US Politics

Al FrankenAl Franken rules out Senate run against Gillibrand, who led push to remove himNew York senator led moves to push Franken out as Minnesota senator over allegations of sexual misconduct Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellySun 31 Oct 2021 12.44 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 12.45 EDTAl Franken on Sunday ruled out mounting a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York senator who four years ago led calls for his resignation as a senator from Minnesota over allegations of sexual misconduct.Huma Abedin says kiss from unnamed senator was not sexual assaultRead moreIn a statement to Politico, Franken said: “Yes, I miss the Senate but I’m not going to run against Kirsten Gillibrand.”A writer, comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member, Franken was narrowly elected as a Democrat in Minnesota in 2008 and returned to Washington much more comfortably six years later.He achieved national prominence, particularly as an acerbic critic of Republicans and Donald Trump. His last book before his resignation was titled Al Franken: Giant of the Senate.He was forced to quit in December 2017, amid the first stirrings of the #MeToo movement and over allegations that he touched women inappropriately or forcibly kissed them.Gillibrand led moves to push Franken out, writing: “Enough is enough. As elected officials, we should be held to the highest standards – not the lowest.”Franken did not face investigation by the Senate ethics committee.In his resignation speech, he said “all women deserve to be heard and their experiences taken seriously” but added: “Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others I remember differently.”01:14He was replaced in the Senate by Tina Smith, a former lieutenant governor of Minnesota. In 2019, seven serving or retired senators told the New Yorker they regretted forcing Franken out.Franken told the magazine he regretted resigning and added: “I’m angry at my colleagues who did this. I think they were just trying to get past one bad news cycle.”Writing for the Guardian, the academic and feminist author Laura Kipnis said: “I myself thought at the time that if Franken had actually groped women during photo ops, as was alleged, he was right to resign.“… In late 2017, we were all pretty on edge, I think, combing our pasts for dormant memories of assaults and affronts, and there were so many stories – too many to make sense of. It was an off-with-their-heads moment, and for a while that felt great.“But there were also opportunists ‘telling their truths’. There was failed distinction-making and political expediency, and the impossibility of sorting motives from facts. That’s what’s starting to get unraveled now.”Republican Adam Kinzinger: I’ll fight Trumpism ‘cancer’ outside CongressRead moreAfter moving to New York City, Franken, now 70, has returned to national politics as a commentator, with a podcast and a venture into stand-up comedy, The Only Former US Senator Currently on Tour Tour. Prior to Sunday, he had done little to scotch rumours of a political comeback.Politico quoted an anonymous source as saying Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator since 2009 and a failed candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, had been “not exactly cool as a cucumber about” a possible challenge from Franken.Gillibrand’s chief of staff, Jess Fassler, told the website: “The only thing she’s worried about right now is getting family leave into the Build Back Better package.”In his statement to Politico, Franken only ruled out a run against Gillibrand.TopicsAl FrankenKirsten GillibrandUS SenateDemocratsUS politicsUS CongressUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

BooksHuma Abedin says kiss from unnamed senator was not sexual assaultClinton aide gives first interview for memoir Both/AndAbedin also discusses 2016 election and Anthony Weiner Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellySun 31 Oct 2021 10.13 EDTFirst published on Sun 31 Oct 2021 08.11 EDTIn her first interview to promote her new book, Huma Abedin said she did not think an unnamed senator sexually assaulted her when he kissed her at his apartment, some time in the mid-2000s.Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin describes sexual assault by US senatorRead moreShe also said she would “take to her grave” her part in the emails investigation which cost Hillary Clinton dearly in the 2016 presidential election, which the candidate lost to Donald Trump, though she knew it was not all her fault.Abedin describes the incident with the senator in Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds, which will be published on Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy and reported Abedin’s description of the kiss.After making coffee, Abedin writes, the senator sat next to her on the couch, “put his left arm around my shoulder, and kissed me, pushing his tongue into my mouth, pressing me back on the sofa.