US Politics

Senate Democrats begin vote on landmark $430bn climate billSenate kicks off ‘vote-a-rama’ that could drag on as Republicans have promised to try to stall the process US Senate Democrats on Saturday began a vote on a bill that would address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda, tackling climate change, lowering the cost of energy and senior citizens’ drugs and forcing the wealthy to pay more taxes.Indiana becomes first US state post-Roe to ban most abortionsRead moreEarlier, a Senate rulemaker determined that the lion’s share of the $430bn bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections, majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.Democrats hope that the legislation will give a boost to their candidates in the 8 November midterm elections in which Biden’s party is in an uphill battle to retain its narrow control of the Senate and House of Representatives.“Democrats have received extremely good news,” Schumer said in the statement. “Medicare will finally be allowed to negotiate drug prices … This is a major victory for the American people.“Medicare is the government health insurance program for people age 65 and older.There are three main parts to the bill: a 15% minimum tax on corporations, tougher IRS enforcement and a new excise tax on stock buybacks. The legislation has $430 billion in new spending along with raising more than $740 billion in new revenues.Beside billions of dollars to encourage the production and purchase of more electric vehicles and foster clean energy, the bill would set $4 billion in new federal drought relief funds. The latter is a move that could help the re-election campaigns of Democratic Senators Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Mark Kelly in Arizona.Republicans have promised to do everything they can to stall or block the bill, with Senator Lindsey Graham on Friday calling the legislation “this jihad they’re on to tax and spend.”Democrats aim to push the bill through the Senate using an arcane and complicated “reconciliation” procedure allowing passage without any Republican support in the chamber divided 50-50 between the parties, with the Democrats in control because Kamala Harris, the vice-president, can cast a tie-breaking vote.One provision cut from the bill would have forced drug companies to refund money to both government and private health plans if drug prices rise more quickly than inflation. The Senate arbiter, known as the parliamentarian, ruled that measure could not apply to private industry.The beginning of the vote kicks off an arduous process that could extend into Sunday or early next week, with senators offering amendment after amendment in a time-consuming “vote-a-rama”.Senators on the left such as Bernie Sanders are likely to try to expand the scope of the bill to include new programs such as federal subsidies for childcare or home healthcare for the elderly. Republicans have signaled that they will offer plenty of amendments touching on another issue: immigrants coming across the US border with Mexico.TopicsUS SenateUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesDemocratsUS politicsUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

Viktor Orbán turns Texas conference into transatlantic far-right love-in The authoritarian Hungarian leader was embraced as a kindred spirit by Trump fans at the CPAC event in Dallas“The globalists can all go to hell,” declared Viktor Orbán. “I have come to Texas!”The crowd roared, whooped and gave a standing ovation as if at a campaign rally for former US president Donald Trump. It was evident they saw in Orbán a kindred spirit – a blunt weapon to wield against liberal foes.Orbán urges Christian nationalists in Europe and US to ‘unite forces’ at CPACRead moreThe Hungarian prime minister was the opening speaker at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, and perhaps the most vivid demonstration yet of the mutual and rapidly growing affinity between the far right in America and Europe.Orbán, who has been prime minister for 12 years, boasted about his hardline stance on illegal immigration, law and order and “gender ideology” in schools. He touted a rise in marriages and fall in abortions. He was unapologetic in his defence of blood-and-soil nationalism and contempt for “leftist media”.And extraordinarily for a foreign leader, he overtly sided with an opposition party – the Republicans – rather than the incumbent Democrats, paying homage to Trump at his golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey, while ignoring Joe Biden at the White House.Calling for Christian nationalists to “unite forces”, Orbán told CPAC: “Victory will never be found by taking the path of least resistance. We must take back the institutions in Washington and in Brussels. We must find friends and allies in one another. We must coordinate the movements of our troops because we face the same challenge.”He noted that US midterm elections will be later this year followed by the presidential contest and European parliamentary elections in 2024. “These two locations will define the two fronts in the battle being fought for western civilisation. Today, we hold neither of them. Yet we need both.”Rarely has the alliance between nationalist parties across the Atlantic been so bold, overt and unshackled. CPAC was once the domain of cold warrior Ronald Reagan. But in recent years guest speakers have included the Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of the far-right French politician Marine Le Pen.On Friday the lineup included Steve Bannon, who has worked with openly racist far-right leaders across Europe and once leased a medieval monastery outside Rome to run a “populism bootcamp”.Bannon is former executive chairman of Breitbart News, which he once described as “the platform of the ‘alt-right’”, a movement associated with efforts to preserve “white identity” and defend “western values”. He served as chief strategist in the Trump White House and is now facing prison after being convicted of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the January 6 committee.CPAC Texas also heard from the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who railed against the media and told the audience: “When I said that I’m a Christian nationalist, I have nothing to be ashamed of because that’s what most Americans are.” The event will close on Saturday with Trump who, like Orbán, has faced scrutiny over his relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at the non-profit group Right Wing Watch, said: “Rightwing leaders, and especially the religious right leaders in the US, love Viktor Orbán for the same reasons they love Vladimir Putin. This overt embrace of Christian nationalism, willingness to use strongman tactics and the power of the government to enforce so-called traditional values about family and sexuality.”Montgomery added: “We’ve actually seen some signs of that illiberalism and authoritarianism on the Trumpist right in their efforts to ban the teaching of racism in schools, in their aggressive attacks against LGBTQ materials and information in schools and libraries, and even their encouragement of harassment and violence that we’ve seen against election officials and school board members.