US Politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 213 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      What is the abortion drug Donald Trump has been talking about? How is it used in Australia?

      by

      Donald Trump suggested he was open to revoking access to the abortion pill if he won the presidential race, after being asked by a reporter last Thursday if he would “revoke access” to the drug. The following day, Trump’s campaign office said he didn’t hear the question properly.

      Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has since said abortion policy should be made by the states and the pair want to “make sure that any medicine is safe, that it is prescribed in the right way”. But it’s unclear exactly what this means for American women’s future access to abortion.

      The abortion drug they’re talking about is mifepristone, otherwise known as RU486.

      Mifepristone is one of the medications used in a medical abortion. It acts by blocking the effect of progesterone, one of the hormones important to the development of a pregnancy.

      The second medication involved is misoprostol, which contracts and empties the uterus.

      In Australia these two medicines are prescribed in a combination pack called MS-2 Step which is registered for use in women up to nine weeks of pregnancy.

      What happens during a medical abortion?

      When a woman undergoes a medical abortion, she first swallows the mifepristone tablet. This blocks a hormone called progesterone, which is needed for the pregnancy to continue. This might result in some spotting or bleeding.

      Between 36 and 48 hours later, she places the misoprostol in her cheek and lets it dissolve.

      Strong cramps and bleeding will start and it will feel like a very heavy period with blood clots and tissue being passed. This is the lining of the uterus and the pregnancy being shed.

      Doctors often prescribe anti-nausea pills and pain relief medications to deal with these symptoms.

      The whole process is like having a miscarriage and usually lasts between two and six hours.

      Once the pregnancy has passed, symptoms start to settle. Women will continue to bleed like a normal period for about five days, and some lighter bleeding may continue for between ten days to a month.

      Medical abortion is safe and works more than 98% of the time when carried out early on in a pregnancy. There is only a 0.4% risk of a serious complication such as an infection or haemorrhage requiring hospitalisation or transfusion.

      If a woman has very heavy bleeding (passing clots bigger than a small lemon or filling or soaking through two or menstrual pads per hour for more than two hours in a row), she should go to the emergency department because of the small but serious risk of haemorrhage.

      If she develops a fever over 38 degrees, she may have developed an infection and should contact her health-care provider.

      Women should also do a follow up blood test seven days after taking the MS-2 Step to make sure the abortion was successful.

      What are the other options?

      While medical abortion is rapidly becoming the most common way to have an abortion early in the pregnancy, it is not the method of choice for all women.

      And it’s not suitable for everyone, especially those without support, such as homeless women or those experiencing domestic violence.

      For some women, surgical abortion might be their method of choice or a better option. It can be helpful to use a decision aid, which sets out the pros and cons of each method.

      When did Australians get access?

      Like everywhere else in the world, having medical abortion available in Australia has enabled women to access an abortion when they previously wouldn’t have been able to.

      Prior to its introduction in Australia in 2012, abortions were carried out surgically, requiring a one-day stay in a hospital or surgical facility, and an anaesthetic.

      Read more:
      Arrival of RU486 in Australia a great leap forward for women

      Surgical abortions were then – and still are – difficult to access. Unlike surgical procedures such as knee replacements or having your appendix removed, surgical abortions are not always provided in public hospital settings, especially hospitals run by faith-based organisations.

      For women living in rural areas, this has been a big problem. Many surgical providers of abortion are located in metropolitan settings and many women have felt judged and stigmatised or had barriers put in their way by doctors who did not believe in a woman’s right to choose.

      Now a woman can receive a prescription for MS-2 Step through her local doctor and undergo a medical abortion in the comfort of her own home.

      If her local doctor doesn’t provide this service, she can consult a doctor who does via telehealth. Medicare provides rebates for consultations related to sexual and reproductive health issues carried out either over the phone or via online video. Unlike most other telehealth consultations, for sexual and reproductive health issues, you don’t need to have seen the GP face-to-face in the last 12 months to get a rebate.

      This means a woman who is living in Western Australia, for example, can have a consultation with a doctor in Queensland and receive a prescription for MS-2 Step via text message or email.

      She can then go to her local pharmacy to have the medication dispensed, undergo the medical abortion at home and then have her follow up consultation again via telehealth a couple of weeks later.

      What’s the situation in America?

      In America, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe Vs Wade in 2022, it removed women’s constitutional right to abortion, allowing many states to introduce bans on abortions. This meant many clinics providing surgical abortions closed down.

      The availability of mifepristone has, however, meant that women have been able to bypass these state-based laws and obtain medical abortion pills via telehealth or online through services like Plan C or Women on Web.