“I was so utterly shocked, I pushed him away. All I wanted was for the last 10 seconds to be erased.”Abedin does not give clues to the senator’s identity.She also writes that memories of the kiss came back in 2018, during Brett Kavanaugh’s supreme court confirmation hearings, when the judge was accused of sexual assault. In Abedin’s description, Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was accused of “conveniently remembering” details. Kavanaugh denied the accusations and was confirmed to the court.The pressure group Rainn (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) defines sexual assault as “sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim”.Speaking to CBS Sunday Morning, Abedin said: “I did go back to a senator’s apartment, a senator who I knew and I was very comfortable with, and he kissed me in a very shocking way because it was somebody who I’d known and frankly trusted.”Her interviewer, Norah O’Donnell, asked: “Are you suggesting that senator assaulted you?”Abedin paused, and said: “I’m suggesting that I was in an uncomfortable situation with … I was in an uncomfortable situation with a senator and I didn’t know how to deal with it and I buried the whole experience.“But in my my own personal opinion, no, did I feel like he was assaulting me in that moment? I didn’t, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like I needed to extricate myself from the situation. And he also spent a lot of time apologising and making sure I was OK and we were actually able to rebalance our relationship.”Earlier this week, Business Insider reported that senators from both parties expressed concern that the unnamed senator may have assaulted others.On CBS, Abedin was also asked what she thought Clinton most valued about her.“I think she would say her loyalty,” she said. “And I would say the same about her. I have tested that. Not intentionally, but I have tested it … I’ve made her life difficult with things that have happened in my personal life.”Abedin is estranged from her husband, the former congressman and New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, who served time in prison for sending explicit text messages to a teenage girl.A laptop belonging to Weiner and Abedin became part of Clinton’s 2016 presidential election defeat, when the FBI seized it as part of investigations into Clinton’s use of private email while secretary of state.“I think I’m going to take it to my grave,” Abedin told CBS. “It took me a while to reconcile that it was not all my fault.”She added: “I have reconciled – and it took me a while to reconcile – that it was not all my fault. I lived with that. I did. I don’t believe that anymore.“It’s more a sense of an ache in the heart, that it didn’t have to be. And also, my belief that [Clinton] would have been an extraordinary president, that she really would have, and what it meant for women and girls, not just in this country but around the world.”Asked why she wrote her book, Abedin said: “I think for most of my adult life, certainly in the last 25 years that I’ve been in public service or in the public eye, I have been the invisible person behind the primary people in my life. But what I realise is that if you don’t tell your story, somebody else is writing your history.”She also discussed Weiner and how she discovered his various infidelities. She and her husband, she said, were “just two severely broken, traumatised people”.Asked how their relationship was now, she said: “We’re good. He is my co-parent. And I learned the full truth, I processed it and moved on. I wish him well. He, I hope, wishes me well. I think he does.”Asked if she was still angry with Weiner, Abedin said: “I can’t live in that space anymore. I tried that. It almost killed me.”TopicsBooksHuma AbedinHillary ClintonAnthony WeinerUS politicsDemocratsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

OpinionRaceThe people Kyle Rittenhouse shot can’t be called ‘victims’, a judge says. Surprised?Akin OllaThough he crossed state lines with a semi-automatic rifle and shot three people, Rittenhouse has been treated with an alarming degree of grace Sun 31 Oct 2021 06.25 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 06.26 EDTIn the midst of the unrest following a police officer’s shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy from Illinois, shot and killed two anti-police brutality protesters and wounded a third. This week the presiding judge in Rittenhouse’s trial has decided that the men that Rittenhouse shot cannot be called “victims” during the trial.Despite purposefully crossing state lines armed with a semi-automatic rifle, Rittenhouse has been treated, before and after the act, with an alarming degree of grace. Rittenhouse’s case is about a lot more than just one armed vigilante seeking to protect the status quo at the expense of human lives: it is about an entire system that pushed him to violence.In August 2020, Rittenhouse and other white men answered a call to action by a former Kenosha city alderman for the formation of a militia to “take up arms” to defend Kenosha “from the evil thugs”. During