greedy [chief executive] who pretends like he’s self-made. In reality, just a clown and fraud. Always has been, always will be. Quit the tough guy act in these Senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy. #LittleManSyndrome.”Before entering Congress, Mullin made his money in plumbing. He is also a former cage fighter who in 2021 had to reassure voters he did not think he was Rambo, after trying to enter Afghanistan during the US withdrawal.In his initial response to O’Brien’s tweet, Mullin offered to fight him for charity. In Tuesday’s hearing, Mullin finished reading the tweet, then told O’Brien: “You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here.”O’Brien said: “OK, that’s fine, perfect. I’d love to do it right now.”Mullin said: “Then stand your butt up then.”O’Brien said: “You stand your butt up.”Mullin stood his butt up – and began to advance.Sanders took action, shouting: “No, no, sit down! Sit down! You’re a United States senator!”Mullin sat down.The two men continued to squabble, Sanders banging his gavel.O’Brien said: “Can I respond?”Sanders said: “No, you can’t. This is a hearing. And God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress, let’s not make it worse.”Elsewhere on Capitol Hill on Tuesday a Republican congressman from Tennessee, Tim Burchett, took “a clean shot to the kidneys” from the speaker he helped eject last month, Kevin McCarthy of California, as a reporter watched.The Senate labor committee hearing continued to descend into disorder, Mullin saying: “I don’t like thugs and bullies.”O’Brien said: “I don’t like you, because you just described yourself.”Sanders banged his gavel again, cueing Mullin to speak.“All right,” Mullin said. “Let’s do this because I did challenge you and I accepted your challenge. And you went quiet.”O’Brien said: “I didn’t go quiet. You challenged me to a cage match, acting like a 12-year-old schoolyard bully.”Sanders intervened again.“If you have questions on any economic issues, anything, go for it,” he said. “We’re not here to talk about physical abuse.”Mullin said he wanted “to expose this thug for who he is”.O’Brien said: “Do not point at me, that’s disrespectful.”Mullin said: “I don’t care about respecting you at all.”O’Brien said: “I don’t respect you at all.”Shouting, “Hold it, no,” Sanders banged his hammer again.Outside, public approval ratings for Congress and its members continued their downward march. More

The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, expressed confidence on Tuesday that his unconventional proposal to avert a federal government shutdown at the end of the week would pass with bipartisan support despite strong objections from the far-right flank of his caucus.The House was prepared to vote on the stopgap funding package on Tuesday afternoon, after Johnson moved to bring the bill to the floor under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage. The “laddered” approach would extend funding for federal agencies into the new year, with two different deadlines that give lawmakers more time to finish drafting their appropriations bills. If approved by the House, the Senate would need to act swiftly before Friday’s midnight deadline to avoid a closure.The plan is Johnson’s attempt to circumvent a bitter showdown over government spending that led hardline Republicans to depose his predecessor, the former speaker Kevin McCarthy.Johnson, a self-described “arch-conservative” who was the Republicans’ third choice to replace McCarthy, argued that his “innovation” put conservatives in the “best position to fight” for deep spending cuts next year without the specter of a shutdown.“What we need to do is avoid the government shutdown,” Johnson said, arguing that not doing so would “unduly harm the American people” and leave troops without paychecks. “We have to avoid that and we have a responsibility to do it.”Under his plan, Johnson would extend funding for federal agencies in two parts, with some agencies slated to function through 19 January and others through 2 February while lawmakers draft longer-term spending bills. Despite its rebrand as a “laddered” resolution, the plan would temporarily maintain spending at levels set at the end of last year, when Democrats controlled the chamber, with none of the deep cuts conservatives want. It also does not address the White House’s request for wartime aid to Ukraine and Israel.In a sign leaders expect to draw support from a coalition of Democrats and relatively mainstream Republicans, Johnson will bring the bill to the floor under a shortcut known as a suspension of rules, which requires a supermajority, or 290 votes, to pass.Several of the conservatives who revolted against the last Republican-led stopgap measure, triggering McCarthy’s ouster, again disapproved of the plan as it did not include any spending cuts or policy changes.