      If Donald Trump wins the election and restricts access to mifepristone, American women’s options will become even more limited and they may resort to unsafe abortion methods. Restricting access to abortion never stops it, it just drives it underground and makes it less safe. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Tim Walz agrees to vice-presidential debate against JD Vance on 1 October

      by

      Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris’s running mate, said he would be willing to debate JD Vance, Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, on 1 October.Walz, in a post to Twitter/X, was responding to a CBS News statement that said it had invited both vice-presidential candidates to participate in a debate in New York City.CBS said it had presented both campaigns with four dates as options: 17 September, 24 September, 1 October and 8 October.“See you on October 1, JD,” Walz wrote.A statement from the Harris campaign said: “Harris for President has accepted CBS’ invitation to a Vice Presidential Candidate Debate on October 1. Governor Walz looks forward to debating JD Vance – if he shows up.” Vance has not said whether he would accept the date.Walz last week said he “can’t wait to debate the guy — that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up”, in a reference to the baseless but much-shared claim that Vance admitted to having sex with a couch in his memoir.In May, the Biden campaign said the vice-president – then Joe Biden’s running mate – would be willing to debate the eventual Republican vice-presidential nominee on either 23 July or 13 August.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt the time, the president had not yet stepped aside from the race and endorsed Harris to succeed him as the Democratic candidate for president in this election, and JD Vance had not been announced as Trump’s running mate.Vance’s campaign then declined to commit to a vice-presidential debate before the Democratic national convention on 19 August.Harris and Trump have agreed to participate in their first debate on 10 September, hosted by ABC News.The network said the debate will be moderated by David Muir, the World News Tonight anchor and managing editor, and Linsey Davis, the ABC News Live Prime anchor. More

    • 213 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump addresses North Carolina rally after Vance claims Harris has been ‘acting president’ under Biden – live

      by

      Trump says that if he is re-elected, he will sign an executive order on his first day back in the Oval Office to direct “every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down”.As the New York Times points out, Trump has so far not outlined a plan on how to tackle inflation and bring prices down, other than to boost oil and gas production in the US. It adds:
      The country is already currently producing significantly more crude oil today than it did under the Trump administration.
      Hours before his rally speech,, the latest inflation figures also showed the US annual inflation rate dipped below 3% in July for the first time since 2021.Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have agreed to participate in one debate on 10 September, hosted by ABC News.ABC News confirmed in a statement last week it will “host qualifying presidential candidates to debate on September 10 on ABC. Vice-President Harris and former President Trump have both confirmed they will attend the ABC debate.”The network said the debate will be moderated by World News Tonight anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis.In May, the Biden campaign said Kamala Harris – then Joe Biden’s running mate – would be willing to debate the eventual Republican vice-presidential nominee on either 23 July or 13 August.At the time, Biden had not yet stepped aside from the race and JD Vance had not been announced as Donald Trump’s running mate.After Vance was named as Trump’s running mate, his campaign declined to commit to a vice-presidential debate before the Democratic national convention on 19 August.The Trump Vance campaign has not yet agreed to the 1 October debate hosted by CBS News in New York.A Harris Walz campaign spokesperson said the Democratic vice presidential presumptive nominee “looks forward to debating JD Vance — if he shows up.”Walz last week said he “can’t wait to debate the guy — that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” in a reference to the baseless, but much-shared claim, that Vance admitted to having sex with a couch in his memoir.Tim Walz, Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris’s running mate, said he would be willing to debate JD Vance, Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, on 1 October.Walz, in a post to X, was responding to a CBS News statement that said it had invited both vice-presidential candidates to participate in a debate in New York City.CBS said it had presented both campaigns with four dates as options: 17 September, 24 September, 1 October and 8 October.“See you on October 1, JD,” Walz wrote.A statement from the Harris campaign said:
      Harris for President has accepted CBS’ invitation to a Vice Presidential Candidate Debate on October 1. Governor Walz looks forward to debating JD Vance – if he shows up.
      Vance has not said whether he would accept the date.Trump says the US will “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels to “bring energy prices down”.Trump has vowed to accelerate oil and gas production, already at record levels, in the US, however, repeating the mantra “drill, baby, drill” at rallies.Trump aims to undo Joe Biden’s policies aimed at lowering carbon emissions, which he has called “insane”, and has directly sought $1bn in campaign donations from oil and gas executives in order to fulfill this agenda as president.But as NBC News’s Sahil Kapur notes, under Biden’s tenure, the US has continued to produce and export the most crude oil out of any country:Trump notes that Kamala Harris previously opposed fracking, and claims that she will ban fracking if she is elected in the November election.Harris “will absolutely ban fracking”, Trump says.Harris had previously, as a candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination, vowed to ban fracking, as well as back a Green New Deal, a progressive resolution to shift the US to 100% renewable energy, and new government dietary guidelines to encourage people to reduce their meat eating.But her campaign has said she will not seek to ban fracking if she becomes president. Since becoming vice-president, Harris has followed the Biden administration approach that allows fracking, although the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn up rules to limit the emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that often escapes during fracking.Trump says that if he is re-elected, he will sign an executive order on his first day back in the Oval Office to direct “every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down”.As the New York Times points out, Trump has so far not outlined a plan on how to tackle inflation and bring prices down, other than to boost oil and gas production in the US. It adds:
      The country is already currently producing significantly more crude oil today than it did under the Trump administration.
      Hours before his rally speech,, the latest inflation figures also showed the US annual inflation rate dipped below 3% in July for the first time since 2021.Trump says his interview with Elon Musk “was one of the most successful shows ever done”.The interview on Twitter/X, which is owned by Musk and began more than 40 minutes late, was plagued by technical issues that initially prevented many users from watching the conversation.Here’s a review of that interview by our Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith:Trump says the US was respected before but that now “we’re disrespected all over the world.”He says the Russian president Vladimir Putin, Chinese president Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un all respected the US. Now “we’re being laughed at,” he says.Trump says that as president, he “passed the largest tax cuts in history, the largest regulation cuts in history”.In reality, Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was not the largest tax cut in US history and workers barely benefited from them. More