the evening of the shooting, the presence of this militia was supported by local police officers who offered them water and affirmations, saying, “We appreciate you guys, we really do.”According to the militia member Ryan Balch, a police officer told him that officers would be pushing protesters back towards the armed men, claiming that police believed the militia would “deal with” the protesters. After Rittenhouse shot the three men, witnesses shouted for his arrest but nearby officers appeared to let him disappear into the night and return to his home state of Illinois.After the shooting, Rittenhouse was celebrated by conservative figures like Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter and, of course, President Donald Trump. A rally was held in his honor and hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised in support of his legal defense. At least one police officer donated to the fundraising effort, commenting, “God bless. Thank you for your courage … You’ve done nothing wrong.”Erin Decker, the Kenosha county Republican party chair, suggested that Rittenhouse was innocent and that “about 80% [of people in the area] support what Kyle did”. The Department of Homeland Security prepared talking points sympathetic to the shooter, prepping officials to say that he arrived in Kenosha to defend small business owners. As his case begins, it is clear that he will continue to receive support from many of those embedded in American institutions.Kenosha county circuit judge Bruce Schroeder, who is presiding over the controversial case, had already made some questionable decisions while setting the parameters of the trial. Schroeder has ruled that the men shot by Rittenhouse cannot be described as “victims’’ in court because the phrase is too “loaded” and may sway the opinions of the jury. Schroeder also advised against Rittenhouse’s legal team referring to the men he killed as “looters” and “arsonists” but did not forbid them from doing so – a double standard that props up rightwing talking points about protesters during last year’s summer uprisings against police brutality.Gaige Grosskreutz, the survivor of the attack, has not been charged with any crimes related to the protests, and the vast majority of 2020’s protesters engaged in peaceful action. Though those killed by Rittenhouse were white, the victim-blaming rings of the comments that often follow the murder of Black Americans at the hands of police and vigilantes. In 2014, more money was raised in support of the police officer who killed 18-year-old Michael Brown than was raised for Brown’s memorial service.The judge has given Rittenhouse’s defense more room to maneuver, while blocking some damning evidence against Rittenhouse from entering the case. This evidence includes a video of him expressing a desire to shoot people that he thought were looters and photos of him posing with members of the far-right organization the Proud Boys – who used Rittenhouse’s name to promote a rally in Portland.While Judge Schroeder may see his decisions as justified, he is still feeding into a larger pattern that surrounds Rittenhouse and the criminal justice system at large. The reality is that Rittenhouse was, compared with a Black man, less likely to be arrested for his crime, more likely to be bailed, less likely to be convicted and less likely to receive a prison sentence. It isn’t hard to imagine that a Black man in his position wouldn’t even be alive today – much like Philando Castile, who was shot by a police officer for simply disclosing that he had a firearm in his possession during a traffic stop.Rittenhouse may have pulled the trigger, but there is a larger system at play, a system that sent him to Kenosha and will probably send him back home after the trial.
Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian
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BooksMaster of the Game review: Henry Kissinger as hero, villain … and neitherMartin Indyk’s well-woven biography is sympathetic to the preacher of realpolitik condemned by many as a war criminal Lloyd GreenSun 31 Oct 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 02.02 EDTAs secretary of state, Henry Kissinger nursed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war to a close. The disengagement agreements between Egypt and Israel ultimately yielded a peace treaty. The Syrian border remains tensely quiet. Unlike Vietnam, in the Middle East Kissinger’s handiwork holds.Friendly Fire review: Israeli warrior Ami Ayalon makes his plea for peaceRead moreThe Sunni Arab world has gradually come to terms with the existence of the Jewish state. Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have diplomatic ties with Jerusalem. Relations with Saudi Arabia are possible.For Kissinger, student and preacher of realpolitik, peace was seldom an end in itself. His pivot to China was about boxing in the USSR. To him, the cold war and existing nation states were what mattered most. The Viet Cong earned a seat at the table because US troops were bogged down. The Palestinians were not so high on Kissinger’s agenda.Now comes Martin Indyk with a 688-page, well-woven history fittingly subtitled “Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy”. The book reflects the author’s admiration for and access to his subject.Kissinger last granted Indyk an interview at the age of 97. Now he’s 98. Indyk’s wife, Gahl Burt, once worked on Kissinger’s staff. Indyk himself is a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations. His gigs included ambassador to Israel and Middle East envoy. A former Australian national, he volunteered on a kibbutz. He checks many boxes.Master of the Game does convey a sense that Indyk wishes his own attainments equaled those of his subject. The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1998 Wye River Memorandum between the Israelis and Palestinians quickly degenerated into the second intifada, flareups in Gaza and Hamas vying with the Palestinian Authority for power on the ground.In the Obama years, Israel emerged as a partisan flashpoint in the US, like abortion and taxes, to the chagrin of the Democratic establishment and Israel’s diplomatic corps but to the delight of the Republicans and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s now former prime minister.In Master of the Game, Indyk lays out the run-up to the October war of 1973, the responses of the US and the USSR, and Kissinger’s nearly two-year hopscotch between Jerusalem, Cairo and Damascus.Indyk confirms what is widely known, that while Kissinger did not explicitly give Egypt the green light to attack Israeli-occupied Sinai, he was pleased with the outcome. The war and its aftermath presented the US with the opportunity to lure Egypt out of the Soviet orbit, even if Israel had to pay a price.The war Kissinger “had not expected at the moment”, writes Indyk, “would provide him with the opportunity to manipulate antagonisms”. Those, in turn, would help “begin the construction of what he intended to be a new, more stable American-led order in the Middle East”.Israeli combat deaths topped 2,600 – reportedly more than 1,000 in the war’s first five days. At the time, Kissinger noted that the latter figure would be proportionally equal to twice the number of US deaths in eight years in Vietnam. As a result, Kissinger coldly “assumed that when he needed Israel to accept a ceasefire it would have no choice but to do so”.Kissinger saw that a ceasefire would yield territorial concessions. He got that right but the pace was not necessarily to his liking. Disengagement arrived too quickly and then too slowly for him.In spring 1975, Gerald Ford announced the reassessment of America’s relationship with Israel. Months later, in early September, Egypt and Israel entered a second disengagement agreement, a precursor to the 1978 Camp David Accords hashed out by Jimmy Carter.While “Start-up Nation” has emerged as durable military power, Indyk yearns for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.After noting the Abraham Accords, agreements between Israel and Gulf states, Indyk contends that the “Trump administration actually made matters worse” by proposing a Palestinian entity “as a heavily circumscribed enclave within Israeli territory”. He also acknowledges that the accords took Israeli annexation of the West Bank off the table.As a Talmudic dictum goes, “avar zemano, batel korbano”. Loosely translated, the train has left the station. What applies to a sacrificial rite may pertain to politics. Even the peace process came with a sell-by date. Indyk admits that “the three presidents who succeeded Clinton” tried but failed to reach a lasting agreement, but while Jared Kushner failed to snag the deal of the century, his diplomatic achievement is tangible.In Trump’s Shadow: David Drucker surveys the Republican runners and riders for 2024Read moreIndyk also explores the competing tugs on Kissinger, a refugee, of loyalty, religion and ethnicity. Richard Nixon told Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador, Kissinger was prone to “indulge Israel’s nationalist sentiments”. On the other hand, Israeli protestors outside Kissinger’s hotel once bellowed: “Jew boy go home.” The Jackson-Vanick amendment, which linked preferred trade status for the USSR to its performance on emigration, infuriated Kissinger.Kissinger has plenty of detractors. Against the backdrop of Nixon’s Vietnam policy, the overthrow and assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile, genocide in Bangladesh and East Timor and a coup and invasion in Cyprus, he has been called a war criminal.On the right, the late Phyllis Schlafly dangled Kissinger’s otherness in the face of Ford’s bid for the nomination in 1976. She said Kissinger did not understand “typical American values” and claimed that the loyalty of the German-born and accented diplomat rested with a “supranational” order.Indyk writes: “When it came to managing violent middle eastern passions and preserving peace, history’s judgment should surely be that Henry Kissinger did well.”Reasonable people will freely differ.
