US Politics

Biden has concluded his remarks in Massachusetts, where he spoke at the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset that will be turned into a cable manufacturing facility for the offshore wind industry. “This Congress, not withstanding the leadership of that men and women that are here today has, failed in its duty,” Biden said. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government actions for the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that the president possesses.”“Again, it sounds like hyperbole, our children and grandchildren are counting on us,” he continued. “If we don’t keep it below 1.5 degrees centigrade, we lose it all. You don’t get to turn it around. And the world is counting on us.”Declaring “the world is counting on us,” President Joe Biden announced actions to address climate change and blamed Republicans in Congress for not doing their part to keep temperatures from rising to even more disastrous levels. At the Capitol, lawmakers heard an address from Ukraine’s first lady asking for more weapons to fight off the Russians, while senators are weighing a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights.Here are some of the highlights from today:
A bipartisan group of senators announced a deal on reforming loopholes in the electoral college that Donald Trump tried to exploit in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection.
Rudy Giuliani, an attorney to Trump, has lost his appeal against a subpoena from a Georgia grand jury.
Trump called a top Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin recently and pressed him to decertify the results of the 2020 election in the state.
Rusty Bowers, the speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives who testified before the January 6 committee last month, has been kicked out of the Republican party.
John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, gave his first interview since suffering a stroke.
As he described his experience with pollution during the speech in Massachusetts, Biden made a surprising allusion to having cancer, which he hasn’t mentioned in the past.Biden was describing growing up near petroleum refineries, and how his mother would have to use her car’s wipers to get oil off the windshield when the weather would get cold. “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer”, Biden said. At 79 years old, questions about Biden’s fitness to serve as president are not new, and he’s followed his predecessors’ practice in sharing health updates from his doctor. In the most recent summary from November of last year, there was no indication Biden had cancer or any other major health issues. The closest it came was noting that “several localized non-melanoma skin cancers” were removed before he became president.The White House has outlined the steps Biden plans to take to fight climate change, which do not include the emergency declaration some of his Democratic allies have called on him to make.These include the creation of the first-ever Wind Energy Area in the Gulf of Mexico, which would cover 700,000 acres and generate enough electricity for three million homes, as well as steps to spur further wind developments off the Atlantic coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will also spend $2.3 billion on infrastructure to make Americans more resilient to heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and other climate-driven disasters. There are also plans to help people pay for cooling costs.Biden has concluded his remarks in Massachusetts, where he spoke at the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset that will be turned into a cable manufacturing facility for the offshore wind industry. “This Congress, not withstanding the leadership of that men and women that are here today has, failed in its duty,” Biden said. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government actions for the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that the president possesses.”“Again, it sounds like hyperbole, our children and grandchildren are counting on us,” he continued. “If we don’t keep it below 1.5 degrees centigrade, we lose it all. You don’t get to turn it around. And the world is counting on us.”Biden has taken Republicans in Congress to task for failing to pass legislation to fight climate change.“My message today is this: since Congress is not acting as as it should, and these guys here are,” he said, gesturing to Democratic lawmakers in attendance, before continuing, “We’re not getting many Republican votes. This is an emergency, an emergency, and I will look at it that way.”He repeated his pledge to “use my executive power to combat climate crisis in the absence of congressional action.”Republicans have indeed been unreceptive to his administration’s attempts to fight climate change and spur investment in green technology. However, Democrats were hoping to use their dominance in the House and the Senate’s reconciliation procedure to pass some proposals fighting climate change unilaterally – until Joe Manchin said last week he wouldn’t support them.President Joe Biden has started his speech in Massachusetts, where he’s set to announce measures to fight climate change after his legislative agenda to address US emissions stalled.“I come here today with a message,” Biden said as his speech began. “As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger. The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.”The January 6 committee will hold its last scheduled hearing tomorrow, though its investigation continues. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports on the latest development in the Secret Service’s allegedly accidental deletion of text messages from the time of the attack:The Secret Service turned over just one text message to the House January 6 committee on Tuesday, in response to a subpoena compelling the production of all communications from the day before and the day of the US Capitol attack, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The Secret Service told the panel the single text was the only message responsive to the subpoena, the sources said, and while the agency vowed to conduct a forensic search for any other text or phone records, it indicated such messages were likely to prove irrecoverable.House investigators also learned that the texts were seemingly lost as part of an agency-wide reset of phones on 27 January 2021, the sources said – 11 days after Congress first requested the communications and two days after agents were reminded to back up their phones.Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources sayRead moreA bipartisan group of senators has just announced a deal to reform the procedure for counting electoral votes in order to prevent the sort of meddling that former president Donald Trump tried to pull off on January 6.The lawmakers have agreed to two bills that would reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs how electoral votes are counted following a presidential election. Citing ambiguities in the law, Trump and his attorneys pushed his vice president Mike Pence to disrupt the counting of electoral votes that showed he lost the 2020 election, sparking calls for the 135-year-old law to be reformed.“Through numerous meetings and debates among our colleagues as well as conversations with a wide variety of election experts and legal scholars, we have developed legislation that establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President. We urge our colleagues in both parties to support these simple, commonsense reforms,” the group of 16 senators said in a joint statement.The first bill is called the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, and would fix ambiguities in the existing law while clarifying when an incoming administration can access federal resources.The Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act is the second proposal, and would up criminal penalties against people convicted of intimidating or threatening candidates, voters and poll workers, require election records to be preserved, help the US Postal Service deal with mail-in ballots and reauthorize for five years a commission that works with states to improve their voting practices.“The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” warns a new study that looks into the chances of political violence. Ed Pilkington digs into it:One in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances, a new mega-survey has found.A team of medical and public health scientists at the University of California, Davis enlisted the opinions of almost 9,000 people across the country to explore how far willingness to engage in political violence now goes.They discovered that mistrust and alienation from democratic institutions have reached such a peak that substantial minorities of the American people now endorse violence as a means towards political ends. “The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” the scientists warn.A hardcore rump of the US population, the survey recorded – amounting to 3% or by extrapolation 7 million people – believe that political violence is usually or always justified. Almost one in four of the respondents – equivalent to more than 60 million Americans – could conceive of violence being justified “to preserve an American way of life based on western European traditions”.Most alarmingly, 7.1% said they would be willing to kill a person to advance an important political goal. The UC Davis team points out that, extrapolated to US society at large, that is the equivalent of 18 million Americans.One in five US adults condone ‘justified’ political violence, mega-survey findsRead moreJohn Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and Democratic candidate for US Senate, has said he has “nothing to hide” about his health after suffering a stroke, and expressed confidence he can beat the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in a race key to deciding control of the chamber in November.“I would never be in this if we were not absolutely, 100% able to run fully and to win — and we believe that we are,” Fetterman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in his first interview since suffering the stroke in May.The Post-Gazette reports: “Mr Fetterman, 52, said he has ‘no physical limits’, walks four to five miles every day in 90-degree heat, understands words properly and hasn’t lost any of his memory. He struggles with hearing sometimes, he said, and may ‘miss a word’ or ‘slur two together’, but he said it doesn’t happen often and that he’s working with a speech therapist.”Fetterman enjoys consistent poll leads over Oz and has dramatically outraised him, despite Oz attracting the endorsement of Donald Trump.You can read the interview here.Pete Buttigieg fended off a Republican who used a transportation hearing to ask if Joe Biden’s cabinet had discussed using the 25th amendment to remove the president from office, saying: “I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle.”The transportation secretary was appearing in front of the House transportation committee on Tuesday. Amid discussion of policy, the Texas representative Troy Nehls decided to go in a more partisan direction.“We now see the mainstream media questioning President Biden’s mental state, and for good reason,” Nehls said. “Sadly, he shakes hands with ghosts and imaginary people, and he falls off bicycles. Even at the White House Easter celebration, the Easter Bunny had to guide him back into his safe place.”Aides stood behind Nehls, showing blown-up pictures.Biden, 79, fell off his bike in Delaware last month, to considerable glee on the right.He told reporters: “I’m good.”But with the president beset by domestic and international crises, some compared his awkward moment with one in 1979, when Jimmy Carter, who would turn out to be a one-term Democratic president, was attacked by a rabbit while fishing from a boat.Nehls asked: “Have you spoken to cabinet members about implementing the 25th amendment on President Biden?”Buttigieg, a keen cyclist himself, said: “First of all, I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle. And, I will look beyond the insulting nature of that question and make clear to you that the president of the United States …”Nehls interrupted.Buttigieg said, “Of course not,” then said Biden was “as vigorous a colleague or boss as I have ever had the pleasure of working with”.‘Glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle’: Buttigieg dismisses Republican claims about Biden’s healthRead moreWe’re expecting a major speech from Joe Biden soon on his efforts to fight climate change, which Congress lacks the votes to deal with. That doesn’t mean lawmakers aren’t busy; they’ve heard an address from Ukraine’s first lady asking for more weapons to fight off the Russians, and senators are weighing a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights.Here’s what has happened today so far:
Rudy Giuliani, an attorney to former president Donald Trump, has lost his appeal against a subpoena from a Georgia grand jury.