“It contains no spending reductions, no border security and not a single meaningful win for the American people,” the House Freedom Caucus, a hard-right coalition of conservatives, said in a statement announcing their opposition. “Republicans must stop negotiating against ourselves over fears of what the Senate may do with the promise ‘roll over today and we’ll fight tomorrow’.”Despite their objections, the group signaled that its members were unlikely to push to depose Johnson for working with Democrats to pass spending legislation, as they did with McCarthy: “While we remain committed to working with Speaker Johnson, we need bold change.”Johnson insisted he shared their conservative policy goals but said there was not enough agreement among House Republicans, with their whisker-thin majority, to advance a plan that made deeper spending cuts.“We’re not surrendering,” Johnson said. “We’re fighting, but you have to be wise about choosing the fights. You got to fight fights that you can win.”Just three weeks after Republicans finally elected a new speaker after weeks of chaos and dysfunction that halted business in the House, there is little appetite for risking a federal government shutdown – or another speakership fight.Asked if he was concerned that bringing this proposal would mean the end of his nascent speakership, Johnson said he was not.“This is a very different situation,” he said. “We’re taking this into the new year to finish the process.”Top Democrats were not happy with what the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, called the “goofy laddered” approach, but saw it as the only path to prevent a shutdown in the fast-closing window before Friday’s midnight deadline.Leaving their caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said Democrats were still evaluating the proposal but appeared open to voting for it. The proposal did not contain the sort of “poisonous, political partisan policy provisions” that Jeffries said would be a nonstarter.The White House was initially critical of the plan when it was unveiled over the weekend. But speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Schumer said he was “heartened” by the progress being made in the House.“It has to be bipartisan and right now that’s the path we seem to be on,” Schumer told reporters. To win the support of Senate Democrats, Schumer said he made two requests of Johnson’s plan: that it omit the “hard-right cuts” conservatives were demanding, and that if there were going to be two deadlines, defense funding would expire in the “second part of the ladder”. Both of his conditions were met.If it passes the House, Schumer said he would work with the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to find the fastest way to pass it in the upper chamber.He also appeared confident the president would sign the legislation if it passed both chambers, noting that the White House agreed that if Johnson’s stopgap spending package could “avoid a shutdown it will be a good thing”. More

A US radio reporter witnessed a remarkable altercation on Tuesday at the US Capitol between Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican speaker eight rightwingers including Burchett ejected from the role last month.Claudia Grisales, of NPR, said: “Have NEVER seen this on Capitol Hill: while talking to Tim Burchett after the GOP conference meeting, former speaker McCarthy walked by with his detail and McCarthy shoved Burchett. Burchett lunged towards me. I thought it was a joke, it was not. And a chase ensued.”According to Grisales, Burchett yelled, “Why’d you elbow me in the back, Kevin?! Hey Kevin, you got any guts!?” and called McCarthy a “jerk”.Grisales said: “I chased behind with my mic.”McCarthy, she said, told Burchett: “I didn’t elbow you in the back.”Burchett said: “You got no guts, you did so … the reporter said it right there, what kind of chicken move is that? You’re pathetic, man.”Telling Grisales he was “stunned”, Burchett said the clash was his first communication with McCarthy since he helped make him the first speaker ever removed by his own party.Last week, McCarthy told CNN Burchett’s vote to remove him was “out of nature” and accused him and his fellow rebels of “car[ing] a lot about press, not about policy, and so they seem to just want the press and the personality”.Burchett said then McCarthy was “bitter”.McCarthy has flirted with or reportedly indulged in physical confrontations before. In January, as rightwingers forced him through 15 votes to become speaker, he confronted Matt Gaetz of Florida on the House floor. Mike Rogers of Alabama, a McCarthy ally, had to be restrained. Gaetz eventually became the ringleader of McCarthy’s removal.In a new memoir, meanwhile, the retired anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger, from Illinois, details two times he says McCarthy shoved him.Kinzinger says McCarthy “tried to intimidate me physically. Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.