US Politics

US Capitol attackTop Republicans move to protect Trump from Capitol attack falloutSome party leaders blamed the former president in the charged moments after the insurrection – but are now embarking on a campaign of revisionism Hugo Lowell in WashingtonThu 5 Aug 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 5 Aug 2021 02.01 EDTTop Republicans in Congress are embarking on a new campaign of revisionism seven months after the attack on the Capitol, absolving Donald Trump of responsibility and blaming the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for the 6 January insurrection perpetrated by a mob of Trump supporters.A Trump bombshell quietly dropped last week. And it should shock us all | Robert ReichRead moreSome House and Senate Republican leaders stated in the charged moments immediately following the attack that Trump was squarely to blame, and amid blood and shattered glass at the US Capitol, some even considered his removal.“The president bears responsibility,” the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said of Trump at the time, demanding that he “accept his share of responsibility”.But after nearly 200 House Republicans voted to clear Trump in his unprecedented second impeachment and Senate Republicans scuttled a 9/11-style commission to investigate the events of 6 January, the Republican party made a call to shift all blame away from Trump.The move to protect Trump from the fallout of the Capitol attack, at any cost, reflects the party leaders loyalty to a defeated former president, as well as the political self-interest of Republicans desperate to distance themselves from an insurrection they helped stoke with lies of a stolen election.The Republicans’ journey into a universe of alternate facts became virtually complete last week after House Republican leadership, days after the harrowing testimony of police officers deployed to tackle the rioters shocked Congress once more, spun a new lie about the deadly attack.No longer satisfied to simply pardon Trump for inciting his supporters to unlawfully stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, the No 3 House Republican, Elise Stefanik, blamed Pelosi – a target of the mob – for the violence on 6 January.“The American people deserve to know the truth: that Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility, as speaker of the House, for the tragedy that occurred on January 6,” Stefanik said falsely from the steps of the Capitol.Pelosi is not responsible for security – a duty that lies with US Capitol police – but the baseless claim promulgated by Stefanik amounted to the party leadership’s latest disinformation campaign they hope will give them political cover as the 2022 midterm elections near.There remains a deep fear among Republicans that any scrutiny into 6 January could expose their role in amplifying Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election – the root cause of the insurrection – which could be used as a cudgel by Democrats at the ballot box.Some congressional Republicans privately acknowledge the fallacious logic of blaming Pelosi for the Capitol attack, but not the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, her then opposite number in the Senate.But in a sign of the ambition and self-preservation guiding Republican revisionism over the Capitol attack, they also suggest that they are willing for McCarthy to indulge Trump’s claims should it help Republicans capture the House. And with Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, vowing to subpoena anyone who spoke with Trump on 6 January, they note a counter-narrative takes on the added effect of undercutting the politically bruising inquiry.The revisionism over the Capitol attack heralds what some experts see as a dangerous new era in American politics: even with Trump out of the White House, Republicans advancing demonstrably false narratives to safeguard their political survival.“The GOP is thinking enough time has passed to somehow rewrite the history of events,” said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former top White House Russia expert who testified at Trump’s first impeachment inquiry.“They’re hoping that it gets into the record, even if it’s pointed out that it doesn’t correlate with the facts, because once their version is out there in the media, then that’s sufficient for it to become the raw material for shaping how history recounts things later on,” Hill said.In the days after the attack, McCarthy, joined Democrats in condemning Trump and urging Congress to establish a fact-finding commission, having already called the former president and demanded he call off his rioters.McCarthy at one stage even fact-checked the former president. “Some say the riots were caused by Antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of that,” he said on the House floor. “Conservatives should be the first to say so.”But that initial resolve was quickly replaced with a renewed fealty to Trump, who demanded that Pelosi “investigate herself”, as he again falsely suggested that it was Antifa, rather than his own supporters, who perpetrated the Capitol attack.Republicans have seized on that messaging, but none more so than McCarthy, who has repeated Trump’s debunked claims and taken trips to Mar-a-Lago to ingratiate himself with Trump, whose support he considers essential for his ambitions to become Speaker in 2022.Such endeavors to placate Trump took on heightened significance last week for McCarthy, after he pulled all five of his picks for the House select committee in a moment of frustration and inadvertently left Trump without defenders on the panel.And as two US Capitol police and two DC Metropolitan police officers for hours testified to the select committee how Trump, described as a “hit man”, sent his supporters to attack the Capitol, an alarmed McCarthy moved to shift the pressure from Trump to Pelosi.