Trump called a top Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin recently and pressed him to decertify the results of the 2020 election in the state.
Rusty Bowers, the speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives who spoke to the January 6 committee last month, has been kicked out of the Republican party.
Former president Donald Trump’s legal adviser Rudy Giuliani will have to talk to a Georgia grand jury sometime next month after his legal challenge against a subpoena failed, the Associated Press reports.Earlier this month, the grand jury in Fulton county, which includes Atlanta, subpoenaed Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal team as part of their probe into his campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, where voters chose Joe Biden.Giuliani challenged the subpoena, but as the AP reports, he didn’t seem to put much effort into the appeal, failing to show up for a court hearing where he could explain why he shouldn’t have to testify.The grand jury has also summoned Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, who has been challenging his subpoena.Georgia grand jury subpoenas Trump lawyers over effort to overturn electionRead moreGetting the Respect for Marriage Act through the Democratic-led House of Representatives is one thing, but could it pass the Senate? From what reporters on Capitol Hill are saying today, it doesn’t seem impossible.The bill won the votes of all Democrats as well as 47 Republicans when it passed Congress’s lower chamber yesterday. Assuming Democrats unanimously support it in the Senate, it would need the support of 10 Republicans to overcome the inevitable filibuster blocking its passage. According to CNN, several Republican senators have already said they’d vote for it:Thom Tillis, GOP senator from NC, told me he “probably will” support bill to codify same-sex marriage. Bill might get 60 votes, GOP senators say. Vote timing in Senate is unclear.— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
Thune told me he will take a “hard look” at bill“But if and when (Schumer) brings a bill to the floor we’ll take a hard look at it. As you saw there was pretty good bipartisan support in the House yesterday and I expect there’d probably be the same thing you’d see” in Senate— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
Asked about some of his fellow Republicans saying a vote on same-sex marriage is just a messaging exercise, Rob Portman told me: It’s an “important message,” and said: “I think this is an issue that many Americans, regardless of political affiliation, feel has been resolved.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
Congress is working on a lot of bills at the moment as the Democratic majority tries to make the most of the time remaining before November’s midterm elections, in which they could lose control of one or both chambers. Yesterday, Lois Beckett reports that the House passed a measure to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights – which are currently protected by a supreme court ruling that could be overturned:The US House has passed a bill protecting the right to same-sex and interracial marriages, a vote that comes amid concerns that the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade could jeopardize other rights.Forty-seven House Republicans supported the legislation, called the Respect for Marriage Act, including some who have publicly apologized for their past opposition to gay marriage. But more than three-quarters of House Republicans voted against the bill, with some claiming it was a “political charade”.All 220 House Democrats supported the bill, which is expected to be blocked by Republican opposition in a politically divided Senate.US House passes bill to protect right to same-sex and interracial marriageRead more More

Biden unveils extreme heat plan – but doesn’t declare climate emergencyInitiatives are aimed at helping salvage the president’s tattered climate agenda after Joe Manchin delivered a major blow last week Facing the disintegration of his climate agenda as ferocious heatwaves hit large parts of the world, Joe Biden has unveiled a new plan to push billions of dollars to US cities and states to help them cope better with extreme heat.The president stopped short, however, of declaring a climate emergency.Biden outlined the new actions in a speech on Wednesday at a former coal plant in Massachusetts, which is now part of an offshore windfarm project.“As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger,” Biden said. “And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger. The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.”02:45The initiatives are aimed at helping salvage the president’s tattered climate agenda, which has endured a torrid month.Last week, Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democratic senator who owns a coal company, appeared to rule out supporting a new clean energy bill, seemingly dooming it in the evenly split Senate.The blow arrived just two weeks after the conservative-dominated supreme court restricted the ability of the federal government to curb emissions from power plants.Biden, speaking from a lectern set up on a rock pile to an audience that included Democratic legislators, said: “Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world. So my message today is this: since Congress is not acting as it should – and these guys here are, but we’re not getting many Republican votes – this is an emergency. An emergency. And I will look at it that way.”Alarm as fastest growing US cities risk becoming unlivable from climate crisisRead moreBiden’s actions include $2.3bn in funding to help communities prepare for heatwaves, droughts and floods, new guidance that allows the federal government to help provide cooling centers and air conditioning, and new planned offshore wind energy leases for the Gulf of Mexico coast.