“If we had been in high school, I would have dropped my books, papers would have been scattered and I would have had to endure the snickers of passersby. I was startled but took it as the kind of thing Kevin did when he liked you.“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”On Tuesday, McCarthy did not immediately comment. At the Capitol, Burchett spoke to CNN.“I was doing an interview with Claudia from NPR, a lovely lady,” he said. “And … at that time I got elbowed in the back. And it kind of caught me off guard because it was a clean shot to the kidneys. And I turned back and there was there was Kevin, and … it just happened and then I chased after him.“Of course, as I’ve stated many times, he’s a bully with $17m in a security detail, and he’s the type of guy that when you’re a kid would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his Mama’s skirt.“He hit me from behind … that’s not the way we handle things in East Tennessee. We have a problem, somebody’s gonna look him in the eye.”Being hit in the kidneys, Burchett said, was “a little different. You don’t have to hit very hard to cause a little bit of pain, a lot of pain. And so he … just denies it or blames somebody else or something. But I just backed off because … I wasn’t gaining anything from it, if everybody saw it.”Burchett said the incident was “symptomatic of the problems that [McCarthy’s] had in his short tenure as speaker … he wouldn’t turn around and face me. He kept scurrying and trying to keep people between me [to] handle it.” More

The US House of Representatives voted on Monday to pause the effort to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, halting a Republican campaign that alleges he has been derelict in his duty in managing the US-Mexico border.The articles of impeachment, introduced by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican representative, on Thursday, contend that Mayorkas, an appointee of Joe Biden, violated his oath of office by failing to constrain the record numbers of migrants arriving at the border.The House voted to refer the articles back to the House homeland security committee, which is carrying out its own investigation of Mayorkas’s alleged dereliction of duty.The move comes as Congress has less than five days to extend funding or send the US into its fourth partial government shutdown in a decade.The impeachment comes after months of threats from Republicans, who blame Biden’s administration for rolling back harsh restrictions on accepting migrants and asylum seekers put in place under Donald Trump, a Republican.If the Republican-controlled House impeaches Mayorkas, he will almost definitely be found innocent after a trial in the Senate, which Democrats control by a slim margin.In response to the initial impeachment motion, a US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said lawmakers should stop “their reckless impeachment charades and attacks on law enforcement” and instead “deliver desperately needed reforms for our broken immigration system”.Since Biden took office in 2021, US border agents have made more than 5 million arrests of migrants making irregular crossings – that is, not through a controlled border station – over the US-Mexico border. Migrants have arrived from around the world; large numbers have fled economic and political turmoil in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBoth Biden and Trump are seeking another term in office in 2024, with Trump the leading candidate for the Republican nomination.House Republicans have also launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden. The probe is focused on the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and the White House has denied any wrongdoing. More

Paul Pelosi has recounted publicly for the first time details of the harrowing night he was attacked by a hammer-wielding man in the San Francisco home he shares with his wife and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.Testifying in the trial of David DePape, the man accused of attacking him last year, Paul Pelosi recalled his alarm at seeing a man standing in his bedroom.“It was tremendous shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Pelosi told jurors.Paul Pelosi said he has not discussed the attack with anyone and has encouraged his family not to as well “because it has been too traumatic”.The Pelosis’ home has an alarm system with motion detectors, but Paul Pelosi said he never put it on when he was home alone because his movements would trigger it.He recalled being awakened by a man bursting into the bedroom door asking “Where’s Nancy?” When Paul Pelosi responded that his wife was in Washington, he testified DePape said he would tie him up while they waited for her.