    • 63 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      As Harris soars, Trump sulks

      by

      Hello there,Who knew that all Democrats needed to do was kick their ailing incumbent president off the ticket? Well, plenty of people. But few could have predicted just how successfully Kamala Harris and Uncle Tim have been relentlessly saturating the key swing states, speaking to huge crowds and rising in the polls.Trump, for his part, is floundering, trapped somewhere between rage and inertia. The former president held just one campaign event in the last seven days, and seems to spend most of his time complaining on his Truth Social website, with a breather to repeat his talking points to a wealthy idiot on X. More about Trump’s bad week after the headlines.Here’s what you need to knowView image in fullscreen1. Conventional thinkingThousands of Democrats will sweep into Chicago next week for the party’s national convention, where Harris will be officially anointed as their nominee for president. Despite Democrats’ checkered history of holding conventions in Chicago, the event will probably have a celebratory feel as Harris lays out her vision for the US to what will be a very friendly crowd. Barack Obama will be among the speakers, and the Guardian will be there with live updates.2. Abortion on the ballotA constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion will be on the ballot in Arizona in November, something that could increase Democratic turnout in the swing state. “Democrats are hoping that enthusiasm for the measures will boost turnout among their base,” my colleague Carter Sherman writes. In total, voters in at least seven states (also including Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada and South Dakota) will decide referendums on abortion rights this year.3. A Squad saveIlhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman and member of the progressive group “the Squad”, won her primary on Tuesday night, and will probably be re-elected to the House in November. Omar defeated Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis council member, and avoided the fate of fellow Squad members Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, both of whom lost their primaries this year. Pro-Israel lobbying groups spent millions to defeat Bush and Bowman after they criticized Israel’s war on Gaza, but despite Omar also being a critic of Israel’s actions, those groups stayed out of the Minnesota primary.The strategy of being angry on the internetView image in fullscreenHow about that Harralz momentum, huh? Kamala Harris and Tim Walz hit the ground running last week, and they’ve barely stopped since, holding events in five states, continuing to call people weird, and generally reinvigorating a previously weary Democratic base.There’s evidence that the Harris vibes tour is yielding results, because for the first time in absolutely ages, we’re seeing polling that shows Trump not winning the election. Before Biden dropped out, Trump was leading him by 3.1% nationally, and the Republican was ahead in every swing state. Harris now has a slight lead nationally, and has closed the gap on Trump in places like Michigan and Wisconsin. Each party typically experiences a popularity boost after their convention, so the momentum is likely to continue – for a little bit, anyway.
      Trump held just one campaign rally, in a state that will have no impact on the election
      Judging by how sulky Trump is being, it is clear he is worried. But it’s less clear what Trump is actually doing to combat the Harris surge. While Harris and Walz have been bounding across stages in front of thousands of people, Trump seems to have been mostly just sitting in the Florida private members’ club that he calls home.In the past week, the one-term former president has held a waffling conversation with Elon Musk on X, hosted a confusing press conference in Florida, ranted incessantly on Truth Social, and held just one campaign rally, in a state that will have no impact on the election. Oh, and it also emerged that Trump has been traveling around the country on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s former airplane, which if a Democratic candidate had done would be all the Republicans would talk about.Trump’s chat with Musk on Tuesday was supposed to give his campaign a shot in the arm – a cosy natter with a friendly ally. But once the conversation began – after a 40-minute delay due to technical difficulties – people’s main takeaways were a) this is very boring and b) why is Trump slurring his words? He did indeed seem to be struggling to pronounce the “s” in a number of words, with the term “groceries” proving particularly problematic. His campaign initially denied there was any problem – “must be your ears”, a spokesperson said – although Trump later blamed “modern day equipment, and cellphone technology”. Still, for a man who has a long history of mocking perceived physical weakness, the discussion will have been unwelcome.
      The strategy of being angry on the internet hasn’t typically proven to be a winner in elections
      Worse still, Trump’s admiring comments about Musk firing workers prompted the United Auto Workers labor union to file a federal labor charge. Trump didn’t address that in the more than 20 messages he posted to his own social media website on Tuesday, although he did describe Harris as “a joke”, complained about polling, and at one point declared: “I absolutely HATE the fake news media.” The strategy of being angry on the internet hasn’t typically proven to be a winner in elections, with the notable exception of 2016.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Harris’s supporters will be aware that there is a long way to go until election day on 5 November (even if, in some states, people can begin voting in September). The momentum surely cannot last. She and Walz are fresh faces at the moment, but Republicans will spend hundreds of millions to attack them, and Trump will surely emerge from his bunker eventually.Harry Enten, a polling expert at CNN, pointed out on Tuesday that Trump was underestimated in surveys in 2016 and 2020, and said Trump’s favorability among Americans was higher than it was in those two elections. So nothing is decided yet – but Democrats at least have several reasons to be optimistic.Out and about: New OrleansView image in fullscreenThe Guardian joined Joe Biden on Air Force One on Tuesday en route to New Orleans, where the president doled out millions in new research grants for a policy program he created after the death of his eldest son, Beau, from brain cancer at age 46.“We know that all families touched by cancer are in a race against time,” Biden told a crowd at Tulane University.Now that Biden is no longer running for re-election, he seems to be devoting the final months of his presidency to his passion projects, including promoting his “moonshot” cancer-fighting initiative.Lie of the week: Sea level rise is fineView image in fullscreenThe sea will only “rise one-eighth of an inch in the next 400 years”, and in any case create “more oceanfront property”, Donald Trump claimed to Elon Musk on Tuesday.He was certainly wrong on the first count. According to Nasa the global average sea level has risen a total of about 4in in the past 30 years alone. And the rate of increase is accelerating.And while more oceanfront property may indeed by created, lots of current oceanfront property will not survive: rising sea levels hit low-lying coastal areas the hardest. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Model candidate: the style lesson Kamala Harris can learn from Shirley Chisholm

