US Politics

Donald Trump’s power is fading: Trumpism is the clear and present danger nowRebecca SolnitWhile the ex-president is beset by legal and financial troubles, his awful doctrine remains a malign and vigorous force in US politics Proclaiming what’s going to happen is a popular way to shrug off taking responsibility for helping to determine what’s going to happen. And it’s something we’ve seen a lot with doomspreading prophecies that Donald Trump is going to run for president or even win in 2024.One of the assumptions is that Trump will still be alive and competent to run, but the health of this sedentary shouter in his mid-70s, including the after-effects of the Covid-19 he was hospitalised for in 2020, could change.Look to external issues too, for whatever the condition of his own health, his financial health is under attack, with businesses losing money and some banks refusing to lend to him after the storming of the Capitol.It’s also worth remembering that he lost the popular vote by millions in 2016 and by more millions in 2020; he never had a mandate. The Republicans are clearly gearing up to try to steal an election again, but their chances of winning one with Trump as candidate seem slim. Currently, he is creating conflict within the Republican party with his insistence on controlling it for his own agenda and punishing dissenters.Another assumption we make when we assess Trump’s prospects is that he won’t be locked up in 2024, or that his reputation, such as it is, won’t be severely damaged even in the eyes of some who voted for him before. Even in the past couple of weeks his standing has shifted significantly. Former attorney general Bill Barr is now speaking up – to promote his book – about how Trump was clearly advised that his claims of election theft had no basis and that his strategies to overturn the results were illegal. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has woken up people around the world (or at least those who were dozing) to Vladimir Putin’s malevolence and reminded Americans of how eagerly Trump allied himself with the Russian dictator, personally and politically. Suddenly a lot of Republicans are trying to scurry away from their own pro-Putin record, which may mean distancing themselves from Trump as well. His 2019 withholding of military aid to Ukraine to try to pressure Ukrainian president Zelenskiy into supporting his lies is also being re-examined under the harsh light of this war.Additionally, Trump is facing many criminal charges, from allegations of financial dirty dealing by the Trump Organization in New York (Trump has called the various probes into the business “politically motivated”), to an investigation into whether Trump and his allies subverted election results in Georgia, where Trump claims election fraud took place. Just last week, the January 6 committee laid out a series of potential charges against the ex-president, including conspiracy to defraud the American people and obstructing an official proceeding of Congress. Trump’s domestic status seems to be shifting rapidly. He is also facing so many lawsuits that both CNN and NBC published indexes of the cases. Last month news broke that Trump had left the White House with classified documents, which he claimed he had a right to take to his home. That could be a felony, though how much appetite the Biden administration has for jailing a former president remains to be seen.Among the large array of civil charges Trump faces are E Jean Carroll’s allegations of defamation over his insult-laden denial that he raped her (he has responded that he was simply responding in the line of “official duties”) and former consigliere Michael Cohen’s case that his return to prison was triggered by Trump after Cohen released a revealing memoir. There are also suits holding Trump responsible for the January 6 insurrection both from members of Congress, and two policemen injured in the mayhem. In February the courts ruled that these civil suits can go forward, and Trump lacks the immunity that would protect him from them. Trump has initiated lawsuits of his own, but a great many have been dismissed, although he is still suing his niece, Mary Trump, for disclosing tax information about him. She in turn is suing him and two of his siblings, alleging that they defrauded her out of much of her inheritance (which they deny).Though the 14th amendment of the US constitution should ban all insurrectionists from running for elected office, it seems unlikely to be applied to 21st-century candidates the way it was to former Confederates. But still, the Georgia and New York charges are serious. All of which is to say that the road from early 2022 to late 2024 is bumpy for Trump. Popular opinion is fickle; George W Bush is Trump’s age and clearly a permanent has-been. Even Barack Obama, at 60, has strolled offstage.But even if Trump is not indisputably in the running, Trumpism is running rampant, and it’s a force to contend with in political races across the US. Trump was a super-spreader of his brand of amoral self-interest that tramples fact, truth, law and rights. The man himself is sulking in his private club in Florida – enduring effectual exile from New York, Washington – and Twitter – but to a degree, his work is done. He has got an already corrupt