“We had some conversation with him saying she was the leader of the pack, he had to take her out, and that he was going to wait for her,” he said.Pelosi’s account came on the second day of the trial, following testimony from a string of law enforcement officials who provided context around video evidence that’s at the crux of the case against DePape.Prosecutors say DePape bludgeoned Paul Pelosi with a hammer in the early hours of 28 October 2022, just days before that year’s midterm elections. Earlier on Monday, they brought forward an FBI agent who collected the electronics DePape was carrying, a US Capitol police officer who watches the surveillance cameras at the Pelosis’ home and another who has protected Nancy Pelosi since 2006, and a Bay Area Rapid Transit police sergeant.FBI special agent Stephanie Minor testified that video evidence showed DePape hit Paul Pelosi at least three times.Prosecutors played police body camera footage in which paramedics help Paul Pelosi, who is facedown on the floor. One paramedic holds a white towel against Pelosi’s head as another puts a neck and head brace on him before several first responders help him onto a stretcher chair. Pelosi’s face and hands are covered in blood.Defense attorney Jodi Linker told jurors last week that she won’t dispute that DePape was the attacker. Instead, she will argue that DePape believed “with every ounce of his being″ that he was taking action to stop government corruption and the abuse of children by politicians and actors. She said that means the government’s charges that DePape was trying to retaliate or interfere with Nancy Pelosi’s official duties don’t fit.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFederal prosecutor Laura Vartain Horn told jurors during opening statements Thursday that DePape started planning the attack in August and that the evidence and FBI testimony will show he researched his targets online, collecting phone numbers and addresses, even paying for a public records service to find information.If convicted, DePape faces life in prison. He also has pleaded not guilty to charges in state court of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. A state trial has not been scheduled.On the night of the attack, Nancy Pelosi was in Washington and under the protection of her security detail, which does not extend to family members. Paul Pelosi called 911 and two police officers showed up and witnessed DePape strike him in the head with a hammer, knocking him unconscious, court records showed.Nancy Pelosi’s husband of 60 years later underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands.After his arrest, DePape, 43, allegedly told a San Francisco detective that he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. He said if she told him the truth, he would let her go and if she lied, he was going to “break her kneecaps” to show other members of Congress there were “consequences to actions”, according to prosecutors.DePape, who lived in a garage in the Bay Area city of Richmond and had been doing odd carpentry jobs to support himself, allegedly told authorities he had other targets, including a women’s and queer studies professor, California governor Gavin Newsom, actor Tom Hanks and Joe Biden’s son Hunter. More

The newly-published code of conduct for the US supreme court justices, issued on Monday in the wake of a series of ethics scandals, drew immediate criticism for its seemingly begrudging tone.“For the most part, these rules and principles are not new,” the nine justices write in the introduction labeled statement of the court, adding: “The court has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules.”Critics also noted that no method of enforcement is detailed in the 14-page document, making participation by the nine-member bench effectively voluntary.Summary of the main points, at a glance:
A justice should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary
This short clause states that justices “should respect and comply with the law, and act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence” in the court.
A justice should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities
A three-pronged requirement covering respect for the law, not allowing “family, social, political, financial, or other relationships” to influence their conduct or judgment; and not being a member of any group that discriminates on the grounds of race, sex, religion or nationality.
A justice should perform the duties of office fairly, impartially and diligently
This essentially requires the panel to close their ears to outside voices when deliberating, or during any other aspect of their duties; and to keep their own mouths closed about cases they are working on.The clause also deals with disqualification of justices, stating they must stand down from cases in which their impartiality “might reasonably be questioned”. It gives possible scenarios, including where justices or immediate family members have certain pre-existing friendships or relationships with any parties in a case.A financial relationship alone would not be grounds for disqualification if the justice or family member “divests the interest that provides the ground for disqualification”.