      by

      The energy that Kamala Harris’s candidacy has injected into the Democratic party has taken over the election. With standing-room only rallies that have rock concert vibes, Harris has not only sharpened her rhetoric and message since her 2020 bid for the presidency, but she has also brought new spirit for the campaign.However, Harris’s style – which could be employed as a political tool to aid her candidacy and connection with voters – has shifted only slightly. Despite wearing a few outfits that have more color than her usual choice of navy and black, Harris has so far shied away from bold fashion statements that would convey the historic nature of her candidacy, or the excitement she stirs. While the campaign has certainly expanded the political imagination of what Harris can achieve, it still needs to hone in on what image defines her new status as a presidential nominee.Unlike Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are known for fashion statements that effectively telegraph power and political shrewdness, Harris is not known for her sartorial savviness. In 2020, she branched out of her comfort zone by posing for Vogue in her Chuck Taylor All Stars or by wearing a white suit with a pussy-bow blouse during her victory speech as a tribute to the suffragists, but her fashion choices during her tenure as vice-president can be best described as safe. Harris is fond of corporate pantsuits in dark colors, a form of functional power dressing that has defined her career as an attorney general and a senator. Often paired with soft feminine blouses, high heels and delicate pearl jewelry, Harris maintains her femininity without letting it stand out.View image in fullscreenThere is some sense to this choice of style. The tailored suit is a symbol of power, professionalism and also masculinity. And as a Black woman on Capitol Hill, Harris has used the dark suit as a shield that allows her to blend in. It provides authority and legitimacy, two important qualities needed for a leader. This strategy was especially useful for Harris in her role as vice-president. Her outfits were so unremarkable they faded into the background.But as recent years have shown, a candidate’s style is an important element in crafting a political image and building a successful brand. It brings recognition and visibility while also helping to boost identification and campaign merchandise sales. Donald Trump turned his ill-fitted suits and Maga trucker hat into a trademark of his persona, conveying an image of “a regular, simple guy” that appeals to his base of white, rural, working-class voters. The sloppy tailoring hides the fact that his suits cost tens of thousands of dollars, and that his background is rooted not in the coal mines of Appalachia but in the boardrooms of Wall Street.View image in fullscreenFashionable accessories have also helped Joe Biden to project a vigorous image, presenting a cool and in-control look that signals vitality and leadership. His signature Ray-Ban 3025 aviators amplify his “dark Brandon” identity, and project the image of a confident president who pushes defiantly against his critics while getting the work done.But fashion functions differently for Biden and Trump. Unlike Harris, who needs to navigate an entire set of expectations and stereotypes about her presence in politics, they don’t need to worry about “looking presidential”. Being white men, that is almost a given. Fashion for them is just one tool in their political strategy box – one they can use but not be defined by.For Harris, however, fashion presents a different challenge. Female politicians, and specifically female politicians of color, have endured much more scrutiny (and misogyny) regarding their bodies and appearance. They have long needed to balance between the need to demonstrate their capability as leaders and conforming to gender norms of femininity. Much more than men, whose presence in politics is never questioned, women need to fashion themselves in a way that will prove their fitness for office and to claim their power.View image in fullscreenSo far, Harris has preferred to dodge the fashion issue, but as the campaign continues to gain steam, attention on her appearance mounts. Although there is no playbook for how a woman can “look presidential”, Harris can reach to the past – and to the only other Black female Democratic presidential candidate, Shirley Chisholm – for inspiration.The daughter of a dressmaker, Chisholm understood both the importance of presentation and of execution, viewing it as an important means of self-expression. Her clothes were often custom-made, and she was active in the design process. She cultivated a unique signature style through her bouffant hairdo, cat-eye glasses and brightly colored ladylike suits. Chisholm’s savvy dressing won her the title of the “best dresser in Congress” from the Washington press, and also helped her project a modern image of Black femininity. Refusing to be boxed into norms of respectability that expected Black women to be quiet and accommodating, Chisholm’s fashions nonetheless conveyed professionalism and propriety that commanded respect.As the first Black woman to be elected to Congress, Chisholm embraced the visibility of the position. She harnessed her style to create an unapologetic proud image of a person who refused to be silenced or muted, which worked well with her campaign message of “unbought and unbossed”. Known for saying, “if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Chisholm’s bold fashion statements enabled her to claim her right to power and influence.View image in fullscreenCombining knee-high boots and geometric prints together with church-lady style, Chisholm’s strategy was to maintain a feminine appearance that did not alienate voters or mark her as a “radical”. And while she was not known for wearing pants (it would take Carol Moseley-Braun, the first Black female senator, to lead this revolution), Chisholm showed that there could be a strong Black feminist woman in politics, even when sticking to feminine styles.Chisholm’s style provides a model for Harris of a female politician who was a strong, fearless advocate for women and people of color, while also being a smart dresser with a touch of creativity and fun. The Harris campaign already showed they were open to emulating Chisholm when it changed its logo typeface to resemble that of Chisholm’s presidential campaign. It is now time to embrace Chisholm’s fashion strategy, too.With the Democratic national convention starting on Monday, Harris has the opportunity to define what a female president could look like. Chisholm once advised that we should reject not only the stereotypes that others have of us, but also those we have of ourselves. Harris can listen to this advice as she tries to convince voters to imagine a world in which a Black and Asian woman can be a president. She could also use some styling tips while sending this message; Shirley would certainly approve. More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Ceasefire talks are on their last legs, and Benjamin Netanyahu is to blame | Mohamad Bazzi