Master of the Game is published in the US by Knopf
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The ObserverVirginiaWhy this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidency The president won the state by 10 points but Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe has acknowledged Washington politics could hurt his campaignDavid Smith in Arlington, Virginia@smithinamericaSun 31 Oct 2021 02.00 EDTScott Knuth was dwarfed by the 16ft x 10ft flag that he waved to and fro on a street corner in Arlington, Virginia. “Trump won,” it falsely proclaimed, “Save America.”But Donald Trump was not coming to town. Instead his successor, Joe Biden, was about to take the stage in a campaign rally at a dangerous inflection point in his young presidency.Biden’s agenda remains unrealized as Democrats fail to close deal againRead moreBiden was speaking on behalf of Democrat Terry McAuliffe who this Tuesday takes on Republican Glenn Youngkin to become governor of Virginia. But he was keenly aware that the race will represent the first referendum on his White House tenure and a potential preview of next year’s crucial midterm elections for Congress.The Virginia contest also takes place against the backdrop of Biden’s ambitious, would-be historic legislative agenda stalling in Washington as his Democratic party goes to bitter war with itself over a huge social and environmental spending bill.The president reportedly told Democratic members of Congress on Thursday: “I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the House and Senate majorities and my presidency will be determined by what happens in the next week.”With his approval rating sagging after a coronavirus surge and chaotic retreat from Afghanistan, Biden is badly in need of a win or two. Failure in Virginia, where no Democrat has lost a statewide election for 12 years, and continued paralysis on Capitol Hill would represent a crushing double blow.Protesting outside last Tuesday’s McAuliffe rally in Arlington, Trump supporters were eager for signs of weakness and confident of a Republican fightback.Carrie Johnson, 45, a merchandiser clutching a Stars and Stripes flag, said: “The Biden presidency has been an absolute dumpster fire. Our borders are wide open. Inflation is running wild. He’s trying to strip us of our freedoms. His approval rating is falling by the day.”About 2,500 people attended the rally, according to the White House, far fewer than a typical Trump event. Supporters of McAuliffe, 64, were aware that the closely and bitterly contested race has national implications.Lisa Soronen, 46, a lawyer who brought with her eight-year-old daughter Sasha despite the evening chill, said: “If McAuliffe loses, it will be seen as a victory for Donald Trump, whether it is or not. A lot can happen between now and the midterms but this is seen as the bellwether.”Evidently aware of this, Biden used an 18-minute speech to directly compare his record against that of his predecessor on coronavirus vaccinations, the stock market and jobs growth. Then he sought to tie Trump to Youngkin, a 54-year-old businessman and political neophyte.“Terry’s opponent has made all of his private pledges of loyalty to Donald Trump,” Biden told the crowd. “But what’s really interesting to me: he won’t stand next to Donald Trump now that the campaign is on. Think about it. He won’t allow Donald Trump to campaign for him in this state. And he’s willing to pledge his loyalty to Trump in private, why not in public? What’s he trying to hide? Is there a problem with Trump being here? Is he embarrassed?”Indeed, if the McAuliffe campaign has one message in this race, it is that Youngkin, for all his his fleece jacket suburban dad demeanor, is a mini-Trump and therefore anathema to the most liberal state in the south. In one of the Democrat’s ads, Trump is heard endorsing the candidate, then Youngkin says Trump “represents so much of why I’m running”; no further comment is required.Republicans insist the effort is doomed. Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club in Ashburn, said: “Donald Trump is no longer in office. I think that’s a lost cause for McAuliffe.”For his part, Youngkin has relentlessly pushed a culture wars message that Virginia’s schools are under existential threat from “critical race theory”. The fact that critical race theory – an analytic framework through which academics discern the ways that racial disparities are reproduced by the law – is not taught in Virginia does not seem to matter to him.One Youngkin ad features a mother who once sought to ban Beloved, a classic novel by the African American author Toni Morrison, from classrooms. Her effort led to state legislation that would have let parents opt out of their children studying classroom materials with sexually explicit content; it was vetoed by McAuliffe when he was governor. Democrats seized on the issue to accuse Youngkin of trying to ban books and “silence” Black authors.What these very different campaign pitches have in common is a laser focus on the suburbs, where Trump fared poorly against Biden in last year’s presidential election but where parental anxiety over school curriculums and virus precautions is seen as ripe for exploitation. Both parties are monitoring closely which message will prevail as they prepare to campaign for the November 2022 midterms.The Virginia election may well be won and lost in the suburbs of the state capital, Richmond, once the seat of the slave-owning Confederacy where a statue of Gen Robert E Lee was last month removed after 131 years. Yard signs for both McAuliffe and Youngkin are visible in the suburb of Short Pump, which has a lively shopping mall, well-regarded restaurants and excellent government schools.Resident Beth O’Hara, 46, a lawyer, said: “I think the suburbs are really going to make the difference and there are people I know who really distrusted Trump and did not vote for his re-election but are planning to vote for Youngkin. That tells me people view him in a much more moderate way.”But O’Hara will vote for McAuliffe. “It’s difficult for me to imagine, after some progress over the last couple of years in Virginia, going back to a place where we have a Republican governor who has at least suggested further restrictions of abortion. I’m kind of done seeing us backslide on that particular issue.”Seventy miles away is Charlottesville, where a white supremacist march in 2017 galvanised Biden to run for president in what he called a battle for the soul of the nation. Now Charlottesville will render its own verdict: McAuliffe has acknowledged that Biden’s dip in the polls, and Democrats’ inertia in Washington, could hurt his campaign.