A justice may engage in extrajudicial activities that are consistent with the obligations of the judicial office
The most detailed of all the clauses, this one allows justices to follow a wide range of “law-related pursuits”, plus “civic, charitable, educational, religious, social, financial, fiduciary, and government activities” as well as engaging in speaking, writing, lecturing and teaching.There are caveats: the justices “should not”, for example, appear at events for political parties or campaigns; at fundraisers that are not law-related or for non-profit groups; or at any event where a party has “a substantial financial interest” in the outcome of any case before the court.A justice can serve as a trustee or member of a law-related or non-profit group. Receiving financial reimbursement or compensation is fine, but the amount must be limited to the “actual or reasonably estimated costs or travel, food or lodging reasonably incurred”.
A justice should refrain from political activity
The final and shortest clause. No holding political office, speaking for a political party or candidate, and definitely no fundraising for, or donating to, one. Any justice seeking political office is expected to resign from the bench. More

The highest court in the nation has announced today its justices must abide by an ethics code.The code begins: “A Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States should maintain and observe high standards of conduct in order to preserve the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary.”The news comes on the heels of revelations about undisclosed financial ties involving conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito that many have argued is a conflict of interest for people in their positions.That’s it for this US politics liveblog. Here are the key points from today:
The US supreme court has issued a new code of ethics following controversies involving conservative justices who failed to disclose financial ties to republican mega-donors.
Biden is getting ready to meet Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco – a demonstration of goodwill on the part of China, whose leader hasn’t visited the US in six years.
2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley reacted to the news of Tim Scott suspending his presidential bid. “Tim Scott is a good man of faith and an inspiration to so many. The Republican primary was made better by his participation in it,” Haley said on Twitter/X. “South Carolina is blessed to continue to have him as our senator. Scott announced conceded on Sunday, just six months after launching his campaign.”
New House speaker and Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson has until Friday to garner support for his spending plan, or risk a government shutdown and a fate similar to his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted from the role in October.
Trump, Trump, and more Trump: The former president received swift condemnation from the Biden-Harris campaign for comparing his political enemies on the left to vermin – language criticized as mirroring that of fascist dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. And ongoing is Trump’s civil fraud trial, after which he could be fined $250m.
Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is considering Mike Johnson’s proposal to stave off a shutdown and discussing it with members.Jeffries says he has concerns with the proposal, specifically what he calls “the bifurcation of the continuing resolution in January and February 2024” as well as Republicans’ failure to address national security and domestic funding priorities of Americans. He also said Democrats wouldn’t accept “any extreme right-wing policy provisions in connection with funding the government”.But he doesn’t reject it outright, writing:
House Democrats will continue to put people over politics, work with our colleagues to keep the government open and push back against right-wing extremism.
He added:

We will proceed this week through the lens of making progress for everyday Americans by continuing to put people over politics.
What’s not clear is who will enforce the code, or how.The code was released just days before the Senate judiciary committee was expected to vote to authorize subpoenas for Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo – two mega-wealthy donors to conservative causes and political figures, and who paid for luxury trips for justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.The committee had advocated for an ethics code in the wake of the controversies, and in recent months, justices Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh expressed support for one. In May, chief justice John Roberts said there was more the court could do to “adhere to the highest ethical standards”, without providing any specifics.The full 14-page ethics code can be read here:Although judges have long been beholden to certain rules surrounding conduct, this marks the first time the supreme court has published and adopted a formal code of ethics, similar to those of lower federal courts.A statement of the court that precedes the new code says:“For the most part these rules and principles are not new: The Court has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules, that is, a body of rules derived from a variety of sources, including statutory provisions, the code that applies to other members of the federal judiciary, ethics advisory opinions issued by the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct, and historic practice.