“Right now, there are millions of people suffering from extreme heat at home so my team is also working with the states to deploy $385m right now. For the first time, states will be able to use federal funds to pay for air conditioners in homes, set up community cooling centres in schools where people can get through these extreme heat crises.”The stakes of inaction on the climate crisis have been made starkly apparent this week, with more than 100 million Americans in grip of a dangerous heatwave that has pushed temperatures as high as 115F (46C) in parts of the country.Elsewhere, disastrous wildfires have strafed France, Spain and Portugal, and the UK has endured its first ever recorded day of 40C heat.The White House said the heatwaves showed the climate crisis is a “clear and present danger” to the US.Climate campaigners hoped Biden would declare a climate state of emergency. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said that wouldn’t happen on Wednesday but added that the option is “still on the table”.The lack of such a declaration, or any sweeping ban of oil and gas drilling on public lands, is unlikely to satisfy those who have called for more vigorous action.“Biden must declare a climate emergency, ban crude oil exports and halt new fossil fuel infrastructure, including pipelines and export terminals,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.“The clock is rapidly ticking towards inevitable, irreversible climate catastrophe. There is no more time to lose.”Some Democrats have urged the president to declare a national emergency, which would allow him to block crude oil imports or direct the military to work on renewable energy production.“For too long we have been waiting for a single piece of legislation, and a single Senate vote, to take bold action on our climate crisis,” a group of senators including the leading progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, wrote to Biden this week.“As a result, we urge you to put us on an emergency footing and aggressively use your executive powers to address the climate crisis.”But it is unclear whether such an extraordinary use of presidential powers, normally used in a military context, would survive if challenged in the rightwing-dominated supreme court, or if it would be enough to make a significant dent in planet-heating emissions.“Declaring a climate emergency doesn’t lower any emissions,” conceded Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island. “You have to move on to acting like it’s a climate emergency, and I’m looking forward to those steps.”Biden may take further action this week by directing new regulations to cut pollution from cars, trucks and power plants.But the window of opportunity to avoid disastrous climate change is rapidly closing.Scientists have said the world must slash emissions in half this decade, and phase them out entirely by 2050, if catastrophically worse heatwaves, floods, drought and other climate impacts are to be averted. The US will fall about halfway short of such a goal absent any significant congressional action, even with presidential orders, analysts have forecast.“President Biden cannot do it alone,” said Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association. “We urge Congress to get back to the table and come to a consensus on clean energy provisions that our country so desperately needs.”Biden’s remarks on Wednesday were attended by political allies including John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate; Massachusetts senators Warren and Ed Markey; Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Massachusetts congressmen Jake Auchincloss and Bill Keating.The president promised executive actions in the coming weeks. “When it comes to fighting climate change, I will not take no for an answer. I will do everything in my power to clean our air and water, protect our people’s health, to win the clean energy future.”In an unexpected digression, he also recalled growing up in Claymont, Delaware, near polluting oil refineries. “You had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer.”The White House released a health summary from Biden’s doctor last November that said: “He has had several localized, non-melanoma skin cancers removed with Mohs surgery before he started his presidency.”Climate activists applauded Biden’s pledge to do more to tackle global heating but some lamented the lack of an emergency declaration.“President Biden’s announcements, while welcome, don’t even scratch the surface of what’s needed and what communities suffering most are demanding,” said Collin Rees, US program manager at Oil Change International. “Biden’s climate legacy hangs in the balance – we’re in desperate need of bold leadership, not tinkering around the edges while the world burns.”Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, added: “Young people are tired of receiving scraps from our government. President Biden must immediately declare a climate emergency, and do everything in his executive power to confront the climate crisis.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsExtreme weatherClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More

Ivana Trump funeral: Donald Trump and children attend ‘wonderful send-off’Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric – Ivana’s three children with her ex-husband – gather for memorial at Catholic church in Manhattan Ivana Trump, the businesswoman who helped her husband build an empire that launched him to the presidency, was celebrated at a funeral mass in New York City on Wednesday.Ivana Trump: a life in picturesRead moreAt St Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Ivana’s three children with the former president Donald Trump – Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric – arrived with family members just before 1.40pm, before the gold casket was taken into the church.Donald Trump, Melania, and their son, Barron, entered the church through the side door.Tiffany Trump, the daughter of the former president and Marla Maples, for whom Donald Trump divorced Ivana, also attended the service. So did family friends including the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, and Charles Kushner, a real estate developer and the father of Ivanka Trump’s husband. The fashion designer Dennis Basso, a longtime friend of Ivana Trump, was also among the mourners.