“All those signs are signs of a disturbing embrace of authoritarianism on the US right and Orbán is a model and a hero for that to them.”Orbán has few bigger fans than Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host who interviewed him during a week-long broadcast from Hungary last year. Carlson has promoted “great replacement theory” – the baseless claim of a plot to turn white people into a minority through immigration – in 400 of his shows, according to an analysis by the New York Times.Orbán’s visit to the US came amid backlash over anti-migrant remarks in which he warned that Europeans must not “become peoples of mixed race” and cited The Camp of the Saints, a 1973 French novel by Jean Raspail that portrays a dystopia in which a flotilla of south Asian people invade France. The novel has also been promoted by Trump allies such as Bannon and Stephen Miller.Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “Orbán represents a quiet part out loud element of today’s Republican party. That quiet part out loud is the overt appeal to racial politics, the not-bothering-to-hide-it white supremacy element of the global alt-right and authoritarian movement. Donald Trump was the thing that let it loose in the US.“Orbán has struck a set of blows against the media in Hungary, which is one of their main targets here. He has overtly embraced the sort of white replacement politics that are so popular with the Tucker Carlson set and a lot of the other folks that are members of the American Maga [Make America great again] movement.”Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, added: “Those things have all added up to giving Orbán a kind of fanboy following in the US of people who were once conservative Republicans and who are now racially driven authoritarian wannabes. He’s the guy who’s pulling it off at a scale that Donald Trump didn’t achieve in the US.”That appeal includes a stealth attack on democracy. Critics say that Hungary’s judiciary, media and other institutions are suffering death by a thousand cuts as Orbán slowly and surely consolidates power. His rightwing Fidesz party has drawn legislative districts in Hungary in a way that makes it very difficult for opposition parties to win seats – not dissimilar to partisan gerrymandering efforts for state legislative and congressional seats in America. The process currently favors Republicans because they control more of the state legislatures that create those boundaries.And at CPAC, purveyors of Trump’s “big lie” – the false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him – held prominent slots. Mike Lindell, chief executive of MyPillow, pushed preposterous conspiracy theories about voting machines. Several speakers denounced the congressional investigation into the January 6 insurrection as a sham.Kurt Bardella, an adviser to the Democratic National Committee, said of Orbán: “They see a blueprint for fascism. They see someone who embodies the Republican party’s values of obstructing free and fair elections, of undermining democratic institutions, of expanding government power and politicising the judicial branch, marginalising minority communities and corrupting the pillars of a free society.“When you talk about an autocratic regime, that’s what Prime Minister Orbán is in Hungary and it’s exactly the blueprint that Republicans are hoping to follow here in the United States of America. It’s not surprising in the least that, especially in a place like CPAC Texas, these rightwing white nationalists are embracing someone like Orbán.”Earlier this year, when CPAC held an event in Europe, it naturally chose Hungary. Orbán remains an outlier on the continent – for now. Le Pen lost the French presidential election to Emmanuel Macron, though she gained the far right’s biggest share of the vote yet. In Italy Giorgia Meloni, leader of a party with neofascist origins, is strongly positioned to become prime minister after snap elections this autumn.Robert P Jones, founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute thinktank in Washington and author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, said: “There is this identifiable movement. The difference in many of the European countries is it is represented in minority parties.“In the US now, I think it’s safe to say that this ethno-religious vision of the country has taken over one of our two major political parties. Even demographically speaking, nearly seven in 10 Republicans are white and Christian today in a country that’s only 44% white and Christian. You can see that identity taking hold as the animating beating heart of the party. It’s a really dangerous situation.”TopicsCPACThe far rightViktor OrbánUS politicsRepublicansHungaryfeaturesReuse this content More

Progressives bullish despite mixed results in Democratic primariesMorale-boosting victories were tempered by bruising defeats but US leftwingers feel the party’s center of gravity is shifting Progressives watching the latest US primary results last Tuesday night might have felt understandably torn.Pro-Israel groups denounced after pouring funds into primary raceRead moreWhile two of the most leftwing members of the House, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri, easily fended off their challengers, Andy Levin lost in his Michigan primary to a much more centrist colleague, Haley Stevens.The results epitomized the mixed success that progressive Democrats in the US have seen in this primary season, which will draw to a close over the next few weeks.Although a number of progressive candidates have secured important victories in congressional primaries, centrists have prevailed in some of the most high-profile races. Rather than being discouraged by their losses, however, progressive groups are celebrating their wins and strategizing about how to continue pushing the Democratic party to the left on crucial issues as they look ahead to November’s midterm elections.Those progressive groups point to the success of congressional candidates like Greg Casar and Jasmine Crockett in Texas and Summer Lee in Pennsylvania to demonstrate how their movement made important gains this year. All three of those candidates won their primaries in reliably Democratic districts, meaning they will almost certainly be elected to Congress in November, boosting the strength of the left of the party.