political party to embrace his tactics and values. The brazen lies of prominent figures in the party show that they’ve abandoned all ethics and standards, and will happily violate the oaths they took to uphold the constitution. Viral Trumpism has already merged with conspiracy theories such as QAnon, with anti-vaccine cults, with white supremacists and neo-fascists, and with the gun-fetishising groups that continue to have an ominous presence in public life.I sometimes think of the American right as a pot on the boil; what’s inside is concentrating as it shrinks. The Republican party has been losing membership for years: a Gallup poll earlier this month reports that 24% of eligible voters are registered Republican, a steady decline over the past 15 years.That’s a reminder that news stories revealing that a majority of Republicans believe something could actually mean that only a small minority of Americans do.There have been high-profile defections and general atrophy in the age of Trump. That’s the shrinking. But then there’s the concentration that renders those who remain more furious, more closed-minded, more ready to jump on any bandwagon that looks as if it leads to power, and even more rigidly committed to an increasingly rightwing agenda, even though – or maybe because – that means minority rule.For progressives, Republican desperation is a good sign, in its way. A popular party doesn’t have to suppress votes and steal elections. A party aligned with the will of the people doesn’t need to lie and cheat. Trumpism seems like a last gasp, a desperate last chance to hang on to what’s slipping away. The old Soviet-satellite aphorism “You can cut down the flowers but you can’t stop the spring” applies nicely.The future of this country is white-minority. Yet the Republican party has done its best to alienate everybody else, while the rising majority of Americans support reproductive rights, climate action and many economic justice measures. The long-term progressive future of the United States seems almost inevitable. But with Trumpism still a force, the short-term future is alarming and unpredictable, and the damage may be lasting; whether it’s the prevention of climate action or the infliction of literal and financial violence on poor and marginalised people.Enemies of authoritarianism and white supremacy have their work cut out, but the task is clear and straightforward: to protect the democratic process, upholding voting rights and free and fair elections, to try to win those elections for progressive candidates, and to articulate and defend the values behind those objectives.Trump is treading water, but this is how resistance to Trumpism works, and how it can prevail if enough people work at it hard enough.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
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Can Texas become purple? That may depend on Hispanic votersCarlos SanchezWhichever party wants to rule the state has to understand that the Latino voting bloc is not homogenous Two key congressional races along the Texas-Mexico border underscore what Latino political analysts have been screaming for years: as a voting bloc, Hispanics are not a politically homogeneous group. So Democrats must have a more nuanced strategy to win the bloc if they want to recapture political power in the state, and extend that power to the US Congress.Both congressional districts, which were up for grabs in last week’s Texas primary, begin at the Rio Grande and snake north-east to San Antonio, among the largest cities in state. One of them, the 28th congressional district, which emanates from Laredo, captured the hopes of the progressive wing of the Democratic party. The other, the 15th district, which begins in McAllen, further south, has Republicans excited about the prospects of turning that district Republican for the first time in its history, with the help of newly redrawn district lines.The lessons learned from those two races could be instructive at the top of the ticket in November. Democrats are excited about the prospects of Beto O’Rourke, from the border town of El Paso, upsetting Republican governor Greg Abbott, who must demonstrate his ability to capture the Hispanic vote to be credible on the national stage in 2024.Much of the state’s focus in last Tuesday’s primary was on the potential upset of nine-term Congressman Henry Cuellar by his former intern, Jessica Cisneros, who drew the support of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The two ended up in a runoff election set for 24 May.Cuellar’s race represents a rematch with Cisneros. Cuellar, a native of Laredo who is arguably the most powerful Texas Democrat in Congress, draws the ire of progressive Democrats who note his anti-abortion stance and his negotiations with Republicans, particularly when it came to funding President Trump’s border wall.His challenge was made more complicated when the FBI raided his home and office in Laredo in a federal investigation involving business dealings with the country of Azerbaijan. Cuellar has denied any wrongdoing and he has not been charged with anything.But the timing of the raid placed enormous clouds on his electoral prospects with early voting happening just a few weeks later. He eked out a 767-vote win over Cisneros. Two years