“It was an elegant and wonderful send-off for Ivana Trump,” said publicist R Couri Hay, an attendee. “The church was blanketed in red flowers, red roses – Ivana’s favorite flowers. It was majestic, it was sober.“I would say that the church was drenched in tears,” Hay also said.The Trump family announced last week that Ivana, who was 73, died at her Manhattan home. Authorities said the death was an accident, blunt impact injuries to the torso the cause.Ivana and Donald Trump were married from 1977 to 1992. In the 1980s they were a power couple and she became well known in her own right, instantly recognizable with her blond hair in an updo and glamorous look.Ivana Trump took part in her husband’s businesses, managing one of his Atlantic City casinos and picking out some of the design elements in New York City’s Trump Tower.Their divorce was ugly but in recent years they were friendly. Ivana Trump was an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and said they spoke on a regular basis.On Wednesday, press congregated across the street from the church, in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side. Several secret service agents were positioned in front of the building. Police set up metal barricades.Some passersby paused to take in the activity. Marilyn Greeley, who lives nearby, said she had not known Ivana, but she saw her in a movie theater years ago.“It’s sad,” Greeley said. “Obviously, you think about how she died.”A woman who identified herself as Elaine was walking south on Lexington Avenue.“I think it’s very sad,” she said. “She fell down the stairs.”Marie-Noelle Levin, who said she met Ivana several times, came to a corner across from the church to pay her respects.“It’s very hard for me to cry, but here I am crying,” Levin said, wiping a tear.Michael Powers, a neighborhood resident, said: “I think it’s really sad that she died the way she did. She was beloved by New York City.”At about 3.30pm, Ivana’s casket was carried out of the church. Her three children, grandchildren, Donald Trump, Melania, Barron, as well as other relatives, exited the church. They left shortly thereafter.TopicsDonald TrumpNew YorkDonald Trump JrUS politicsIvanka TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Aipac hails Democrat’s defeat for not being sufficiently pro-IsraelDonna Edwards, leading contender in Maryland primary for safe seat, lost after pro-Israeli groups poured millions to block her Pro-Israel groups have heralded the defeat of a leading Democratic contender for Congress after pouring millions of dollars into blocking her election, for failing to be sufficiently supportive of Israeli government policies.Donna Edwards, who was for months the favourite to win the primary for a safe seat in Maryland, lost to Glenn Ivey on Tuesday after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and allied groups waded into the race.Aipac proclaimed Ivey’s victory, by 51% to 35%, as evidence that “being pro-Israel is both good policy and good politics”.Edwards’s defeat will be taken as a warning by other Democratic contenders not to criticise Israeli policies, or risk a well-funded campaign against them.Aipac and its allies spent nearly $7m through political action committees to block Edwards, who served eight years as the first Black woman elected to Congress from Maryland before losing a bid for the Senate in 2016.Edwards was endorsed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other leading Democrats.But she angered some pro-Israel groups during her earlier stint in Congress by failing to back Israeli attacks on Gaza and for her support of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran when it was strongly opposed by the Israeli government.Following Ivey’s victory, Aipac declared it had helped nine “pro-Israel Democrats defeat their anti-Israel opponents in 2022!”.Another group, Pro-Israel America, also heralded Edwards defeat.It said: “Ivey’s victory once again demonstrates that strong pro-Israel stances are both good policy and politics, as his commitment to advancing the US-Israel relationship starkly contrasted with the positions of the candidate he defeated.”However, the campaign against Edwards rarely focused on her positions on Israel and much of the spending that went to saturate the airwaves with hostile advertising questioning her work ethic came from Republican billionaires.Aipac’s political action committee, the United Democracy Project, has received substantial donations from Trump campaign funders Paul Singer and Bernie Marcus, as well as the billionaire Israeli-American Democratic donor, Haim Saban.A more liberal pro-Israel group, J Street, which backed Edwards, said it was “extremely alarmed” by the part played by Aipac’s money in deciding Democratic races.“They targeted [Edwards] for defeat simply for holding principled, mainstream Democratic views about US diplomatic leadership in the Middle East, while their spokespeople baselessly smeared her as ‘anti-Israel’. It’s a deeply harmful trend we’ve seen again and again in this cycle.”J Street has warned that Aipac and its Republican funders are trying to drive the Democrats “into more rightward direction on Israel and foreign policy” by intimidating candidates into “feeling that they cannot offer good faith criticism of Israeli policy, that they cannot vocally support Palestinian rights”.TopicsMarylandDemocratsUS politicsIsraelUS foreign policyMiddle East and north AfricanewsReuse this content More