“I started the season with trying to temper my own and my organization’s expectations for what we were able to accomplish,” said Natalia Salgado, director of federal affairs for the Working Families party. “I’m walking away feeling like we far exceeded what our expectations were, and I feel like we truly met our moment.”The primary victories of incumbents like Tlaib and Bush have also proven how progressive lawmakers can have staying power in Congress and potentially build long political careers.“I think a lot of centrists try to paint our movement and the candidates that come from our movement as being sort of temporary,” Salgado said. “I think what [Tlaib and Bush] demonstrate is that progressives are not only able to speak with authenticity and credibility to their electorates, but they are also able to go into Congress and govern like serious lawmakers.”But progressives have also seen some bruising primary losses this year.In Texas, Jessica Cisneros lost an extremely close runoff race to Congressman Henry Cuellar, who is the last anti-abortion Democrat serving in the House. Progressive Nina Turner lost her rematch primary race against Congresswoman Shontel Brown, and Maryland’s Donna Edwards, seeking to return to the House after leaving office in 2017, was defeated by a more centrist candidate.Progressives have blamed some of those losses on massive spending from outside groups aimed at undermining their candidates. Pro-Israel groups like the United Democracy Project, affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), and the Democratic Majority for Israel spent millions of dollars attacking progressive candidates and promoting their centrist opponents.The UDP spent more than $4m against Edwards alone, even though the former congresswoman had secured the endorsements of prominent Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.“I think that should be a real wake-up call for the entire Democratic party, not just progressives,” said Usamah Andrabi, candidate communications manager for the progressive group Justice Democrats. “Mainstream Democrats and Democratic leadership think that they have power over these corporate Super Pacs, but I think [Edwards’s] election shows just how wrong they are.”Andrabi and other progressive leaders have also criticized Democratic leaders for helping to prop up centrist incumbents like Cuellar. In the final days of Cuellar’s race against Cisneros, Pelosi recorded a robocall for the congressman, while the House majority whip, Jim Clyburn, traveled to Texas to campaign alongside his colleague.To Andrabi, Democratic leaders’ aid to Cuellar sent a dangerous message to voters that the party does not live up to the values it espouses ahead of November, when Republicans are heavily favored to regain control of the House.“How can you be the party that supports reproductive freedom, while also supporting the last anti-abortion Democrat in the House?” Andrabi said. “It just doesn’t line up.”But Salgado saw a silver lining to the many hurdles that progressive candidates have faced this primary season. The extensive efforts by big money groups and centrist leaders to promote their preferred candidates demonstrated that progressives are being taken seriously as a political movement, she argued.“If progressives weren’t being successful and weren’t seen as a threat, I don’t know that the forces of the Democratic party – with a capital D – and the centrist and moderate forces in our country and the big money forces would have coalesced in the way that they did,” Salgado said.Even in the races where progressives lost, their supporters say those candidates helped to shape the conversation around important issues such as racial justice and the climate crisis. Given that the Democratic party has moved to the left in recent years, progressives hope that their candidates’ platforms will help persuade voters to embrace even more liberal reforms.“There has been a real battle, especially in the last decade and a half, to redefine what the Democratic party means,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president and executive director of the young progressive voting group NextGen America. “Whether it’s the minimum wage, taxing the rich, climate change, or policing and immigration, progressives are actually winning. They are moving the Democratic party in the right direction.”As the primary season starts to wind down and Democrats prepare for the general elections in the fall, progressives have promised to do everything they can to prevent Republicans from regaining control of Congress. Salgado said her group was eager to use the insight it has gained over the past several months to help Democratic candidates win in November.“We truly have a winning formula for being able to beat back big money,” Salgado said. “When we head into the general election, when we’re all on the same team, let’s take the lessons learned from this cycle … to keep out the true enemy, to keep out insurrectionists, to keep out fascists from taking over our country.”Centrists and progressives alike agree that the stakes could not be higher for this year’s midterm elections, which will mark the first time that every House member will be on the ballot since the January 6 insurrection.As Donald Trump and many of his allies continue to spread lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, progressives are committed to putting any lingering disappointment about primary results behind them.“Even if you didn’t get the candidate of choice, the future of democracy is in your hands,” Salgado said. “For me, the choice is clear, and for voters, we hope the choice is clear as well.”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022featuresReuse this content More

Indiana assembly passes anti-abortion bill, governor signs it into lawState becomes the first in the US to pass new laws removing Roe rights after Eric Holcomb’s assent Indiana’s state legislature has become the first in the US to pass new legislation restricting access to abortions since the federal supreme court overturned Roe v Wade.The bill went to the state’s Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, who signed it into law on Friday night.Indiana was among the earliest Republican-run state legislatures to debate tighter abortion laws after the supreme court ruling in June that removed constitutional protections. It is the first state to pass a ban through both chambers.The Indiana senate approved the near-total ban 28-19, hours after house members advanced it 62-38. It includes limited exceptions, including in cases of rape and incest, and to protect the life and physical health of the mother. The exceptions for rape and incest are limited to 10 weeks post-fertilization, meaning victims could not get an abortion in Indiana after that. Victims would not be required to sign a notarized affidavit attesting to an attack.The Kansas victory shows that Democrats can fight for abortion rights and win | Moira DoneganRead moreOutside the house chamber, abortion rights activists often chanted over lawmakers’ remarks, carrying signs like “Roe roe roe your vote” and “Build this wall” between church and state. Some house Democrats wore blazers over pink “Bans Off Our Bodies” T-shirts.Indiana lawmakers listened to testimony over the past two weeks in which residents on all sides of the issue rarely, if ever, supported the legislation. Abortion-rights supporters said the bill went too far, while anti-abortion activists said it did not go far enough.In advocating against the bill, Rep Ann Vermilion condemned her fellow Republicans for calling women who obtained abortions “murderers”.