      by

      Joe Biden is making a last-ditch effort to salvage the Gaza ceasefire agreement he has been pushing for months. The US president, along with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, have called on Israeli and Hamas negotiators to resume indirect talks on Thursday to hammer out an agreement. But Biden and his administration won’t name and shame the biggest obstacle to reaching a deal: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. For months, Netanyahu has tried to block an agreement by backtracking and adding new conditions, prompting Israeli security officials to accuse him of sabotaging the negotiations to stay in power.Since a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed on 1 December, Biden has invested nearly all of his administration’s efforts into resurrecting a ceasefire. But Biden refuses to impose any cost on Netanyahu for his obstinacy and prolonging the conflict. Since Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza 10 months ago, Biden has failed to use the two most effective levers of power at his disposal: withholding billions of dollars in US weapons shipments, and denying Israel political cover at the United Nations security council and other international bodies.Even as US officials privately leak that Biden is angry at Netanyahu for lying to him about wanting to secure a ceasefire, the Biden administration continues to send massive new transfers of weapons to Israel. On Tuesday, the state department approved $20bn in new arms sales, which include dozens of F-15 fighter jets, tactical vehicles and missiles, as well as tens of thousands of explosive mortar and tank cartridges.This is one of the largest weapons transfers to Israel in US history – and it will be mostly funded by American taxpayers. The biggest part of the deal is nearly $19bn for up to 50 new warplanes, which won’t be delivered for at least five years. But the thousands of rounds of ordnance could be shipped sooner. Washington is, by far, the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, providing $3.8bn in military aid a year. In April, after intense lobbying by Biden, Congress approved an additional $14bn in military assistance to Israel, which will fund the latest purchases approved this week.With this level of Israeli dependence on US military aid, Biden should have significant leverage over Netanyahu. Instead, Biden is clinging to a failed policy of trying to exert behind-the-scenes influence on the Israeli prime minister and his extremist allies. Netanyahu has consistently defied and humiliated Biden – and yet the US president won’t call out Netanyahu for obstructing a ceasefire agreement that would lead to the release of more than 100 hostages still being held by Hamas after its 7 October attacks on Israel.Biden outlined the parameters of a deal in late May, when he spoke at the White House to publicly endorse a three-phase Israeli plan to end the war. By essentially adopting Israel’s proposal, Biden hoped to break a months-long deadlock in negotiations that were mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar. For months, the Biden administration blamed Hamas for refusing to accept a truce – and rarely mentioned Netanyahu’s intransigence. In early July, the Biden administration called Hamas’s response to the US proposal a “breakthrough”, raising hopes that a deal was imminent.But as talks dragged on, Netanyahu ordered Israeli negotiators to add five new conditions to the outlines of a proposal that Israel had accepted in late May and which formed the basis for Biden’s plan. In a letter sent to mediators in late July, Israel demanded that it maintain military control of Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, an area known as the Philadelphi Corridor, which had been a major point of contention during earlier rounds of negotiations.Netanyahu’s attempts at blocking the ceasefire agreement infuriated members of Israel’s security establishment, and they began leaking details of recent high-level security meetings to show the prime minister’s obstinacy and his lack of interest in the fate of the remaining hostages. On 2 August, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on a tense meeting between Netanyahu and his security chiefs days earlier, which devolved into a shouting match as multiple officials accused the premier of torpedoing any ceasefire deal with his latest demands. Netanyahu reportedly accused his top security officials of being “soft” and poor negotiators.The prime minister is trying to prolong the Gaza war to avoid early elections, which his Likud party is likely to lose, and multiple investigations into his government’s security failures leading up to the October attacks. If he’s forced out of power, Netanyahu would also face a long-delayed corruption and bribery trial stemming from an earlier stint as premier. Despite Netanyahu’s interest in clinging to power and criticism of his negotiating tactics by Israeli security officials, the Biden administration has gone out of its way to avoid blaming Netanyahu for obstructing a ceasefire.Israel has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and brought hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, as the Israeli military continues to block aid deliveries. Researchers fear the death toll could eventually reach 186,000 – due to “indirect casualties” of war, such as food shortages, a widespread cholera epidemic and the destruction of Gaza’s health infrastructure.With the US and other western allies continuing to provide the weapons that sustain Israel’s war machine, Netanyahu has had little incentive to stop the bloodshed. Instead, he has escalated the conflict in recent weeks, risking a wider regional war that could involve Israel and the US against Iran and its network of allied militias in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.Late last month, two assassinations in Beirut and Tehran revived fears that the Gaza war could spiral into a regional conflagration. On 30 July, an Israeli airstrike on southern Beirut killed a senior commander in Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia supported by Iran that has been fighting a low-level conflict with Israel since October. The next day, an explosion in Tehran killed the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh. While Israel did not claim responsibility for that assassination, it’s widely assumed to be behind the attack that humiliated the Iranian leadership, which was hosting Haniyeh and dozens of other foreign officials for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Iran vowed to retaliate for Haniyeh’s killing on its soil, and US and western officials have been scrambling to avoid an escalating series of attacks and reprisals.A ceasefire is the only way to stop the bloodshed in Gaza and to ensure that the conflict won’t expand into a regional war that could entangle Iran and the US. But since Netanyahu has not faced the loss of US support or other consequences for his belligerence, he has little incentive to agree to a truce or to refrain from attacks that destabilize the region.Already, there are signs that Biden’s ceasefire summit on Thursday will end in yet another deadlock: Hamas has not committed to participating in the talks, while a member of Israel’s negotiating team told Israeli media that there was no point in traveling to the summit unless Netanyahu expands the team’s mandate. In other words, Netanyahu can continue to obstruct the negotiations – and pay no price for it.So far, the Israeli prime minister has gotten everything he’s wanted by prolonging the war and escaping blame from the Biden administration for stalling a ceasefire deal. After the administration approved $20bn in new arms deals this week, Biden is signaling that he will continue sending weapons to Israel no matter what Netanyahu does.It doesn’t have to be this way: since Biden dropped out of the US presidential race last month, he no longer risks paying a political cost for restraining Netanyahu and Israel. The president can finally stand up to Netanyahu – and salvage a ceasefire plan that ends 10 months of American complicity.

      Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University. He is also a non-resident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) More

    • 213 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Donald Trump is desperate to land a punch on Kamala Harris. But he fails | Sidney Blumenthal