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said: “This is going to be a test case that Republicans will use in 2022, whether Youngkin wins or not, because it’s clearly going to be close. The fact that he could turn a +10 Biden state, with Biden’s help and the congressional Democrats’ help, into a close contest tells you that some of the social and cultural issues, however outrageous they are, are working.”Sabato added: “Critical race theory doesn’t even exist in this state. We don’t teach it. I just can’t tell you how many people come up to me, in stores and gas stations and so on, and say, ‘Why are we teaching this race thing?’ I tell them it’s not taught. They say, ‘Well, that can’t be because I heard Mr Youngkin talk about it.’ He talks about it every day about 10 times. You can create an issue out of nothing.”Democratic voters in Charlottesville are appalled by Youngkin’s reversion to dog-whistle politics in a state that has been trending Democratic in recent years with strict gun laws, loose abortion restrictions, protections for LGBTQ+ people, the abolition of the death penalty and the legalisation of marijuana for adult recreational use.Andrea Douglas, executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, said: “If Virginia becomes a Republican state, all of the work that we have done over the course of the last few years in Charlottesville and just generally trying to move Virginia towards being a progressive state, all of that will be turned back.“Seeing the kind of work that has been done in the state to re-engage our students with African American history in the face of critical race theory backlash, the last thing we need is a Republican governor. From the perspective of not just being a person of color, but being a woman of color, he is a dangerous, dangerous person. His positions on abortion, his positions on education.”Youngkin has been walking a political tightrope, seeking to play down his links to Trump in Democratic-held cities while embracing the former president in his old strongholds in the hope of reactivating his base of support.Meanwhile, McAuliffe has rallied with Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Barack Obama in an attempt to whip up enthusiasm in an election-weary electorate. One of the biggest challenges facing Democrats is apathy from young voters, and voters of color, disenchanted by Biden’s failure to deliver on promises on the climate crisis, immigration reform, racial justice in policing and voting rights.There is also frustration over his stalled legislative agenda. This week Biden announced a pared down social and environmental spending package worth $1.75tn, which was half his original proposal and dropped paid family leave, lower prescription drug prices and free community college.As.the president flew off to Europe for Cop26 and meetings with Boris Johnson and other world leaders, it remained unclear whether progressives in the House, or the conservative Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, would explicitly back the new framework.This could leave Biden in a damaging limbo, with Republicans likely to claim a moral victory even if they narrowly lose Virginia, paving the way for success in the midterms and then for another Trump presidential run in 2024.Democrat Juli Briskman, a district supervisor in Loudon county who is campaigning for McAuliffe, said: “If we don’t win, unfortunately, that will give the right their playbook because they have been trying hard to confuse parents and confuse voters with false narratives over our school system and false narratives over our voting system. If those false narratives succeed then that gives them a playbook for the ’22 and ’24 elections.”She warned: “We are the testing ground, we are the proving ground, and we just simply have to hold the line.”TopicsVirginiaThe ObserverUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

OpinionUS politicsResilience: the one word progressives need in the face of Trump, Covid and moreRobert ReichThe climate crisis, the economy, Biden’s struggle to enact his spending agenda. The list goes on. The lesson? Be strong Sun 31 Oct 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 01.09 EDTI often tell my students that if they strive to achieve full and meaningful lives, they should expect failures and disappointments. We learn to walk by falling down again and again. We learn to ride a bicycle by crashing into things. We learn to make good friends by being disappointed in friendship. Failure and disappointment are prerequisites to growth.