“I think that the Lord’s promise is for grace and kindness,” she said. “He would not be jumping to condemn these women.”The house rejected, largely on party lines, a Democratic proposal to place a non-binding question on the statewide November election ballot: “Shall abortion remain legal in Indiana?”The Indiana house speaker, Todd Huston, said that if residents were unhappy, they could vote for new lawmakers.Kansas voters already resoundingly rejected a measure that would have allowed the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to tighten abortion in the first test of voters’ feelings about the issue since Roe was overturned.Indiana’s proposed ban also came after the political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. The case gained attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the child came to Indiana because of Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” ban.Democratic Rep Maureen Bauer spoke tearfully before Friday’s vote about people in her South Bend district who oppose the bill – the husbands standing behind their wives, the fathers supporting their daughters – as well as the women “who are demanding that we are seen as equal”.Bauer’s comments were followed by raucous cheers from protesters in the hallway and subdued applause from fellow Democrats.“You may not have thought that these women would show up,” Bauer said. “Maybe you thought we wouldn’t be paying attention.”West Virginia legislators on 29 July passed up the chance to be the first state with a unified ban after its lower house refused to concur with senate amendments that removed criminal penalties for physicians who performed illegal abortions. Delegates instead asked for a conference committee to consider the details between the bills.TopicsAbortionRoe v WadeIndianaUS politicsReuse this content More

For the past week, just about everybody in Washington politics has been asking the same question: will Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema vote for her party’s plan to fight climate change and lower health care costs?The Arizona lawmaker is known for her opposition to changing the tax code, as the bill – known was the Inflation Reduction Act – does to fund its programs. In the end, she did demand changes to how the legislation is paid for, but they weren’t especially big.With her support, Democrats have all 50 votes they need to get the bill through the evenly divided Senate. There’s not much Republicans themselves can do to stop them, so, instead, they’re hoping that Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough intervenes. The Democrats hope to pass the legislation via the reconciliation procedure, which requires only a simple majority of votes, but there are only certain types of changes to the law they can make that way. MacDonough is to decide whether they followed proper procedure, and as Politico reports, Republicans hope she’ll strike certain provisions from the bill – which could upend the delicate compromise Democrats have forged among themselves, and jeopardize the bill entirely.The pieces have been set in motion for the Senate to convene this weekend and begin voting on Democrats’ plan to fight climate change and lower inflation, which the party appears to have the support necessary to pass. At the White House, Joe Biden cheered yet another month of healthy job growth as he looks for ways to revitalize his dismal approval ratings.Here’s a look back at what happened today:
Republicans plan to frustrate Democrats in the Senate during votes on amendments to the spending plan, known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
Donald Trump is reportedly negotiating with the justice department amid the ongoing criminal probe into the January 6 insurrection.
United Nations chief António Guterres warned that there is “no way to solve the most pressing problems of all the world without an effective dialogue and cooperation” between the United States and China – which are currently feuding over US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit this week to Taiwan.
Scientists are warning that climate change is driving increased lightning strikes, after two were killed and two critically injured during storms near the White House yesterday.
Biden’s recent string of political victories has generated a meme: “Dark Brandon”.
China is furious over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this week, and today, Beijing cut off cooperating with the United States on fighting climate change, and some military communication.But at a briefing, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said China and the United States’ military leaders still have some ways of communicating:.@WHNSC’s John Kirby says China did _not_ cut all mil-mil-mil comms: “These channels they took down don’t eliminate the opportunity for senior members of the military to communicate.” Translation: Chairman/Minister level channels still open.— Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) August 5, 2022
He did, however, condemn Beijing’s decision to stop collaborating on ways to lower emissions:.@WHNSC’s John Kirby on Beijing pausing climate change dialogue: “We believe this is fundamentally irresponsible. China is not punishing just the US. It’s punishing the whole world.”— Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) August 5, 2022
Kirby later adds: “One of the areas that was ripe for collaboration was climate. They think they are punishing us. They are punishing the whole world.”— Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) August 5, 2022