      by

      The madness of King George III was never diagnosed. He likely suffered from bipolarity. One of his uncontrollable bouts of madness was triggered by his reading of Shakespeare’s play of a mad king, King Lear. “This morning he is … more agitated and confused, perhaps from having been permitted to read King Lear,” wrote his doctor, in papers released only six years ago. The story upset King George, his equerry recounted: “His Majesty became so ungovernable that recourse was had to the strait waistcoat.”King George’s straitjacketing occurred in 1788, a year after the constitutional convention created the United States government to prevent the rise of any king – mad or not. The American revolution, waged against the absolute sovereignty of a monarch, had the madness of King George in mind as the office of president of the United States was being framed. The president, wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper No 69, would be subject to impeachment and removal, and “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution.”About the difference between the American president and the English king, Hamilton stated: “What answer shall we give to those who would persuade us that things so unlike resemble each other? The same that ought to be given to those who tell us that a government, the whole power of which would be in the hands of the elective and periodical servants of the people, is an aristocracy, a monarchy, and a despotism.”When the US supreme court ruled on 1 July that Donald Trump as a former president had “absolute” immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as “official acts”, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented that “the President is now a king above the law.” As Shakespeare wrote in King John: “Mad world, mad kings, mad composition!”King George swooned reading King Lear. Trump has become delirious at the sight of Kamala Harris. The king’s courtiers succeeded in restraining him, while Trump’s cannot control him. He rages, curses and shouts to the heavens of the unfairness of fate. His aides attempt to calm and steady him about Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. “It’s unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat her, too,” he cries.Trump’s years-long industrial-level production of “Crooked Joe” and the “Biden Crime Family”, amplified as regular programming on Fox News, is now toxic waste. These crude projections were fabricated out of the materials of Trump’s own vices, flaws and offenses. If Biden could be tarred with false charges, his shadow would blot out Trump’s true crimes. Trump’s initial effort against Biden – to blackmail Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in an exchange of weapons for dirt on Biden – constituted the articles of Trump’s first impeachment.The House Republicans, led by the January 6 co-conspirator Jim Jordan, set up a “weaponization committee” that, along with the oversight committee, spent millions of dollars and consumed thousands of staff hours to discover, after parading one false witness after another, that Biden had done absolutely nothing wrong. Their impeachment farce of Biden collapsed from its own weightlessness. Despite their contrivances, they found Biden blameless. The entire Hunter Biden saga, which has breathlessly riveted the Wall Street Journal editorial board, meanwhile drifts into a trivial pursuit.Always just a series of distorted projections, the campaign against Biden is missing its object. The screen has suddenly gone blank. Trump is exposed standing naked on the stage. His negative campaign is self-indicting. Everything he accused Biden of being, he manifestly embodies. His malicious characterizations describe only himself. He is the crook, the cheat, the liar; he is the worst president in history. Biden is gone, but Trump can’t escape him. Biden haunts him as a ghost. Trump is left as the oldest man ever to run for the office, whose babbling incapacity is on display.Trump frantically attempts to find the key to a negative campaign against Harris. He stumblingly flickers his projection of Biden. She’s the crook, the cheat, the liar. She’s not really Black, or she is Black but only lately. He mispronounces her name in a variety of deliberately mangled ways to make her seem strange, but in doing so he appears stranger. She’s “dumb”, “incompetent” and a “bitch”. He states that Biden is plotting to stage a coup at the Democratic convention to overthrow her. His dream for restoration requires his animadversion of Biden’s ghost. He can’t stop talking about the man who isn’t there. He complains to Elon Musk, playing the role of his straight-man second banana, that Biden is “close to a vegetable”. But insults can’t make Biden come back to political life. Trump’s bitter nostalgia for Biden stokes his anger at Harris.Since Trump can’t change, Harris must be an illusion. He says the packed crowds at her rallies are “fake”, created by AI. “She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!” Of course, his 34 felonies for business fraud were for the purpose of election interference in 2016. His instinctive reflex for projection boomerangs. He constantly reveals his pattern of guilt through his accusations.Lost in the illogic of his conspiracy theories