‘A deliberate, orchestrated campaign’: the real story behind Trump’s attempted coupRead moreThe real test of character comes after failures and disappointments. It is resilience: how easily you take failures, what you learn from them, how you bounce back.This is a hard lesson for high-achievers used to jumping over every hoop put in front of them. It’s also a hard lesson for people who haven’t had all the support and love they might have needed when growing up. In fact, it’s a hard lesson for almost everyone in a culture such as ours, that worships success and is embarrassed by failure and is inherently impatient.Why am I telling you this now? Because we have gone through a few very difficult years: Donald Trump’s racist nationalism and his attacks on our democracy, a painful reckoning with systemic racism, angry political divisions, a deadly pandemic accompanied by a recession, and climate hazards such as floods and wildfires.We assumed everything would be fine again once these were behind us. But we now find ourselves in a disorienting limbo. There is no clearly demarcated “behind us”. The pandemic still lurks. The economy is still worrisome. Americans continue to be deeply angry with each other. The climate crisis still poses an existential threat. Trump and other insurrectionists have not yet been brought to justice. Democracy is still threatened.And Biden and the Democrats have been unable to achieve the scale of change many of us wanted and expected.If you’re not at least a bit disappointed, you’re not human. To some, it feels like America is failing.But bear with me. I’ve learned a few things in my half-century in and around politics, and my many years teaching young people. One is that things often look worse than they really are. The media (including social media) sells subscriptions and advertising with stories that generate anger and disappointment. The same goes for the views of pundits and commentators. Pessimists always appear wiser than optimists.Another thing I’ve learned is that expectations for a new president and administration are always much higher than they can possibly deliver. Our political system was designed to make it difficult to get much done, at least in the short run. So the elation that comes with the election of someone we admire almost inevitably gives way to disappointment.A third thing: in addition to normal political constraints, positive social change comes painfully slowly. It can take years, decades, sometimes a century or longer for a society to become more inclusive, more just, more democratic, more aware of its shortcomings and more determined to remedy them. And such positive changes are often punctuated by lurches backward. I believe in progress because I’ve seen so much of it in my lifetime, but I’m also aware of the regressive forces that constantly threaten it. The lesson here is tenacity – playing the long game.The US should cut the Pentagon budget to fund social | Emma Claire FoleyRead moreWhich brings me back to resilience. We have been through a difficult time. We wanted and expected it to be over: challenges overcome, perpetrators brought to justice, pandemic ended, nation healed, climate saved, politics transformed. But none of it is over. The larger goals we are fighting for continue to elude us.Yet we must continue the fight. If we allow ourselves to fall into fatalism, or wallow in disappointment, or become resigned to what is rather than what should be, we will lose the long game. The greatest enemy of positive social change is cynicism about what can be changed.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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Biden administrationDemocratic leaders want House votes on Biden domestic agenda by TuesdayAnonymous sources outline ambitious timetable for spending plan so far stymied by centrist senators Associated Press in WashingtonSat 30 Oct 2021 16.01 EDTDemocratic leaders are hoping for House votes as soon as Tuesday on the two pillars of Joe Biden’s domestic spending agenda, two Democrats said Saturday, as the party mounted its latest push to get the long-delayed legislation through Congress.Joe Manchin single-handedly denied US families paid leave. That’s just cruel | Jill FilipovicRead moreTop Democrats would like a final House-Senate compromise on Biden’s now $1.75tn, 10-year social and environment plan to be written by Sunday, the Democrats said.Talks among White House, House and Senate officials were being held over the weekend, said the Democrats, who described the plans on condition of anonymity.An accord could clear the way for House passage of that bill and a separate $1tn measure funding road, rail and other infrastructure projects, the Democrats said.It remains unclear whether the ambitious timetable can be met. To clear the Senate, any agreement will need the backing of centrist Democrats Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona.The two senators have forced Biden to retreat from his plan for a $3.5tn social and environment bill and to remove some initiatives from the measure.Republican opposition to the social and environmental bill is unanimous. Democrats hold the House and Senate but in the latter are 10 votes short of the necessary super-majority to pass legislation.They must therefore use reconciliation, a process for budgetary measures which allows for a simple majority. As the Senate is split 50-50 and controlled via the casting vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris, Manchin and Sinema have a tremendous amount of power.The Senate approved the infrastructure bill in August on a bipartisan vote. House progressives have since sidetracked that bill, in an effort to pressure moderates to back the larger social and environment bill.TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenUS domestic policyUS politicsDemocratsJoe ManchinUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