United Nations chief António Guterres had said much the same earlier in the day.China halts US cooperation on range of issues after Pelosi’s Taiwan visitRead moreReuters reports that the White House will soon send $1 billion in aid to Ukraine, including armored medical transports and the types of long-range weapons that have allowed Ukraine to regain momentum recently against the Russian invaders.Citing three sources familiar with the matter, Reuters says president Joe Biden hasn’t authorized the weapons yet, but could do so as soon as Monday. The package would be one of the biggest aid packages since the war began and is expected to include more munitions for the Himars rocket system Ukraine has deployed to great effect recently, as well as Nasams surface-to-air missiles.The weapons could be used in Ukraine’s expected offensive to recapture Kherson, a southern city that’s one of the largest under the control of the Russians.Can Ukrainian forces recapture Kherson from Russia?Read moreDoug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, is threatening to back out of testifying before the January 6 committee unless he can record the interaction, Politico reports.Mastriano “has legitimate concerns that your committee may attempt to influence the outcome of the Pennsylvania state elections through the dissemination of disinformation,” his lawyer told the House panel investigating the insurrection, according to Politico.His resistance could lead to a court fight between the lawmakers and Mastriano, a state senator and 2020 election denier whom Donald Trump backed in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary. While some acolytes of the former president have spoken to the committee, others have resisted – to their peril. Top Trump adviser Steve Bannon was found guilty of contempt of Congress last month for defying subpoenas from the panel, and former trade adviser Peter Navarro is facing similar charges.Threatening Washington’s top public health official has real consequences, as a West Virginia man found out today:A federal judge sentenced a West Virginia man to three years in prison by for sending intimidating emails to public health chief Anthony Fauci, including threats to kill the US’s top infectious disease official over his handling of the Covid pandemic.US district judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday sentenced Thomas Connally, 56, of Snowshoe, West Virginia, to 37 months in federal prison and another three years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty in May to a federal charge of making threats against a federal official.In one email, Connally threatened that Fauci and his family would be “dragged into the street, beaten to death, and set on fire,” prosecutors said.Man who threatened to kill Anthony Fauci given three-year prison termRead moreCNN has a bit more detail on the Inflation Reduction Act’s path to enactment in Congress: the House won’t be back in session until next Friday, giving the Senate plenty of time to approve the bill.House will return August 12th to give final passage to the Senate reconciliation bill, per Hoyer— Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 5, 2022
Senators will convene on Saturday to vote on the bill, which is a major priority for the Biden administration and allocates money to fighting climate change and lowering health care costs.A day after ordering Alex Jones to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages for spreading conspiracy theories about 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, CNN reports a Texas jury has begun deliberating over how much to make Jones pay in punitive damages – which could greatly enhance the financial pain resulting from his defamation trial:The jury in the Sandy Hook trial is now deliberating on punitive damages.— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) August 5, 2022
The Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas has the latest on the trial, which has been more dramatic than most:A financial expert testifying for the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting has estimated that Alex Jones and his media company are worth between $135m and $240m as they seek punitive damages beyond the $4.1m they secured a day ago for the US conspiracy theorist’s falsehoods about the massacre.The expert, Bernard Pettingill, said from the witness stand in an Austin courtroom that Jones and his Free Speech Systems company earned more than $50m annually between 2016 to 2021 – even as popular social media companies banned him from promoting himself through them – due to his “rabid following” of millions.Pettingill added that it was difficult to get an exact read of Jones’s financial outlook because he used a web of shell companies that own nothing and employ no one to move money belonging to him around.Alex Jones worth up to $240m, expert says, as family seeks punitive damagesRead moreJoe Biden’s been on something of a roll lately, and the internet appears to have noticed, gifting the 79-year-old president with a meme: “Dark Brandon”. While its origins are on the right, the moniker has been reclaimed by Biden’s supporters and spread on Twitter just as the Democratic president wracked up a number of wins in Congress and elsewhere.For example: Cutting the deficit, reducing prescription drug prices, investing in domestic energy production. pic.twitter.com/e0XQCP5hQv— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 5, 2022
Or perhaps:Our hero in the shadows… #DarkBrandon pic.twitter.com/ChDLenuIMB— JumboPosterInChief (@ChiefJumbo) August 2, 2022
Like many meme origin stories, that of “Dark Brandon” is lengthy and packed with references to other memes and internet trends. One of them is “Let’s Go Brandon”, the sanitized version of “Fuck Joe Biden” that became popular among his detractors last year. On Twitter, Biden’s supporters are using it to refer to several recent success stories for the White House, including the killing of top al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri this past weekend, the breakthrough on Democrats’ climate change and health care bill days later and the passage of another measure to spur semiconductor production late last month. Slate has published some thoughts on what Dark Brandon’s arrival heralds:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The term “Dark Brandon” first surfaced in early 2022 as part of the usual gamut of memes and burns deployed by America’s extremely online socialists—especially those who’ve found themselves feeling euphorically apocalyptic in the face of unchecked climate change, a theocratic Supreme Court, and Joe Manchin’s seemingly insurmountable veto power. For them, “Dark Brandon” was a way to lean into despair. The invaluable resource Know Your Meme delved into the paper trail and uncovered a trove of extremely dark viral tweets from the spring, where Dark Brandon could be found, say, pointing a gun into a woman’s mouth in a Photoshop or overseeing public executions in a Twitter user’s ironic fantasy. The idea here is that Joe Biden was not the fuddy-duddy centrist he appeared to be and instead represented some sort of satanic, Revelations-esque figure, way worse than anyone can imagine.
It’s an aesthetic that mirrors the related Dark MAGA trend, in which alt-right dead-enders and QAnon veterans have adopted an increasingly occultist tone to sheathe their reactionary beliefs. (Here, for instance, is an image of Jordan Peterson with the same facial tattoos as the rapper 6ix9ine.) The difference is that Dark MAGA posters fantasize about the return of an even-more-unhinged, gloves-off Trump, out for revenge. Dark Brandon, on the other hand, was the creation of people without much hope at all.