“If there is a responsibility for this Capitol, on this side, it rests with the Speaker,” McCarthy said.Stefanik, who replaced Liz Cheney as Republican conference chair after her ouster in May for taking aim at Trump’s conduct and rhetoric once too often, went further, and proclaimed that the House speaker was in fact to blame for the insurrection.The political calculus of the House Republican leadership extended for the first time last week to McConnell – once fiercely critical of Trump for his role in inciting the insurrection, but now content to avoid the topic he considers a political loser.Hill told the Guardian that Republican revisionism revisionism mirrors the playbook adopted by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and an array of other autocratic leaders needing to sanitize their roles in politically embarrassing events.“You can see this over and over again in pretty much every authoritarian setting,” Hill said. “It’s fundamentally not about politics. It’s nothing more than a massive con job, a scam, concocted to keep their own personal and collective power. There’s no end other than that.It is a disinformation effort also co-opted by rank and file Republicans, who have increasingly tried to rewrite the reality of what transpired on 6 January, from claiming no rioter was armed (at least one was), to comparing the attack to a “normal tourist visit”.Standing outside the justice department last week, a group of Trump’s most vociferous defenders on Capitol Hill denounced the indictments brought against nearly 600 Capitol rioters and accused prosecutors of holding them as political prisoners.Urged on by Trump, the lawmakers falsely characterized Ashli Babbitt, an insurrectionist who was shot and killed as she tried to breach a secure area of the Capitol adjacent to the House chamber, as a patriotic martyr whose death was planned by Democrats.The fiction pushed by Stefanik drew a rebuke from at least one Republican. “All Donald Trump needs to see is that you’re making a defense, no matter how nonsensical that defense is,” Congressman Adam Kinzinger said on ABC, but not before members of his own party called for his expulsion.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansDonald TrumpUS CongressUS politicsNancy PelosifeaturesReuse this content More

Mike Pompeo$5,800 whisky bottle given to Pompeo as gift missing, state department saysJapan gave bottle to former secretary of state two years ago ‘Ongoing inquiry’ underway into what happened to the booze A More

US newsUS blocks imports from Fiji-based vessel accused of enslaving its crewCustoms and Border Protection issued an order Wednesday to halt shipments from the tuna fishing vessel Maya YangWed 4 Aug 2021 15.46 EDTLast modified on Wed 4 Aug 2021 16.03 EDTThe US has blocked imports in American ports from a Fiji-based tuna fishing vessel that is accused of enslaving crew members.On Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection issued an order to halt shipments from the Hangton No 112, a longliner operated by a Chinese national. The order came after the agency determined there was credible evidence that the vessel’s crew was operating under forced labor conditions.“Foreign fishing vessels like the Hangton No 112 continue to lure vulnerable migrant workers into forced labor situations so that they can sell seafood below market value, which threatens the livelihoods of American fishermen,” said Troy Miller, CBP acting commissioner. “CBP will continue to stand up against these vessels’ abusive labor practices by preventing the introduction of their unethically harvested seafood into the US market.”The CBP identified at least three of the International Labour Organization’s 11 indicators of forced labor, including withholding of wages, debt bondage and retention of identity documents.Despite industry efforts to tackle forced labor onboard fishing vessels, the Hangton No 112 has imported around $40m in tuna and other fish into the US market, according to Ana Hinojosa, the director of the CPB, which investigates allegations of forced labor. The identities of importers who received the shipments have not been disclosed.The 34-meter vessel, which operates under the flag of Fiji, was built in 2017 and employed 13 crew members. In a December 2019 investigation by Greenpeace Southeast Asia and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union, the