earlier, he beat her by 2,690 votes. And while Cisneros, who is also from Laredo, likely benefited enormously from the cloud of corruption over her opponent, where her votes came from is telling.The bulk of her votes came from Bexar county, the home of San Antonio, hours from the border. Cisneros polled under 40% in border counties. All of this suggests that Cuellar’s more conservative approach to politics better resonated with voters along the border.Further south of the 28th district is the 15th congressional district, a Democratic mainstay newly redrawn by the state legislature to favor Republicans. The GOP has dominated state politics since 1994, but the border region from south Texas to El Paso in the far west portion of the state has had an insurmountable blue wall.The 15th had shared in that Democratic tradition and was once represented by John Nance Garner who went on to become Franklin D Roosevelt’s first vice-president. After the 2020 election, in which Trump did exceptionally well in the district, Republicans made the 15th a focal point.That interest grew when Republican insurance agent and businesswoman Monica De La Cruz came within 3 percentage points of upsetting the Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez in 2020. That same year, Trump came within 2 percentage points of Joe Biden in the district – the narrowest margin of any seat held by a Democrat in Texas.Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall after redistricting, Gonzalez left the 15th district to run in another district. When the legislature completed its once-a-decade redistricting process, the 15th was reshaped to enhance GOP prospects even more. In 2020, before redistricting, Biden carried the 15th by 50.4% to Trump’s 48.5%. Redistricting would have flipped those numbers, delivering a victory to Trump.Last Tuesday, De La Cruz coasted to the Republican nomination and drew more votes than the two candidates in the Democratic primary combined.While the redistricting process all but guarantees a Republican advantage in the 15th in November, south Texas overall has emerged as a Petri dish for political analysts trying to unlock the mystery to winning over Hispanic voters just as Hispanics are expected to become the majority in Texas by 2025.Hispanics who live along the border are much more conservative than Texas Democrats overall.One of the region’s open secrets is the large number of DINOs (Democrat in Name Only) that are in leadership positions. Many officials, locals quietly say, run as Democrats whether they believe in the party platform or not because running as a Republican has generally been the kiss of death. But during the Trump administration, Trump trains or caravans of cars expressing support for the former president became almost commonplace in Hidalgo county, the southern anchor of the 15th district. As one Trump supporter told me, it has become easier to come out of the Republican closet over the past few years with growing numbers of people declaring allegiance to Trump based on economic and border security issues.Then there’s the Viva Kennedy factor showing that some aspects of politics can have long memories. In 1960, when John F Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon for president, his campaign began Hispanic outreach through what were called Viva Kennedy clubs. A key conduit for this outreach was a Corpus Christi doctor named Hector P Garcia, who started the American G.I. Forum, a group that fought for equal rights for Hispanic soldiers returning from the second world war.Given Kennedy’s close victory, Garcia and other Hispanic leaders felt that the Mexican American vote had been key to his win. They expected to share in the political spoils that many leaders say never came until Lyndon Johnson became president.Since Biden took office, several Texas Hispanic leaders have spoken privately of having Viva Kennedy sentiments because Hispanics, particularly in Texas, have not fared as well politically as they had hoped with a Democrat in the White House. This feeling is exacerbated by Biden’s missteps on the issue of immigration. While security is important to border Hispanics (the US Border Patrol has long been a ticket to the middle class locally), the rhetoric of immigration can often stray into language that Hispanics find offensive.The perception that Biden has not handled the issue of immigration well leads to a perception that his administration is allowing the issue of xenophobia to fester unchallenged.This sets the stage for this year’s midterm election. De La Cruz moved early last year to take on the incumbent again and was bolstered by Republican leadership at the state and national levels. Last fall, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy endorsed De La Cruz. She also secured Trump’s endorsement.If money is a political barometer, then De La Cruz stands out among the 14 candidates, Democrat and Republican, who filed for the congressional seat. As of 9 February, she raised more than $1.7m, according to the Federal Elections Commission. That’s more than twice the amount raised by the next candidate, Republican Mauro Garza, who raised just over $500,000.Astoundingly, from a historic perspective in this traditionally Democratic stronghold, the top Democratic fund-raiser banked just over $300,000. And the two Democrats from the 15th that appear to be headed into a May runoff to oppose De La Garza raised a combined $220,000.Last week, De La Cruz became the Republican nominee for the 15th congressional district by capturing 56.5% of the GOP vote. Her vote total of 16,801 beat the combined total of the two Democrats that are headed into a runoff.The political strength of Monica De La Cruz, who would become the third Latina and first Republican Latina from Texas in Congress, is worth noting. The heterogeneity of the Hispanic vote cannot be overlooked; the party that better addresses the complexities of this electorate will be the party that has a better chance of controlling the political future of Texas.Carlos Sanchez is director of public affairs for Hidalgo county, Texas. He was a journalist for 37 years and has worked at the Washington Post and Texas Monthly magazine, as well as eight other newsrooms. He can be reached at [email protected] de la fronteraUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More

William Barr: Trump is full of bull – but I’ll vote for himBarr’s book reveals he told Trump he was ‘like a bull in a bull ring’ – in return, Trump calls his former attorney general a ‘horse’ Donald Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, told the former US president he was “like a bull in a bull ring” and “someone’s going to come and put a sword through your head”.Trump: US should put Chinese flags on F-22 jets and ‘bomb shit out of’ RussiaRead moreIn return, Trump called Barr a “horse” who had been “broken” by the radical left.Such was the state of debate in the upper echelons of the Republican party on Monday as it digested the latest round of promotion of Barr’s memoir, One Damn Thing After Another.The book will be published on Tuesday but it has been extensively trailed – including by the Guardian. On the page and in interviews, Barr says Trump is unfit for the presidency and should not be the Republican nominee in 2024.But Barr remains a staunch conservative. On Monday, he told NBC’s Today that despite it all, if Trump was the Republican nominee in 2024, he would vote for him.“Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic party, it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee,” Barr said.In his book, Barr repeatedly describes disagreements with Trump and tactics used by senior aides including the then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to distract or obstruct the erratic and often furious president.Speaking to NPR on Monday, Barr repeated a passage in his book when he said: “At one point, I said to [Trump]: ‘You know, Mr President, you’re like a bull in a bull ring and your adversaries have your number. They know how to get under your skin, and all they have to do is wave a red flag over here and you go charging and attack it.’“And I said, ‘At the end of the day, you’re going to be in the middle of the ring sweating and someone’s going to come and put a sword through your head.“He didn’t think much of that metaphor.”Trump evidently no longer thinks much of Barr. This weekend, the former president wrote a lengthy letter to Lester Holt, an NBC anchor who interviewed Barr on TV.“Bill Barr cares more about the corrupt Washington media and elite than serving the American people,” Trump wrote, as reported by Axios.“He was slow, lethargic, and I realised early on that he never had what it takes to make a great attorney general. When the radical left Democrats threatened to hold him in contempt and even worse, impeach him, he became virtually worthless for law and order and election integrity. They broke him just like a trainer breaks a horse.”Trump also said: “I would imagine that if the book is anything like him, it will be long, slow and very boring.”Critics might disagree. Reviewing the book for the Washington Post, Devlin Barrett said Trump’s second attorney general “was easily [his] most effective and important cabinet member” and Barr’s memoir showed he could “tell a good yarn and has a penchant for deadpan punchlines”.That said, Barrett wrote, Barr had really written “a defense of his tenure to fellow conservatives”.“Barr bided his time before taking one last swing,” Barrett said. “But as long as there are senior officials like Barr, there will be presidents like Trump.”The book has produced a flood of media attention, including charges that Barr is seeking to whitewash his role in some of Trump’s most controversial moments.Barr defends his handling of the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow. In particular, he focuses on his decision to release a summary of the report by Robert Mueller. In that letter, Barr cleared Trump of seeking to obstruct justice despite the special counsel laying out 10 possible instances of such potentially criminal behavior.Speaking to NBC, Barr repeated his conclusion that Trump’s claims of voter fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden were baseless – he has used the word “bullshit” – while skating over criticism for using the Department of Justice to investigate such lies.He said Trump was “responsible in the broad sense of that word” for the deadly Capitol riot over which he was impeached a second time, for inciting an insurrection.William Barr’s Trump book: self-serving narratives and tricky truths ignoredRead more“It appears that part of the plan was to send this group up to the Hill,” Barr said, of the storming of Congress by Trump supporters around which seven people died. “I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think that that was wrong.”But he also said: “I haven’t seen anything to say he was legally responsible for it in terms of incitement.”Barr also addressed an incident he left out of his book: the firing of a US attorney, Geoffrey Berman, who was supervising investigations of Trump associates and business affairs as well as an investigation of a Turkish bank which the Turkish president asked Trump to drop.