“The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”The new supreme court ethics code has arrived in the wake of public pressure due to ProPublica’s revelations about undisclosed gifts received by justices.In April, ProPublica revealed supreme court justice Clarence Thomas had taken undisclosed trips paid for by Dallas billionaire and major Republican donor Harlan Crow.In June, it was revealed another conservative justice Samuel Alito, took a trip to Alaska with a Republican billionaire in 2008, which he also did not disclose.The highest court in the nation has announced today its justices must abide by an ethics code.The code begins: “A Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States should maintain and observe high standards of conduct in order to preserve the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary.”The news comes on the heels of revelations about undisclosed financial ties involving conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito that many have argued is a conflict of interest for people in their positions.If found guilty, Donald Trump faces a fine of at least $250m. The former president also might soon lose his business license due to fraud, New York judge Arthur Engoron ruled.Readers can follow along in our standalone liveblog on the trial here.In other Trump-related news, Donald Trump Jr is testifying today as a defense witness in the New York civil fraud trial against him, his father and their company.The Trumps and the Trump Organization are accused of massively inflating the value of their properties in order to secure loans. They have denied any wrongdoing.Upon taking the stand, Trump Jr said: “I’d say it’s nice to be here, but I have a feeling the attorney general would sue me for perjury,” a dig at New York attorney general Letitia James.The Biden-Harris 2024 campaign criticism of Donald Trump’s remarks at the weekend that the campaign, along with others, compared directly to fascistic dictatorial speech, included a list of articles in various US publications.They include prominent voices slamming Trump and the list is below. Meanwhile, the statement from the Biden-Harris campaign, via spokesperson Ammar Moussa, concludes with this remark: “Donald Trump thinks he can win by dividing our country. He’s wrong, and he’ll find out just how wrong next November.”Then it adds: read what they’re saying about Trump’s statement.
Washington Post: “Trump calls political enemies ‘vermin,’ echoing dictators Hitler, Mussolini”Forbes: “Trump Compares Political Foes To ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda”The New Republic: “It’s Official: With “Vermin,” Trump Is Now Using Straight-up Nazi Talk”HuffPost: “Fascism Expert Offers Truly Chilling Take On Donald Trump’s ‘Vermin’ Rant”
The Post piece includes this:
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that “calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”
One year after their last in-person talks, Xi Jinping and Joe Biden will come face-to-face once again on Wednesday in San Francisco.The encounter will dominate events at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit as the Chinese and US presidents seek to stabilise relations in an increasingly fraught geopolitical climate.The meeting, which could last several hours, is the culmination of months of lower level dialogues which took place over the summer, with Washington sending more delegates to China than Beijing did to the US.The fact of China’s leader visiting the US for the first time in six years demonstrates some goodwill from the Chinese side.A speech from Xi to the US-China business community would underline his keenness to attract foreign businesses back to China, many of whom have been spooked by the three years of zero-Covid and the recent raids foreign consulting firms, as well as an increasing number of US restrictions on doing business with China, especially in hi-tech sectors.Sweeping restrictions on the export of advanced technology to China will come into effect on 16 November, the day after Xi’s meeting with Biden. The new rules are a tightening of controls introduced last year, aimed at cutting off China’s access to the most sophisticated semiconductors, which are required to develop advanced artificial intelligence. Read more here.The US political news landscape is tense, with a government shutdown looming, Joe Biden getting ready to meet Xi Jinping and Donald Trump being slammed for parroting fascist dictators, even as he dominates the opinion polls a year out from the presidential election.Stay tuned for more news. The day so far:
The Biden-Harris 2024 election campaign has issued a strong statement condemning remarks Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump made in a speech on Saturday, Veterans Day, in which he compared his political enemies on the left to vermin.
GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley praised fellow South Carolinian Tim Scott after he suspended his White House bid.
A fourth government shutdown in a decade would have far-reaching consequences for the nation in numerous different fields, including national security.
New House speaker and Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson is up against the clock to see if he can win support for his suggested spending plan, before the looming government shutdown this Friday.