vessel was found to have seven of the ILO’s indicators of forced labor.The report noted that a representative from Hangton “claimed that the said vessel is not a distant water fishing vessel and that its Indonesian crew are recruited by an Indonesian agent”. The representative also denied accusations of salary deductions and retention of identity documents.Wednesday’s announcement followed a series of orders targeting Asian fishing vessels amid reports of forced labor. In May, the CBP blocked imports of seafood from the entire fleet of Dalian Ocean Fishing, a Chinese company. Agency officials reported that crew members were forced to work in slave-like conditions that resulted in the deaths of several Indonesian fishermen in 2020.Current estimates from the ILO suggest that more than 25 million workers suffer under conditions of forced labor globally, including those in the distant water fishing industry, who often hail from south-east Asia.TopicsUS newsFijiUS politicsAsia PacificPacific islandsFishing industrynewsReuse this content More

AfghanistanUK media unite to urge visas for Afghan reporters at risk from TalibanNewspapers and broadcasters send open letter to Boris Johnson raising safety fears about locals who did vital work for the west

Open letter warns of brutal Taliban reprisals against Afghan reporters
Emma Graham-HarrisonWed 4 Aug 2021 14.59 EDTFirst published on Wed 4 Aug 2021 12.10 EDTA coalition of British newspapers and broadcasters has appealed to the government to expand its refugee visa programme for Afghans, to include people who have worked for UK media over the past 20 years.In an open letter to the prime minister and foreign secretary, more than 20 outlets outlined the vital need for a route to safety for reporters whose work with British media could put them at risk of Taliban reprisals.“There is an urgent need to act quickly, as the threat to their lives is already acute and worsening,” the letter said.“If left behind, those Afghan journalists and media employees who have played such a vital role informing the British public by working for British media will be left at the risk of persecution, of physical harm, incarceration, torture, or death.US media came together to make a similar appeal last month, unifying outlets as diverse as Fox and the New York Times. The Biden administration has since expanded its visa programme for Afghanistan, to cover people with links to the US media, and US-funded aid projects.The signatories to the British letter represent an equally broad coalition. They include broadcasters Sky and ITN (which makes news for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) and all major British newspapers from the Guardian, the Times and the Financial Times to the Daily Mail and the Sun, and weekly magazine the Economist.The National Union of Journalists and press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders have also put their names to the demand for a path to safety for journalists with UK links, modelled on the visa route for military interpreters.The letter was sent to Boris Johnson and the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who did not immediately respondThe Labour leader, Keir Starmer, promised his party’s backing for the effort to expand protection to Afghan journalists.“The Labour party strongly supports this campaign. These brave Afghans helped the British media report news of the war to the world. They stood up for media freedom and democracy, values that we rightly champion around the world,” Starmer said.“The UK must not abandon them. We urge the government to do the right thing and provide these Afghan journalists, support staff and their families sanctuary in the UK.”Afghans who worked as reporters, translators or “fixers” – multi-skilled journalists who do everything from research to driving for foreign correspondents from outside the country – have been vital to public understanding of a war that has claimed hundreds of British lives and cost billions of pounds.That work, and their links to the UK, also created unique security risks for them. Afghan reporters say their reporting is regularly cited in insurgent threats.The letter notes that the UK government’s own panel on press freedom “recommends a visa programme for journalists at risk in their home state”.The Taliban have for years targeted journalists in campaigns of assassinations and intimidation, which intensified last year, when a wave of attacks in urban areas picked off reporters along with human rights workers, moderate religious scholars and civil society activists, as they went about their daily lives.Helmand-based Elyas Dayee, a key contributor to much of the UK media coverage from the province where most British troops served, was killed in a bomb attack claimed by local Taliban commanders. Other victims included three women who worked for Enekass TV in eastern Afghanistan, gunned down on their commute.The threats have become even more urgent since the Taliban launched a military campaign in May that has swept through the country.They have seized more than half of rural Afghanistan and are threatening several major cities. The group have carried out targeted killings after taking control in some areas, and journalists fear they are likely to be on hitlists.The body of the Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Danish Siddiqui was multilated while in Taliban custody, after he was killed near the southern town of Kandahar last month.Underlining the gravity of the current security situation in Afghanistan, the US has started airlifting out former employees even before they finish their visa process, and UK military officials are appealing for a broader visa programme.TopicsAfghanistanTalibanSouth and Central AsiaUS politicsJournalist safetynewsReuse this content More