“I didn’t think there was any threat to the president,” Barr told NBC, adding that the decision “was my call”.“I hadn’t really thought much of him,” he said. “I wanted to make the change.”TopicsWilliam BarrDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2020US elections 2024US Capitol attackPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

Andrew Cuomo labelled a ‘sick, pathetic man’ by New York attorney generalLetitia James launches attack after former governor, who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, decries cancel culture Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor of New York last year over sexual harassment allegations, is a “sick, pathetic man”, the state attorney general said on Sunday in a stinging rebuke.Cuomo had spoken at a Brooklyn church, complaining about cancel culture and the accusations against him and also appearing to hint at a political comeback.Andrew Cuomo ordered to give up $5.1m in pandemic book earningsRead moreLetitia James, whose investigations were part of the three-term governor’s downfall last August after she concluded he sexually harassed 11 women, said: “Serial sexual harasser Andrew Cuomo won’t even spare a house of worship from his lies.“Even though multiple independent investigations found his victims to be credible, Cuomo continues to blame everyone but himself.”The attorney general also said New Yorkers were “ready to move forward from this sick, pathetic man”.Cuomo’s first public appearance since leaving office came a week after his campaign launched a digital and TV ad campaign pushing the message that he was driven from office unfairly.In Brooklyn, Cuomo quoted the Bible as he described his problems but also attacked “political sharks” in Albany, the state capital, who he said “smelled blood”.“The actions against me were prosecutorial misconduct,” Cuomo said. “They used cancel culture to effectively overturn an election.”Cuomo resigned days after being found to have sexually harassed women. It was also found that he and aides worked to retaliate against one accuser.Several district attorneys in New York have said they found Cuomo’s accusers “credible” but available evidence was not strong enough to press criminal charges.Last month, a New York state trooper sued Cuomo, claiming he caused severe mental anguish and emotional distress by touching her inappropriately and making suggestive comments. A Cuomo spokesperson called the suit a “cheap cash extortion”.On Sunday, Cuomo said his behavior was not appropriate but did not violate the law.“I didn’t appreciate how fast the perspectives changed,” he said. “I’ve learned a powerful lesson and paid a very high price for learning that lesson. God isn’t finished with me yet.”Cuomo has not said he is running for office but he is still sitting on a multimillion-dollar campaign war chest he could use to finance another run. He used his speech on Sunday to condemn a social media-fueled climate he said was dangerous.“Any accusation can trigger condemnation without facts or due process,” he said. “We are a nation of laws, not a nation of tweets. Woe unto us if we allow that to become our new justice system.”Cuomo also said: “The Bible teaches perseverance, it teaches us to get off the mat. They broke my heart but they didn’t break my spirit. I want to take the energy that could have made me bitter and make us better.”TopicsAndrew CuomoNew YorkUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

‘We must march forward’: Kamala Harris commemorates Bloody Sunday anniversary in SelmaUS vice president takes to Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama as congressional efforts to restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act falter US vice president Kamala Harris visited Selma, Alabama on Sunday to commemorate a defining moment in the fight for the right to vote, making her trip as congressional efforts to restore the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act have faltered.Under a blazing blue sky, Harris took the stage at the foot of the bridge where in 1965 white state troopers attacked Black voting rights marchers attempting to cross.Harris called the site hallowed ground on which people fought for the “most fundamental right of America citizenship: the right to vote”.The not-surprising, very bad defeat of Biden’s attempt to protect voting | The fight to voteRead more“Today, we stand on this bridge at a different time,” Harris said before a cheering crowd of several thousand.