We can debate over whether it’s foolish to assign any intellectual significance to the tweets made by weirdos on the internet, but I do think that both Dark Brandon and DarkMAGA were interesting artifacts of America’s superheated political environment. The country does feel like it’s perched on the precipice of some sort of prophetic rebirth, and perhaps, as our institutions erode into the sea, Dark Brandon is the harbinger of that final judgment. Meanwhile, because Trump does feel like he might come back, more vengeful than before, DarkMAGA’s attempts to speak that into existence feel like a warning.In a speech at the White House, Joe Biden praised the July jobs numbers, which came in much better than expected. He also hailed the Inflation Reduction Act that’s making progress in the US Senate and is on what Democrats hope is the final stretch before making it into law.“We are on the cusp of the most important step we can take to help Congress lower inflation,” he said, speaking outside and sporting his trademark aviator sunglasses because he was still isolating due to his Covid-19 diagnosis.He talked of the ongoing decrease in gas prices over the past month-and-a-half, noting fuel was available for “less than $3.99 a gallon at more than half the gas stations in North America”, Biden also touted the speed of the labor market’s recovery, after more than 20 million people lost their job when Covid-19 broke out.“That’s why the strength and the pace job of the recovery is so important. In the past, it’s taking years for Americans to recover from an economic crisis. When that’s happened, millions of people suffer from years and years just trying to get back to where they were before, just trying to get back on their feet. And that didn’t happen this time”, Biden said.Joe Biden is about to sign a couple of bills at the White House and we’ll have an ear out for any relevant remarks. It’s a relatively lively Friday, given that the House and Senate are out, and we’ll have more, so stay tuned.Here’s where things stand.
There is “no way to solve the most pressing problems of all the world without an effective dialogue and cooperation” between the United States and China, a spokesman for United Nations chief António Guterres said.
Scientists are warning that climate change is driving increased lightning strikes, after two were killed and two critically injured during storms near the White House yesterday.
Joe Biden cheered the better-than-expected employment data released by the Labor Department this morning, saying it shows the success of his administration’s plan to help Americans.
Kyrsten Sinema, conservative Democratic US Senator of Arizona, is on board with the Inflation Reduction Act legislation now pending at the door of the Senate, in another breakthrough for Democrats and Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.
Meanwhile, if you want some up-to-the-minute international developments, follow either of our global live blogs, on the geopolitical fall-out from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and on the war in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February.Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz is busy entertaining the peanut gallery at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event in his home state.Cruz was revving himself and the crowd up now by roundly mocking everything Democrat, also masks against the spread of coronavirus, presidential health adviser Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, “communist, woke professors”, etc, etc.He just promised that in November, south Texas “will turn red” and elect Republican members of congress in Rio Grande Valley on the US-Mexico border.And, nationally, Cruz is forecasting “not just a red wave but a tsunami” of GOP victories at the midterm elections.On the subject of the polite modern habit of specifying one’s preferred pronouns, Cruz shrieked to whoops: “My pronouns are ‘kiss my ass’.” “We are on the cusp of something amazing in this country,” Cruz tells the crowd. Alarming might be more accurate.The right-winger is exiting the stage now, to soaring rock music.Well my name is Ted Cruz And my pronouns are kiss my ass pic.twitter.com/M0wVzR7ZRv— 🔥⭐️Edwin⭐️🔥 (@Edwin07011) August 5, 2022
There is “no way to solve the most pressing problems of all the world without an effective dialogue and cooperation” between the United States and China, a spokesman for United Nations chief António Guterres said today, Reuters writes.This followed the Chinese government in Beijing halting climate talks with Washington, Reuters writes.Tackling climate change has been a key area of cooperation between the two superpowers.But China has suspended talks as part of its escalating retaliation over House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this week.If you want to read our global live blog on all the developments in geopolitics as a result of Pelosi’s visit to the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, you can do so here.Guterres last month warned that wildfires and heatwaves wreaking havoc across swathes of the globe show humanity facing is “collective suicide”, as governments around the world scramble to protect people from the impacts of extreme heat.Pelosi is currently on the Japan leg of her Asia tour, which would not have been especially controversial if it had not been for her insistence on visiting Taiwan, the independent island nation over which the People’s Republic of China has claimed sovereignty since nationalists fled there to escape the communist mainland takeover in 1949.President Joe Biden remains positive for Covid-19, but is otherwise doing almost fine, the White House announced.According to a letter from his doctor Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s “cough has almost completely resolved”, though his continued positive test means he will have to “continue his strict isolation measures”.You can read the full update here.The REPEAT Project, a Princeton University and Dartmouth College initiative to evaluate federal policies’ impact on emissions and climate change, has done a quick analysis of the climate change provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.It’s a dense read, but it confirms the potency of the proposal, which would get the United States close, but not all the way, to meeting its targets for lowering emissions. Here’s a summary of its findings:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Senate Inflation Reduction Act would:
• cut annual emissions in 2030 by an additional ~1 billion metric tons below current policy (including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law)
• close two-thirds of the remaining emissions gap between current policy and the nation’s 2030 climate target (50% below 2005)
• get the U.S. to within ~0.5 billion tons of the 2030 climate target
• reduce cumulative GHG emissions by about 6.3 billion tons over the next decade (through 2032).Republican state treasurers are coordinating efforts to retaliate against financial institutions that have taken steps to mitigate climate change, according to an investigation published today by The New York Times.While they still do plenty of business with oil companies, major asset managers like BlackRock and banks like Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase have signaled a desire to support the transition from fossil fuels. But Republican officials are trying to use their states’ financial heft to get the financial institutions to change course.Here’s more from the Times’ report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Last week, Riley Moore, the treasurer of West Virginia, announced that several major banks — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — would be barred from government contracts with his state because they are reducing their investments in coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Mr. Moore and the treasurers of Louisiana and Arkansas have pulled more than $700 million out of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, over objections that the firm is too focused on environmental issues. At the same time, the treasurers of Utah and Idaho are pressuring the private sector to drop climate action and other causes they label as “woke.”