The Week in PatriarchyFeminismIt’s clear capitalism isn’t working when US politicians try to bring back child laborArwa MahdawiThere is something very, very wrong with a system that would rather recruit more kids instead of paying better wages and providing more benefits to adults Sat 30 Oct 2021 09.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 30 Oct 2021 09.02 EDTSign up for the Week in Patriarchy, a newsletter on feminism and sexism sent every Saturday.Build Back Better (with child labour)Back in the good old days American children didn’t sit around playing video games, making TikToks, and bingeing Netflix. They worked long hours in factories and sweatshops; they knew the value of hard graft. They didn’t take sick days either, they just died of diphtheria. It was a simpler time.Some US politicians, it would seem, are trying their best to return the country to a golden era of loose labour laws. The Wisconsin senate recently approved a bill that expands the working day for minors, allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 11 pm on non-school nights. Must be fun being a child in Wisconsin! Not only do adults want to take away your free time, they also want to take away your free food. Over the summer school board members in the Waukesha school district made headlines after they voted to leave a federal free meals program because they worried it made it easy for families to “become spoiled” or develop an “addiction” to the service. Imagine if kids became addicted to the government ensuring they didn’t starve, eh? They might not be so keen to work for peanuts until 11 at night. Then you might have to start paying adults a living wage and the whole system would fall apart!As I’m sure you are aware, the United States – along with much of the world – is facing a dramatic labour shortage amid what has been termed the Great Resignation. Earlier this month the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that an unprecedented 2.9% of the workforce, about 4.3 million people, quit their jobs in August. Republicans have been doing their best to starve people back into the low-paid jobs that keep the economy running by cutting off pandemic unemployment benefits, but that hasn’t immediately solved the issue. So some bright sparks have been turning to child labour instead. Over the summer New Jersey passed legislation temporarily increasing the number of hours that kids aged 16-18 are able to work. Meanwhile, fast-food chains across the US have ramped up their efforts to recruit kids. Last month a McDonald’s in Oregon sparked headlines after it put out a banner urging 14- and 15-year-olds to apply.There’s obviously nothing wrong with teenagers getting summer jobs. But there is something very, very wrong with a system that would rather recruit more kids into the workforce instead of paying better wages and providing more benefits to adults. There’s something very wrong with a system where billionaires have seen their net worth balloon during the worst public health crisis in recent memory – and politicians seemingly have no desire to make them pay their fair share in taxes. There’s something very wrong with a system where minimum wage isn’t enough to afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the US. And, increasingly, people aren’t putting up with all this any more. They’re not swallowing the lie that if they just buckle down and work hard, they can achieve the American dream. They’re not quietly getting on with it, they’re organising: the past year has seen a wave of labour uprisings across America. Meanwhile, socialism (once an incredibly dirty word in the US) has been gaining popularity among young Americans. And that last bit should surprise no one. If politicians are trying to bring back child labour to plug labour shortages then I think it’s pretty clear that capitalism isn’t working.Kellogg’s to give staff in the UK fertility, menopause and miscarriage leaveThe company has said it is aiming to help staff feel “psychologically safe” at work. Not sure if that ethos extends to its employees in the US: 1,400 Kellogg’s workers recently went on strike to protest against poor working conditions.Women are better investors than menWomen’s investment returns were 0.4% higher than men’s, according to Fidelity’s 2021 Women and Investing Study. While that’s not a huge difference, it’s just the latest study to show that women tend to be better with money than men. Women tend to hold their investments for longer and are less prone to panic selling.Men are increasingly worried about their biological clocksSirin Kale profiles the men who are afraid they’ve left it too late to have kids.US tech investor Joe Lonsdale thinks men who take paternity leave are losersThe multimillionaire venture capitalist tweeted that men with important jobs shouldn’t be taking extended time off to spend with their newborns. “In the old days men had babies and worked harder to provide for their future – that’s the correct masculine response,” he tweeted. The father-of-three has refused to apologize for his comments. Real men don’t apologize, doubling down on looking like an idiot is the correct masculine response!Sexual misconduct complaint filed against Andrew CuomoThe former New York governor continues his dramatic fall from grace. Still, things aren’t too bad for him: at least he has that $5.1m payout from his book on leadership to fall back on.Polish parliament debates bill banning LGBTQ pride paradesPoland has become an increasingly hostile place for LGBTQ people in recent years.US issues its first passport with ‘X’ gender designationX-citing news for non-binary people!Study finds California condors can have ‘virgin births’Researchers believe it is the first case of asexual reproduction in any avian species where the female had access to a mate.The week in phonecall-archyLike every sensible millennial, I do not pick up my phone to unknown numbers under any circumstance. Nor, it seems, does a hiker who got lost in Colorado recently and repeatedly ignored phone calls from a search and rescue team because he didn’t recognize the number. I appreciate the dedication to avoiding spammers, but that was a very bad call.
Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for pre-order
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