Andrew CuomoAndrew Cuomo tries to battle on as demands pour in for him to quitNew York governor found to have sexually harassed 11 womenSupport crumbles as state impeachment cogs begin to turn Ed Pilkington in New York@ More

Biden administrationWhat’s in the bipartisan infrastructure bill and what’s left out – visual explainerBill maintains a large portion of Biden’s proposals for roads, public transit and high-speed internet – but cuts some of the more contentious spending items Andrew Witherspoon and Alvin ChangWed 4 Aug 2021 12.54 EDTLast modified on Wed 4 Aug 2021 13.14 EDTA bipartisan group of US senators have proposed billions of dollars of new spending on roads, public transit, affordable high-speed internet and clean drinking water, among other things.This latest bill, called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is significant because it’s an iteration of President Biden’s infrastructure plan – but pared down so that it can garner enough Republican support to get through the Senate and be signed into law.The $550bn plan costs less than a quarter of Biden’s American Jobs Plan, which proposed $2.6tn in new spending over the next decade. But the bill still funds many of the investments the Biden administration has prioritized. In addition, it appears to have support from at least 10 Republicans – enough to overcome a filibuster which requires at least 60 of the 100 Senate votes.Here’s what was stripped from Biden’s plan and what is still in the Senate version:A huge portion of transportation infrastructure is still fundedThe new bill proposed $109bn in new investments for roads, bridges and related projects. It also makes significant investments in rail projects, public transit and airports. The biggest cut from Biden’s plan was in funding for nationwide infrastructure that electrifies America’s vehicles.Transportation fundingInvestments in the power grid, high-speed internet and clean water are still big parts of the new billThe bipartisan bill invests tens of billions of dollars in the country’s power grid. This is especially salient in 2021: Americans have felt the impacts of the country’s fragile grid infrastructure, from the blackouts in Texas to threats of brownouts during the summer heatwaves. In addition the bill makes massive investments in providing high-speed internet to all Americans, as well as fixing water infrastructure. The Senate bill falls short of Biden’s initial proposal, but it still makes significant new investments to address some of the Biden administration’s biggest priorities.Core infrastructureWhat was left out: the most contentious proposals on housing, clean energy tax credits and long-term careBiden’s initial bill included about $1.7tn in new spending for long-term care for older adults and people with disabilities, clean energy tax credits, schools and climate change research, among other things.Other billsMany of these line items faced strong opposition from Republicans and were left out of this bipartisan bill. They may be added into the budget bill, which the Senate will tackle in the coming months. A budget bill could be passed with a mere Senate majority using a process called budget reconciliation, and Democrats control 50 seats with the tie-breaking vote in Vice-President Kamala Harris. That said, moderate Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) said she doesn’t support the $3.5tn price tag for that bill, so it may need to be pared down to pass.TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenUS SenateUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

OpinionAndrew CuomoThe evidence is damning. If Cuomo had any self-respect, he’d resignMoira DoneganA 165-page report by the New York attorney general has found that the governor behaved in abusive, harassing, and illegal ways towards women Wed 4 Aug 2021 06.20 EDTLast modified on Wed 4 Aug 2021 10.55 EDT“We find all 11 women to be credible,” said Ann L Clark, at a press conference on Tuesday. Clark, an employment attorney, is one of the independent lawyers brought on to conduct New York attorney general Letitia James’s investigation into sexual harassment claims against governor Andrew Cuomo. Her statement was made as part of the release of a 165-page report by the attorney general’s office, a fact-finding investigation that determined that the governor had illegally abused and harassed women subordinates. The report corroborated accounts from almost a dozen women, including nine