Arizona Republican censured by party over testimony on resisting TrumpRusty Bowers, the Arizona house speaker, testified to the House January 6 committee in June Rusty Bowers, the Arizona house speaker who testified to the January 6 committee about how he resisted Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the sun belt state, has been formally censured by his own Republican party.Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican party, said on Tuesday its “executive committee formally censured Rusty Bowers tonight – he is no longer a Republican in good standing and we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary”.Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources sayRead moreWard released a copy of the formal censure, which included “killing all meaningful election integrity bills” among Bowers’ alleged misdeeds and called on Arizona voters to “expel him permanently from office”.Bowers testified to the House January 6 committee on 21 June. Discussing Trump’s claim that Bowers told him the Arizona election was “rigged”, Bowers said: “Anyone, anywhere, anytime I said the election was rigged, that would not be true.”Bowers also recalled a conversation with Rudy Giuliani in which Trump’s personal lawyer, a key player in the attempt to prove mass electoral fraud, allegedly said: “We’ve got lots of theories but we just don’t have the evidence.”Bowers also spoke about how his Christian faith motivated his defiance of Trump, and described threats made to his safety by Trump supporters while his daughter lay mortally ill.Like Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the January 6 committee and its vice-chair, Bowers was given a Profile in Courage award for his resistance to Trump.After the hearing at which he appeared, though, it emerged that Bowers had previously told the Associated Press: “If [Trump] is the nominee [in 2024], if he was up against [Joe] Biden, I’d vote for him again. Simply because what he did the first time, before Covid, was so good for the country. In my view it was great.”This month, Bowers told the Deseret News he might have changed his mind.“I don’t want the choice of having to look at [Trump] again,” he said. “And if it comes, I’ll be hard pressed. I don’t know what I’ll do.“But I’m not inclined to support him. Because he doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the morals and the platform of my party …“That guy is just – he’s his own party. It’s a party of intimidation and I don’t like it. So I’m not going to be boxed by, ‘Who am I gonna vote for?’ Because that’s between me and God. But I’m not happy with him.“And I’m not happy with the thought that a robust primary can’t produce somebody better than Trump, for crying out loud.”He also told Business Insider: “Much of what [Trump] has done has been tyrannical, especially of late. I think that there are elements of tyranny that anybody can practice on any given day, and I feel like I’ve seen a lot of it.”TopicsArizonaRepublicansUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

Statehood or independence? Puerto Rico’s status at forefront of political debateUS lawmakers introduced a bill to determine the island’s status but how Puerto Rico should pave its path toward decolonization is the root of the debate Luz Rivera Sotomayor spent most of her days in church praying for her family’s health before she was diagnosed with dystonia in 2020. Two years after her diagnosis with the muscular system disorder, Rivera became bedridden at 59 and survives in Puerto Rico on what little she gets from a temporary program for low-income families.Because she lives in the US territory, Rivera is one of the thousands of Puerto Ricans who doesn’t qualify for the federal supplemental security income benefits intended to help people with disabilities in US states. In April, the supreme court reaffirmed in United States v Vaello-Madero that Congress is constitutionally allowed to treat territorial residents differently when extending federal benefits.“My sister has been blessed because someone in the community always comes around with what she needs,” said Jaqueline Rivera Sotomayor, who regularly takes care of Rivera Sotomayor, who lost her ability to speak. “But I can’t imagine what other people go through just to get by.”The consequences of Puerto Rico’s status has been on the forefront of political debates on the island in recent weeks, with a clash in opinions on whether the territory should become a US state, independent, or fall under a free association agreement.On Friday, US lawmakers introduced a bill that proposes a binding plebiscite – or direct electoral vote – to determine the island’s status. The draft was announced in May by the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer; Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner, Jenniffer González-Colon; and Representative Nydia Velázquez.The Puerto Rico Status Act would not include as an option the island’s current commonwealth status, a system that has lost support since the federal government established an unelected fiscal board in 2016, with authority to commandeer the local political branches, after the island entered bankruptcy.“In the aftermath of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy, there appears to be a far-reaching consensus that the island’s colonial condition must come to an end,” said Rafael Cox Alomar, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, who has done research and analysis focused on Puerto Rico’s status and history. “The idea that Puerto Rico ceased to be a colony in 1952 after the inauguration of its own constitution no longer stands.”But exactly how Puerto Rico should pave its path toward decolonization is the root of the island’s debate. The bill, which is highly unlikely to advance in the Senate, proposes the plebiscite take place in November 2023. Puerto Rico’s current administration, led by Governor Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, believes becoming the 51st state would eradicate the island’s colonial status.Some statehood supporters believe the bill is redundant, since the island held a referendum in November 2020 and ended with 53% of the votes in favor of statehood. However, only about half of registered voters participated, and the referendum was not approved by the US Department of Justice under the Trump administration even before the vote took place.The opposing party to the island’s current administration, which has traditionally supported Puerto Rico’s commonwealth formula, is quickly losing support within the island and among its own members. The decades-old Popular Democratic party is expected to hold a meeting later this year to determine whether it supports the island’s territorial status or the option of free association, which puts into question the party’s future.