And treasurers from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma joined a larger campaign to thwart the nominations of federal regulators who wanted to require that banks, funds and companies disclose the financial risks posed by a warming planet.
At the nexus of these efforts is the State Financial Officers Foundation, a little-known nonprofit organization based in Shawnee, Kan., that once focused on cybersecurity, borrowing costs and managing debt loads, among other routine issues.
Then President Biden took office, promising to speed the country’s transition away from oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.
The foundation began pushing Republican state treasurers, who are mostly elected officials and who are responsible for managing their state’s finances, to use their power to promote oil and gas interests and to stymie Mr. Biden’s climate agenda, records show.President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Kentucky on Monday, August 8, to survey damage caused by catastrophic flooding in the eastern part of the state, the White House announced.The death toll from the floods has hit 37, while hundreds remains missing. Scientists have linked the severity of the storm to climate change.Kentucky grapples with effect of climate crisis as floods leave trail of devastationRead moreRepublicans are on the defensive in Congress after Democrats coalesced around the Inflation Reduction Act and announced plans to begin voting on the marquee spending measure over the weekend.That doesn’t mean they don’t have a plan to try to stop it. Senators will get to offer amendments to the bill and CNN reports Republicans Lindsey Graham and John Thune have signaled they want to make that process, known as “vote-a-rama” as painful for Democrats as possible:“What will vote-a-rama be like? It will be hell” Graham told me of the marathon voting session on reconciliation. Thune promises “hard” votes. Goal for Republicans: Try to win a vote on the floor that will change the bill and convince Manchin and Sinema to tank it— Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 5, 2022 More

The Guardian view on the Kansas abortion vote: voice of AmericaEditorialThis week’s vote to defend women’s rights mirrors US opinion on the issue more generally and may shape the midterm elections Nearly 20 years ago, the political writer Thomas Frank authored a bestseller to which he gave the title What’s the Matter with Kansas? It was one of the first books of the post-Bill Clinton era to try to nail the rightwing populism redefining middle America. Mr Frank, who is himself from Kansas, chose the title deliberately. Despite an earlier history of grassroots antitrust activism, 20th- and 21st-century Kansas had dug in ever deeper against progressivism; no Democratic presidential candidate has now won there since 1964. Donald Trump, who epitomises everything about which Mr Frank wrote, carried Kansas with ease in 2016 and 2020.At the heart of Mr Frank’s argument was the view that culture war campaigns on abortion and gay equality have been crucial in persuading economically insecure Kansas voters to move ever more solidly rightwards. Much of the book focuses on how the Democratic party itself contributed to the shift. The consequence of this process seemed to reach an even darker place in 2009 when the pro-choice doctor George Tiller was murdered in the Kansas city of Wichita.Yet on Tuesday voters in Kansas chose to make a stand. In an unexpectedly high turnout contest, they voted to uphold the state’s abortion rights by a 59% to 41% margin. They did this in the face of the widely held view that the US supreme court’s decision to overturn the Roe v Wade judgment has reset America’s political landscape more conservatively. They also defied the expectation that Republicans, not Democrats, would be more energised by the campaign.It is possible that there were special local factors at play in Kansas. The voting paper was confusingly written; abortion rights supporters had to vote “No” not “Yes” to keep the state’s protections. Tuesday was also a day in which hardline conservatives, supporting and supported by Mr Trump, scored well in other states, such as Arizona. Caution is therefore in order in extrapolating too recklessly from the Kansas vote. Nevertheless, the vote was a rallying call. If 59% of the people can vote for abortion rights in Kansas, the likelihood is that at least 59% will vote for them in many other states too, perhaps in at least 40 of the 50. It is also very much in line with national polling showing 57% national disapproval after the supreme court’s ruling. President Biden was right to emphasise in his reaction to the Kansas vote that the majority of Americans support women’s abortion rights.In Kansas at least, the justices have not, after all, had the last word. Most of all, this vote was important for the women of the state. But it has two wider implications. The first is that democracy has hit back, not just at the supreme court ruling, but also at the false idea that the court should have the final say in American politics. The second is that abortion rights may prove to be a potent mobilising issue in the November midterm elections more generally, which indeed they should be. It is high time that Democrats realised they do not have to campaign on economic issues alone and instead took the fight for abortion rights to the Republicans. The Kansas vote should embolden them to do so.TopicsAbortionOpinionHealthWomenUS politicseditorialsReuse this content More

What does the US-China row mean for climate change? Analysis: breakdown of cooperation between world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters over Taiwan could spell disaster for global warming targets China’s decision to halt cooperation with the US over the climate crisis has provoked alarm, with seasoned climate diplomats urging a swift resumption of talks to help stave off worsening global heating.On Friday, Beijing announced a series of measures aimed at retaliating against the US for the “egregious provocation” of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, visiting Taiwan. China, which considers Taiwan its territory and has launched large-scale military exercises near the island, said it will stop working with the US on climate change, along with other key issues.While the extent of China’s withdrawal from climate discussions is still not clear, the move threatens to derail the often fragile cooperation between the world’s two largest carbon