current and former employees of the governor’s office, one state trooper and one employee of the energy utility National Grid. The investigation found that Cuomo not only personally sexually harassed women, but that he created a hostile work environment and used his office in an attempt to silence and punish his accusers, all of which violate both federal and New York State civil rights laws. The report is the product of a months-long investigation, which included interviews with 179 people, a review of 74,000 documents and 11 hours of sworn testimony from Cuomo himself.Andrew Cuomo sexual harassment: the key testimony from the reportRead moreThe report confirms accounts from former aides, including Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett, who described a high-pressure environment (“rife with fear and intimidation,” in the words of the report) in which pleasing the governor was paramount, and where vulgar overtures, prying queries into their personal lives and unsolicited physical contact were common. The attorney general’s office lent credence to Boylan’s account of being harassed and forcibly kissed by the governor. The report also notes the copious evidence supporting the accusations made by Bennett, a young aide to whom the governor expressed sexual interest in unambiguous terms, asking if she was monogamous or if she slept with older men. Bennett’s account, the report says, matches the contemporaneous notes made by the officials she complained to, as well as her own statements to the press and near-contemporaneous texts she sent to friends and loved ones describing her distress at Cuomo’s behavior. The document also corroborates an account from an aide, whose identity has not been made public, who claims that the governor reached under her blouse and groped her breast at the governor’s mansion. That incident has been reported to Albany police.The James report also reveals new accusations against Cuomo. A female state trooper assigned to his security detail says he touched her stomach in one instance, and ran his finger down her spine while saying “Hey, you” in another. She says he kissed her on the cheek in front of her co-workers, an indignity that male troopers were not subjected to, and remarked that if she got married, it would decrease her sex drive. The trooper alleges that Cuomo, who is 63, told her he was looking for a girlfriend in her 20s who “could handle pain”. All of this happened while the trooper was responsible for Cuomo’s safety and protection.Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing, alleging in his own press conference on Tuesday that the attorney general’s investigation was biased, that he has never touched anyone inappropriately, that he offers unsolicited kisses to many people regardless of their sex, and that Bennett, the young aide who accused him of harassment, misinterpreted his comments due to her past history of sexual assault. The attorney general’s report said that investigators found Cuomo’s denials to “lack credibility and to be inconsistent with the weight of the evidence obtained during our investigation.”The report offers a damning and comprehensive view of Cuomo’s office culture, one in which women’s boundaries were crossed, the governor’s whims were indulged and employees’ dignity was routinely insulted for Cuomo’s amusement. But it almost didn’t get written at all. After the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo became public earlier this year, the governor refused to resign – even as many state legislators and nearly all of New York’s congressional delegation urged him to do. When an independent investigation was proposed, Cuomo tried to assign the inquiry to judges he had appointed, possibly in an effort to influence its outcome. The elected attorney general had to fight for jurisdiction in order to deliver an independent investigation.Cuomo has clung to power over the past year even as his administration has been enveloped in other scandals. There was the revelation that during the pandemic he used state employees to help him write the splashy, self-congratulatory memoir for which he was handsomely paid. More disturbingly, there was the news that after a mistake in pandemic management cost thousands of senior citizens their lives, the governor’s office fudged the data on nursing home deaths, hoping to dodge responsibility. These scandals, too, point towards the same attitude by the governor as the alleged butt-grabbing and crude, adolescent boorishness outlined in the report: the idea that power is not a responsibility to others, but a license to do whatever he wants.The governor is not civically minded; he is not responsible with his office. He is reckless, disrespectful, misogynist and allergic to taking responsibility. He has demonstrated not merely an unfitness for power but a personal moral vacuity – an unwillingness to think of other people, of women, as equals, or to imagine his own actions as having consequences. Cuomo has a tremendous ego, but he seems to lack self-respect.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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