“We again, however, find ourselves caught in between. Between injustice and justice. Between disappointment and determination … nowhere is that more clear than when it comes to the ongoing fight to secure the freedom to vote.”The nation’s first female vice president – as well as the first African American and Indian American in the role – spoke of marchers whose “peaceful protest was met with crushing violence. They were kneeling when the state troopers charged. They were praying when the billy clubs struck.”On “Bloody Sunday”, 7 March 1965, state troopers severely beat and tear-gassed peaceful demonstrators, including a young activist, the late John Lewis, who later became a longtime Georgia congressman.The images of violence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge – originally named for a Confederate general – shocked the nation and helped galvanize support for passage of the Voting Rights Act.Fifty-seven years later, Democrats are unsuccessfully trying to update the landmark law and pass additional measures to make it more convenient for people to vote. A key provision of the law was tossed out by a US supreme court decision.“In a moment of great uncertainty, those marches pressed forward and they crossed,“ Harris said. “We must do the same. We must lock our arms and march forward. We will not let setbacks stop us. We know that honoring the legacy of those who marched then demands that we continue to push Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation.”In Selma, a crowd gathered hours before Harris was scheduled to speak. Rank-and-file activists of the civil rights movement, including women who fled the beatings of Bloody Sunday, were seated near the stage.The milestone of Harris becoming the nation’s first Black female vice president seemed unimaginable in 1965, they said.“That’s why we marched,” Betty Boynton, the daughter-in-law of voting rights activist Amelia Boynton, said.Is America a democracy? If so, why does it deny millions the vote?Read more“I was at the tail end and all of the sudden I saw these horses. Oh my goodness, and all of the sudden … I saw smoke. I didn’t know what tear gas was. There were beating people,” Boynton said.But Boynton said Sunday’s anniversary is tempered by fears of the impact of new voting restrictions being enacted.“And now they are trying to take our voting rights from us. I wouldn’t think in 2022 we would have to do all over again what we did in 1965,” Boynton said.The US president, Joe Biden, said the strength of the groundbreaking 1965 Voting Rights Act “has been weakened not by brute force, but by insidious court decisions”.The latest legislation, named for Lewis, who died in 2020, is part of a broader elections package that collapsed in the US Senate in February.“In Selma, the blood of John Lewis and so many other courageous Americans sanctified a noble struggle. We are determined to honor that legacy by passing legislation to protect the right to vote and uphold the integrity of our elections, including the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act,” Biden said in a statement.The US supreme court in 2013 gutted a portion of the 1965 law that required certain states with a history of discrimination in voting, mainly in the South, to get US Justice Department approval before changing the way they hold elections, with voting rights activists warning the action is emboldening states to pass a new wave of voting restrictions.TopicsUS voting rightsThe fight to voteKamala HarrisUS politicsAlabamaUS supreme courtUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

Truck convoy loops around Washington DC to protest Covid restrictionsThe ‘people’s convoy’ of around 1,000 vehicles threaten a week of traffic disruptions around US capital A long line of huge semi-articulated trucks, recreational vehicles and cars was circling Washington DC, on Sunday, in preparation for what their protesting drivers have pledged will be a week of traffic disruption around the US capital aligned around a loose collection of demands, including the end to all coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions.From its temporary base at a speedway vehicle racing site in Hagerstown, 80 miles north-west in Maryland, organizers of what they term the “People’s Convoy” of around 1,000 vehicles have said they plan to welcome the new work week by driving slowly around Washington on the already notoriously-congested Beltway, or ring road, at the minimum legal speed in an attempt to get their message across to national politicians.The convoy, a spin-off of trucker protests further north that have snarled Ottawa and disrupted Canadian transport arteries to the US, began assembling in California last week.As it has made its way east, it has picked up similarly mobile, ideologically-aligned, fellow-travelers along the way.But America is already rapidly releasing its citizens from a patchwork of pandemic restrictions and Covid mandates as the most recent surge of infections subsides in many states and officials and the public begin talking of the waning pandemic.The changing circumstances is now prompting convoy organizers to adapt their demands to a more free-ranging basket of aspirations and motives.Some participants said the destination was reason enough to make the trek. At the speedway on Friday night, one participant who described himself as the lead trucker told a cheering crowd he would drive his truck into the heart of the American capital.But it