emitters, with only a few months to go before the crucial UN Cop27 in Egypt this autumn. Experts say there is little hope of avoiding disastrous global heating without strong action by the US and China, which are together responsible for about 40% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.The rupture in relations has occurred amid a summer of climate change-fuelled disasters, with record heatwaves and wildfires sweeping the US and Europe, punishingly high temperatures scorching India and China, and ruinous flooding affecting the US, south Asia and Africa.Revealed: how climate breakdown is supercharging toll of extreme weatherRead moreThe US is on the brink of passing landmark climate legislation at home, but collectively the world’s governments are still not doing enough to avoid breaching agreed temperature goals. The goal of limiting heating to 1.5C is “on life support” with a weakening pulse, António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, warned last month.“US-China relations have always been a rollercoaster and we often witness flare-ups, but while you can freeze talks, you cannot freeze climate impacts,” said Laurence Tubiana, chief executive of the European Climate Foundation and a key architect of the Paris climate accords.“It’s in the self-interest of China and the US to act on climate and start talking. Indeed, China recognizes its own self-interest to act; it is still committed to Paris and is moving forward on domestic pledges around methane and coal phasedown.”The US and China have accused each other of not doing enough to cut planet-heating emissions at various points in recent years. China attacked US “selfishness” when then-president Donald Trump rolled back various environmental protections in 2017, while Joe Biden, Trump’s successor, last year claimed the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, had made a “big mistake” by not attending the Cop26 climate summit in Scotland.However, the two powers achieved a breakthrough at the same talks in Glasgow in November, agreeing a surprise plan to work together “with urgency” on slashing emissions. Xie Zhenhua, the head of China’s delegation, said both countries must “accelerate a green and low carbon transition”. John Kerry, the US climate envoy, acknowledged that the nations have “no shortage of differences” but that “cooperation is the only way to get this job done. This is about science, about physics.”This rapprochement on climate has helped foster collaboration between US and Chinese organizations, as well as providing leadership to other countries, according to Nate Hultman, a former aide to Kerry and now director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.“The US and China working together is an important dimension of addressing climate change, it has the potential to motivate others to do more,” said Hultman.“The broader relationship is very complex but both countries understand this is not just a bilateral issue, there is a global dimension to this. That is what I hope will bring them back together. Hopefully this suspension is brief and they can get back to the table as soon as possible.”Hultman said that while high-level climate talks could now be curtailed, other bilateral collaboration may continue, although details on this are still scant. Regardless of the situation between the US and China, progress could still be made at the Cop27 talks in Egypt, he insisted.“This has been challenging and at times we are going to stall out,” Hultman said. “But Cop27 won’t just crash out if the US and China don’t iron out their differences. We would have to focus on what else can be done as an international community.”TopicsEnvironmentChinaClimate crisisUS politicsCop26Cop27analysisReuse this content More

Dick Cheney attacks Donald Trump as ‘greatest threat to our republic’Vice-president under George W Bush denounces, in campaign ad for daughter Liz, ‘coward … who lost his election, and lost big’ Dick Cheney has branded Donald Trump the greatest “threat to our republic”, in a new campaign ad for his daughter, Liz Cheney, who is running for re-election in Wyoming.“In our nation’s 236-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” said Cheney, who served as vice-president for two terms under George W Bush.Alex Jones: Sandy Hook family seeks punitive damages beyond $4.1m awardRead moreCheney said: “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.“He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big. I know it, he knows it, and deep down I think most Republicans know it.”Cheney went on to speak about how proud he was of his daughter “for standing up to the truth, doing what’s right, honoring her oath to the constitution when so many in our party are too scared to do so”.The one-minute ad featured the elder Cheney’s sharpest public attacks against Trump to date. Best known as the most powerful vice-president in American history, and a major figure in leading the US to war in Iraq, he has taken to defending his daughter in her fight against Trump.“There’s nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never near the Oval Office. And she will succeed,” he said in the ad.The younger Cheney has been widely praised from liberals as vice-chairwoman of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack. Cheney has been one of Trump’s most pointed critics, accusing him of violating the constitution for his role in the insurrection.In return, she has been largely ostracized from her party. Cheney faces an uphill re-election battle against the Trump-backed candidate Harriet Hageman, who maintains that the 2020 election was stolen.“Liz Cheney has long forgotten she works for Wyoming (or perhaps she never knew), not the Radical Democrats,” Hageman tweeted on Thursday. “Wyoming deserves a Congresswoman who will represent us AND our conservative values. It’s time to retire elitist Liz Cheney.”Though Cheney has at least a million dollars more in donations to her campaign against Hageman, she was 22 points behind Hageman in a July poll conducted by the Casper Star-Tribune.In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Cheney said she does not expect to lose on 16 August.“I really believe that the people of Wyoming fundamentally understand how important fidelity to the constitution is – understand how important it is that we fight for those fundamental principles on which everything else is based,” she said.TopicsRepublicansWyomingUS politicsDick CheneyDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More