“If you’re going to deal with colonialism, all sides have to agree the status quo is not the solution,” said Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the US House of natural resources committee, which oversees affairs in US territories. After presenting the bill on Friday, Grijalva expects the committee to vote on it as soon as Wednesday.In June, Grijalva and other federal legislators held a public forum in Puerto Rico and heard dozens of testimonies from political party members, community advocates and interest groups to help legislators revise the proposed measure.Puerto Rican groups dedicated to mobilizing communities around the need for legislation that resolves the status issues were present in these discussions. The group Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora suggested better defining the economic and cultural consequences of statehood, while others advocated for the formation of a citizens’ assembly to determine the island’s future instead of the bill.“The people of Puerto Rico must be the protagonists of their process, it can’t be prewritten by someone else,” said Javier Smith, special projects coordinator at Vamos Puerto Rico, a community organizing group. “If we’re going to keep the same subordinate political and economic structures, we’re not really changing anything.”The forum came before the UN special committee on decolonization approved a draft resolution recognizing Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination and independence for the fortieth time. Dozens of independence supporters for Puerto Rico protested near the United Nations’ headquarters in New York later that day.Rivera Sotomayor, who is taking care of her sister in Adjuntas, said she welcomes any process that solidifies Puerto Rico’s status in relation to the US, one way or another. For now, she is relying on their mother’s Social Security benefits to help cover the costs of her sister’s medications.“This is terrible,” said Rivera Sotomayor. “When you have a loved one, bedridden like this and in need of medication and diapers, the situation gets frustrating.”TopicsPuerto RicoUS politicsAmericasfeaturesReuse this content More

Perhaps it’s time to kick Joe Manchin out of the Democratic partyRobert ReichAt every opportunity, Manchin has sabotaged Democrats’ agenda. What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y After putting a final spear through the heart of what remained of Biden’s and the Democrat’s domestic agenda, West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin now rejects any tax increases on big corporations or the wealthy – until inflation is no longer a problem.This is rich, in every sense of the word. Raising taxes on big American corporations and the wealthy would not fuel inflation. It would slow inflation by reducing demand – and do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt lower-income Americans (such as those living in, say, West Virginia).As a 76-year-old let me say: Joe Biden is too old to run again | Robert ReichRead moreManchin’s state is one of the poorest in America. West Virginia ranks 45th in education, 47th in healthcare, 48th in overall prosperity and 50th in infrastructure.Tax revenue from corporations and billionaires could be used to rebuild West Virginia, among other places that need investment around America.But Manchin doesn’t seem to give a cluck. After all, the Democrats’ agenda – which Manchin has obliterated – included pre-K education, free community college, child subsidies, Medicare dental and vision benefits, paid family leave, elder care, and much else – all of enormous value to West Virginia. (On a per-person basis, West Virginians would have benefitted more than the residents of all but two other states.)It’s not as if Manchin has championed anything else Democrats have sought. Remember Manchin’s “bipartisan compromise” on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act? Nothing came of it, of course.Nothing has come of any of the fig leaves Manchin has conjured to cover his unrelenting opposition to every other Democratic goal.What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y.Few if any American-based global corporations or billionaires reside in West Virginia, but lots of money flows to Manchin from corporations and billionaires residing elsewhere.Manchin has not only taken more campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal companies than any other senator (as well as dividends from his own coal company), he has one of the largest war chests from all big American corporations.If the Democratic party had any capacity to discipline its lawmakers or hold them accountable (if pigs could fly), it would at least revoke Manchin’s chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.To continue to allow this crucial position to be occupied by the man who has single-handedly blocked one of the last opportunities to save the Earth is a thumb in the eye of the universe.I’m told the Democrats don’t dare take this step for fear Manchin would leave the Democratic party and switch his allegiance to the Republicans.Why exactly would this be so terrible? Manchin already acts like a Republican.Oh, no! they tell me. If Manchin switches parties, Democrats would lose control over the Senate.Well, I have news for Democrats. They already lost control over the Senate.In fact, the way things are right now, Biden and the Democrats have the worst of both worlds. They look like they control the Senate, as well as the House and the presidency. But they can’t get a damn thing done because Manchin (and his intermittent sidekick, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema) won’t let them.So after almost two years of appearing to run the entire government, Democrats have accomplished almost nothing of what they came to Washington