remained unclear if the convoy plans to drive into the small area occupied by Washington DC, itself, or snarl masses of government workers and lawmakers on their morning and evening Beltway road commutes across the states immediately neighboring the District of Columbia as they head for their offices where they run the nation’s affairs of state.US law enforcement agencies are paying attention. A previous mobile protest called Stop the Tires [denoting the US spelling of tyres] morphed into a “Stop the Steal” demonstration supporting Donald Trump’s false claim that he had been fraudulently denied victory in the November 2020 election.And that in turn became part of the January 6 insurrection riot at the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Trump, the then Republican president, as they tried to overturn the official certification by the US Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory.“I decided to create a Facebook page where me and my buddies could gather to shoot the s**t about the policies that will be implemented if Trump is no longer the president,” StoptheTires2020 founder Jeremy Rewoldt told The Trucker publication in November 2020.At the speedway site, the drivers said their frustrations included workplace vaccine mandates and other pandemic measures. The crowds chanted anti-Biden slogans and displayed support for Trump.The gathering appeared much like a Trump rally, with a giant American flag slung between cranes attached to the beds of semi-articulated trucks.Many vehicles bore license plates from across the US; many drivers were honking their horns, a tactic that drove Ottawa residents to near distraction and caused an Ontario superior court to issue a 10-day ban on horn blowing.The US Department of Homeland Security has said it is coordinating with local authorities to prepare for the convoy’s arrival and warning that the truckers could hinder emergency services.At their Hagerstown meeting point, an estimated 1,000 protesters gathered Sunday to hear details of the plan. Kicking off with a prayer service during which a pastor told them they were “heroes”, the truckers heard from organizer Brian Brase who instructed them to drive between 45 and 55 miles per hour and stay in one line on the roads to and around Washington in order to best show the size of the convoy.They raised their morning coffees in salute before setting off for the capital, reported The Washington Post.Brase said the drivers planned to circle the capitol’s ring-road twice on Sunday and repeat that pattern on successive days. “We don’t want to shut DC down,” Brase told the newspaper.“We’re not anti-vaxxers. We’re not. We just want freedom, freedom. We want to choose. We just want the choice. So tomorrow is a basically a show of just how big we are and how serious we are.” Brase added that it was not clear how long the protest convoy would last.But he told the drivers, who are mostly white, middle-aged men, to celebrate the distance they had traveled, without instructions about what to do at their destination or what that destination might be.Without a destination or denouement in mind, the truckers on Sunday appeared destined to circle until further notice.Above the blare of horns, Brase described the situation as “very fluid”.TopicsWashington DCProtestCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Blinken vows to escalate sanctions on Russia but warns war could last ‘some time’Speaking from Moldova, US secretary of state warns Russia holds military advantage that western allies are finding hard to counter

US in ‘active discussion’ with allies to ban Russian oil imports
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a pledge on Sunday to increase pressure on Russia through sanctions and provide more aid to Ukraine, but warned that Russia held a military advantage that western allies are finding hard to counter and the war was set to last “some time”.“Vladimir Putin has, unfortunately, the capacity with the sheer manpower he has in Ukraine and overmatch he has, the ability to keep grinding things down against incredibly resilient and courageous Ukrainians. I think we have to be prepared for this to last for some time,” Blinken told CNN.America’s top diplomat was speaking from Chisinau in Moldova, which sits between Romania, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) military alliance, and the south-western border of Ukraine on the Black Sea, not far from the Ukrainian city of Odesa which is threatened by advancing Russian forces.Blinken has spent the weekend visiting Nato member nations in eastern Europe that have taken in refugees from Ukraine. He said of the destruction being perpetrated under the direction of Russian president Vladimir Putin in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol that: “Just winning a battle is not winning a war, and just taking a city does not mean taking the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people. On the contrary, he is destined to lose.”“The Ukrainian people will not allow themselves to be subjugated to Vladimir Putin or to Russia’s rule – but it could take some time, and meanwhile the suffering is real and it’s terrible,” he told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning TV show.Blinken said he’d met with refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, currently estimated at a stunning 1.5 million.