The Democrat Abigail Spanberger will quit Congress next year to run for governor of Virginia.Announcing her move a week after voters delivered a rebuke to the current Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, she cited rightwing threats to reproductive rights and attempts to clamp down on public schooling.“Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads,” Spanberger, 44, said in a video on Monday. “Our country and our commonwealth are facing fundamental threats to our rights, our freedoms and to our democracy.”Last week, voters gave Democrats control of both houses of the Virginia legislature, seemingly ending talk of a late entry into the Republican presidential primary by Youngkin, a governor deemed relatively centrist who has nonetheless chosen to focus on culture war issues in office.Spanberger is seen as a centrist. A former CIA officer and gun control group organiser, she was elected to the US House in 2018 from a state which has trended Democratic but remains keenly fought. In 2022, she won a redrawn seat by her widest margin to date. More

The US supreme court has finally responded to mounting pressure over a spate of ethics scandals engulfing some of its senior rightwing justices by publishing its first ever code that sets out the “rules and principles that guide the conduct of members of the court”.The 14-page document follows months of increasingly sharp criticism of the justices and their failure to apply to themselves basic ethical rules that bind all other judges in the US. Even as they released the code, however, the justices maintained their defensive posture, insisting in a brief statement that the furore of recent months had been a “misunderstanding”.The statement said that the absence of a code had led in recent years to the “misunderstanding that the justices of this court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules”.The newly published code is signed by all nine justices, and lays out the basic guardrails within which they are expected to behave. The first page states baldly that “a justice should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities”.In a section labelled “Outside Influence”, the code says that the nine members of the court should not “knowingly convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the justice”.Although the new code is designed to quell the growing disquiet over the court’s ethical standards, the instant reaction to the guidelines was not effusive. Several experts on judicial ethics pointed out that it lacks any mechanism for enforcement, leaving the justices effectively to police themselves.Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a non-partisan group which advocates for reform, said the guidelines were largely “a copy-and-paste job” from the lower courts’ code. In the absence of any enforcement system, “how can the public trust they’re going to do anything more than simply cover for one another, ethics be damned?”The president of the non-partisan watchdog group Accountable.US, Caroline Ciccone, said that without a clear enforcement mechanism, “this ‘code of conduct’ is just a PR stunt to appease the American public as it demands better from its supreme court.”The cloud of ethical trouble that has consumed the court descended in April when ProPublica published a series of bombshell reports exposing the lavish international travel and vacations Clarence Thomas enjoyed through the largesse of the Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Later reports revealed that Crow paid for tuition for Thomas’s great-nephew.A fellow conservative justice, Samuel Alito, has also found himself embroiled in ethics disputes after ProPublica revealed he had been treated to an undisclosed fishing holiday in Alaska by the billionaire Paul Singer.Amid a billowing public debate about the dubious ethical standards of the court that is responsible for upholding the country’s judicial authority, there was resistance from some justices to address the crisis. Alito threw fuel on the fire by telling the Wall Street Journal that Congress had no power to regulate the supreme court – a view that has been roundly dismissed by several constitutional law scholars.The chief justice, John Roberts, who is more attuned to public opinion, appears to have been working behind the scenes to find a compromise that all nine justices could sign up to. In May, he told a legal event in Washington: “I want to assure people that I’m committed to making certain that we as a court adhere to the highest standards of conduct.”The code includes a section setting out when justices should recuse themselves from cases. It specifically states that the justices must disqualify themselves when their spouse has “an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding”.In January 2022, the supreme court rejected by a vote of eight to one a request by Donald Trump to block White House records being handed to the House investigation into the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. The only dissent came from Thomas.Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas had been actively involved in efforts to undermine Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election. It later transpired that texts between her and Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were among the batch of documents that were the subject of the supreme court ruling.Another provision in the code says “a justice should not speak at an event sponsored by or associated with a political party or a campaign for political office”. It adds that a justice should not “knowingly be a speaker, a guest of honor, or featured on the program” of a “fundraising event”.In September ProPublica revealed that Thomas had been the draw at least two donor events bankrolling the rightwing network of the energy tycoons the Koch brothers. More