to do.America is burning and flooding but Democrats won’t enact climate measures.Voting rights and reproductive rights are being pulverized but Democrats won’t protect them.Gun violence is out of control but Democrats come up with a miniature response.Billionaires and big corporations are siphoning off more national wealth and income than in living memory and paying a lower tax rate (often zero), but Democrats won’t raise taxes on big corporations and the wealthy.Which means that in November’s midterm elections, Democrats will have to go back to voters and say: “We promised a lot but we delivered squat, so please vote for us again.”This does not strike me as a compelling message.By kicking Manchin out of the party, Democrats could at least go into the midterms with a more realistic pitch: “It looked like we had control of the Senate, but we didn’t. Now that you know who the real Democrats are, give us the power and we will get it done.”Maybe this way they’ll pick up more real Democratic senators, and do it.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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One in five US adults condone ‘justified’ political violence, mega-survey findsAs mistrust and alienation from democratic institutions peaks, researchers explore how willing Americans are to commit violence One in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances, a new mega-survey has found.A team of medical and public health scientists at the University of California, Davis enlisted the opinions of almost 9,000 people across the country to explore how far willingness to engage in political violence now goes.Democratic members of Congress arrested during pro-choice protest Read moreThey discovered that mistrust and alienation from democratic institutions have reached such a peak that substantial minorities of the American people now endorse violence as a means towards political ends. “The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” the scientists warn.A hard-core rump of the US population, the survey recorded – amounting to 3% or by extrapolation 7 million people – believe that political violence is usually or always justified. Almost one in four of the respondents – equivalent to more than 60 million Americans – could conceive of violence being justified “to preserve an American way of life based on western European traditions”.Most alarmingly, 7.1% said that they would be willing to kill a person to advance an important political goal. The UC Davis team points out that, extrapolated to US society at large, that is the equivalent of 18 million Americans.The study, Views of American Democracy and Society and Support for Political Violence, was led by Garen Wintemute, Sonia Robinson and Andrew Crawford and has been published on the preprint server MedRxiv. Over three weeks beginning on 3 May, the UC Davis researchers gathered the views of a representative sample of 8,620 people nationwide.The scientists set out to discover just how open individuals in America are to engaging in political violence given the pummeling US democracy has taken in recent years. Extreme political polarization, skepticism about government and democratic institutions, rising gun violence and increased firearms sales, together with the rampant spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation have combined into a toxic soup.Its consequences were on display on 6 January 2021 when hundreds of Trump supporters and white supremacists stormed the US Capitol building, leading to the deaths of seven people and scores of injuries. Congressional hearings into January 6, which are drawing to a close on Thursday, have highlighted the violence that was unleashed that day and the extent to which the insurrection was co-ordinated by extremist militia groups.Against this backdrop, the study uncovers disturbing signs of seething discontent and deep unease just beneath the surface of US society. More than two-thirds of the respondents said that they feared that the country was facing “a serious threat to democracy”.Remarkably, just over half of the sample group – 50.1% – agreed with the contention that in the next few years the US would confront another civil war.With such jitters at record levels, the survey findings point to areas of confusion within the US public realm. A robust 89% of respondents think it is very or extremely important that the US remains a democracy.Yet the survey also recorded a seemingly contradictory result – 42% agreed that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy”.The apparent contradiction between commitment to democracy and devotion to a strong leader is perhaps partly explained by the prevalence of baseless conspiracy theories and misinformation. More than one in five people surveyed subscribe to the QAnon fantasy that US institutions are “controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles”.Almost a third signed up to the dystopian vision, also propagated by QAnon, that “a storm is coming soon” to America that will “sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders”.Nearly a third endorsed the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.Another prominent influence on public views is the “great replacement theory” – the notion that traditional white American society is being supplanted by immigrants of color. The falsehood was invoked by the shooter who killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May and is a regular talking point of the primetime Fox News host Tucker Carlson.Some 41% of the UC Davis poll agreed with the idea that “in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants”. A similar proportion believe that “our American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it”.At its most extreme, a substantial minority chillingly expressed willingness to carry out specific acts of violence in the pursuit of their political objectives. More than 12% said they would be willing to “threaten or intimidate a person”, and 10% to “injure a person”.TopicsUS newsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More