“We’re doing everything we can to bring this to an end as quickly as we can but this may still go on for a while,” he added.Pressed on US sanctions on Russia, Blinken defended Washington’s comparative lag in application compared to European Union allies and its failure to cut off Russian imports of oil by the US.“We’re adding to sanctions virtually every day,” Blinken said. He said he had spoken to US president Joe Biden on Saturday and members of the cabinet on the issue of oil.“We are now talking to our European partners and allies to look in a co-ordinated way at the prospect of banning Russian oil while making sure there is an appropriate supply of oil on world markets.”Blinken also reacted to the issue of providing increased military aid to Ukraine, including sending US fighter jets to Poland so that that country can send supplies of used Migs and Sukhoi military planes to Ukraine, where the military is familiar with those Russian-style jets rather than western-made fighters.“We are working with Poland to see if we can backfill anything they provide to Ukraine. We very much support them, providing planes that the Ukrainians can fly. But we also want to see if we can be helpful in making sure that whatever they provide to the Ukrainians, something goes to them to make up for any gap in security for Poland.”But Blinken, on NBC, insisted that while the US would continue to add to Ukraine with “security assistance” – totaling more than $1bn over the past year – the US would not enforce a Ukrainian no fly zone or put the US in “direct conflict” with Russia.“For everything we’re doing for Ukraine, the president also has a responsibility to not get us into a direct conflict, a direct war, with Russia, a nuclear power, and risk a war that expands beyond Ukraine to Europe. We’re trying to end this war in Ukraine, not start a larger one,” he said.The White House issued a report of Joe Biden’s call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday evening, saying his administration is “surging security, humanitarian, and economic assistance to Ukraine and is working closely with Congress to secure additional funding”.Lawmakers in a video call with Zelenskiy on Saturday morning said they were eager to approve an additional $10bn in spending to aid Ukraine.Leaders are also accusing Vladimir Putin of suspected war crimes based on Russia’s blatant killing of Ukrainian civilians as part of its action, destroying residential areas far from likely military targets and also directly firing on civilians trying to evacuate.“We have some very credible reports of attacks on civilians, which is what is considered a war crime.” Blinken said.Republican senator Marco Rubio, vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said he thought the Russian people would ultimately remove Putin from power over his action in Ukraine.“Hopefully to stand trial for war crimes, for what he has done,” Rubio said. He described Putin as “a monster” on ABC.European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday morning on the same CNN show that an investigation is needed into whether Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.“I think there needs to be a strong and clear investigation on this question,” she said.US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield told ABC’s This Week: “Any attack on civilians is a war crime.”Meanwhile, Ukraine is not willing to compromise on its territorial integrity in talks with Russia but is open to discussing “non- Nato models” for its future security, in a wider forum, one of its negotiators told Fox News.Ukraine has pursued membership of Nato, cited by Putin as evidence of what he portrays as Nato aggression toward Russia.Nato members “are not ready to even discuss having us in Nato, not for the next period of five or 10 years,” negotiator David Arakhamia said in remarks published on the Fox News website late on Saturday.“We are ready to discuss some non-Nato models. For example, there could be direct guarantees by different countries like the US, China, UK, maybe Germany and France. We are open to discussing such things in a broader circle.”And on Sunday afternoon, retired army general David Petraeus, former head of US central command during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he did not accept military assumptions that Kyiv will inevitably fall to Russia.Russian forces have a 40-mile-long convoy of military vehicles stalled on the approach to the Ukrainian capital and Petraeus said it appeared “they cannot keep their columns fueled” and praised Ukrainian resilience so far.“They’ve taken down road signs or pointed “Welcome to Hell” and stuff like that,” Petraeus told CNN.“This is going to be a very long fight in Kyiv. The locals there have been stockpiling food, there is going to be an enormously fierce resistance. I don’t accept assumptions that it will fall,” he said.Petraeus also noted Kyiv’s extensive surface area as a major obstacle for the Russian military, pointing out that the capital is spread across around 320 sq miles, larger than New York City and a little over half the size of London’s sprawl.TopicsBiden administrationAntony BlinkenUS politicsUkraineRussiaVladimir PutinEuropenewsReuse this content More