he wanders back and forth from higher realms of incoherence to lower depths of innuendo. His tale of his near-death experience in a diving helicopter with Willie Brown encapsulates more than his careening method of demeaning insinuation. It is his unconscious metaphor of his current plight crashing to earth.Willie Brown, the former speaker of the California assembly, once dated the young Harris. Trump explained: “But he told me terrible things about her. But this is what you’re telling me, anyway, I guess. But he had a big part in what happened with Kamala. But he – he, I don’t know, maybe he’s changed his tune. But he – he was not a fan of hers very much, at that point.”But Willie Brown is not a fictitious character. “I don’t think I’d want to ride on the same helicopter with him,” he said. Willie Brown never flew in a ’copter with Trump. Willie Brown admires Harris – “absolutely beautiful woman, smart as all hell, very successful” – and he supports her “religiously”. Willie Brown, clever, funny and canny as ever, says he can’t wait to watch Harris whip Trump in the debate. “I would think it would probably be unfair for her to debate inept Donald Trump with his appalling lack of knowledge. The absence of knowledge is appalling. I would put every nickel I have on the results of the debate and it will all be on Kamala Harris.”Trump appeared to confuse Willie Brown with the former California governor Jerry Brown, who did fly once in a ’copter with Trump – though it was never in difficulty. Then another Black politician – not Willie Brown – stepped forward to state that he was in a ’copter in trouble with Trump, Nate Holden, the former Los Angeles city council member and California state senator. “I guess we all look alike,” he told the Guardian.Trump’s near-death by helicopter is the latest flight of his freakish fantasies – this week’s favorite instead of electrocution from the battery of an electric boat or being eaten by sharks. Whatever convoluted smear Trump was attempting to spread about Harris, it wound up sliced in the propellers. It was Black Hawk Down for Trump’s slander.Though his lie was shredded, he feverishly tried to reassemble its pieces. He insisted to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times that he has the records to prove that it was really Willie Brown in the ’copter. “When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice,” she reported.Trump responded with a slur: “Maggot Hagermann should apologize for her Fake & Fraudulent writing on the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, along with many other of her poorly written and badly researched stories.”Trump had previously spoken of Haberman as his “psychiatrist”. His anger reveals his deep desire for approbation from the Times, a sign of his acceptance in Manhattan, which rejected him decades ago. His resentment erupts from his unfulfilled yearning. In lashing out at Haberman, she serves as an available surrogate woman for his frustration over Harris.Trump’s projection has become blowback. He can’t run a negative campaign to belittle Harris because his negative campaign engulfs and defines himself. He rages at being neutered and neutralized. His trials have also had their effect. Highlighting his abuses in courts of law as a sexual predator with E Jean Carroll and his history with Stormy Daniels has tainted his ability to sell his misogyny. His frustration, however, stokes more verbal abuse.Trump has descended to attacking Tim Walz, the avuncular Minnesota governor who is Harris’s running mate, for wanting “tampons to be put in boys’ bathrooms”. Apparently, Trump thinks tampon by association is an astute tactic. Scrounging around in the school toilets, he can only remind women of his lifetime of physical and verbal abuse, and that he claims credit for outlawing abortion rights. Trump is lost in the stalls. Grab ’em by the tampon.Trump targets Republican women who appear within his range of vision, too. He has gone to war against Marty Kemp, the wife of Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, who had refused to support Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump laced into Marty Kemp: “Now she says she won’t Endorse me, and is going to ‘write in Brian Kemp’s name.’ Well, I don’t want her Endorsement, and I don’t want his.” He slammed Governor Kemp: “He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy and he’s a very average governor.” “Leave my family out of it,” replied Kemp. After Trump’s rain of insults, a poll showed Harris tied with Trump in Georgia.At a tentful of Republican billionaire donors in the Hamptons on 2 August, Trump resisted their gentle admonitions to tamp himself down. Many of them want a more muffled, dignified candidate talking about the federal deficit, curbing entitlements and the capital gains tax rate. These are the masters of the universe of carried interest. Their strategy would be for Trump not to be Trump. Let Trump be Paul Ryan. They want him to stick to the standard Republican playbook he discarded when he first starting remaking the party in his own image. The disoriented donors still can’t grasp that Trump’s depravity is the source of his appeal.“’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind,” wrote Shakespeare in King Lear.

      Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘On fire with excitement’: Tim Walz’s former students react to nomination

      by

      Imagine your teacher in the White House.For Tim Walz’s former students, the hypothetical could become real. And they’re stoked.The Minnesota governor and Democratic vice-presidential candidate was a teacher in Nebraska and Minnesota before he ran for Congress in 2006. His time in the classroom features heavily on the campaign trail and in his governing. He has approved laws that provide universal school meals and add more money for education.He and his wife, Gwen, taught at Mankato West high school, in a town south-west of the Minneapolis area.There was high demand for his classes, said Jillian Hiscock, a former student at Mankato West. “It was hard to get into global geography. Who would have thought students would be fighting to get into global geography?“If you want to talk about strict, you got to talk about Mrs Walz,” she added. “I don’t think Tim had a strict bone in his body.”Mankato West alumni have convened in a Slack channel to share memories and excitement, finding community in the surreality of their former teacher potentially becoming vice-president. The alums usually bring up both Walzes as memorable and impactful educators who left impressions on them for different reasons.Beyond his teaching duties, he was part of the football coaching staff and an adviser to student groups, including the school’s first gay-straight alliance – in the late 1990s, in a small town in the midwest – after a student worked to set up the chapter.View image in fullscreen“It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” Walz told the Star Tribune in 2018.For Kamala Harris, the titles of teacher and coach played heavily into Walz’s potential as a running mate. The vice-president repeatedly called him “coach” during their first rally together.Hiscock, 41, had Mrs Walz as a teacher and knew Mr Walz through his advising of a youth in government program and volunteering to plan prom. He was a fun-loving teacher who met students where they were, known to play a Jeopardy game in the classroom.Walz was known to care about students, even those who weren’t in his classes, and knew about their interests, wishing them luck at their softball game or asking if they were ready for the choir concert, she said. He was named “most inspiring” teacher in the school yearbook one year.Walz was passionate about teaching the underlying causes that can lead to atrocities like the Holocaust. One oft-cited story from 1993 shows how Walz taught students in Alliance, Nebraska, to study those factors and then identify which country could be at greatest risk of genocide. They landed on Rwanda, the New York Times reported in 2008, accurately predicting the country’s genocide before it happened.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLaura Muhm, 40, had Walz as a teacher in 11th grade in 2001. He encouraged free-flowing discussion and would toss the lesson plan if needed, she said. He worked to expose students to different cultures, inviting a student who was Muslim to share about their culture.View image in fullscreenShe was thrilled when Walz was chosen to be Harris’s running mate. “I felt like I drank five shots of espresso. That’s how energized I felt. Like, almost too energized,” Muhm said.Mankato, the Minnesota town that Walzes claimed as home, is “just on fire right now with excitement. Everybody’s like, I know that guy,” Muhm said.Hiscock owns a women’s sports bar in Minneapolis, A Bar of Their Own, and hosted a watch party to view Walz’s first rally as vice-president nominee. The bar was standing-room only as they served a tequila-based “blue wave” cocktail, and a non-alcoholic drink of Mountain Berry Blast Powerade. Walz himself does not drink after a 1995 drunk-driving arrest – he prefers Diet Mountain Dew.She said she was talking to a reporter this week who noted how rare it was that so many people had such good things to say about their high school teacher – not always a well-liked constituency among teenagers.“I’m not trying to be like Pollyanna with you. It just literally doesn’t surprise me that nobody has a bad story about him,” she said. More