US Politics

US SenateSenate expects to move forward with infrastructure bill Senators await text of $1tn package, key to Biden agendaAOC fires warning shot as progressives eye reconciliation bill G More

FloridaFauci backs new masks guidance as Florida reports highest one-day Covid case total
State is national epicenter as 21,683 cases reported
Hospitalisations record also falls amid mask mandate ban
America mulls vaccine mandates – will they work?
Richard Luscombe in Miami@ More

Alexandria Ocasio-CortezEvictions crisis: Ocasio-Cortez says Democrats cannot blame RepublicansProgressive is angry her party allowed the clock to run out on renewing measure that lapsed Saturday night Richard Luscombe@ More

It might seem like a post-Trump world, but in red states across the US his most hardline supporters are setting the political agenda. How much power do they have to shape the country’s future, even with a Democrat in the White House?

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This episode first aired on our global news podcast, Today in Focus. To a casual observer, Joe Biden’s victory in the last US presidential election, coupled with Democratic success in the Senate and the House, might have seemed to turn the page on the Donald Trump era and consign his hardline policy agenda to the past. But a huge amount of power in the US resides in its 50 state legislatures, and Republicans won a clear majority in 30 of them. In large parts of the US they are now using that power to enact a policy agenda that many observers view as being far more extreme than many voters would have supported. So why are they going ahead anyway? Rachel Humphreys speaks to David Smith, the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, about the politics that lie behind that move to the right, and how in the era of coronavirus it will further deepen the sense that there are two vastly different Americas. Smith reflects on what threat to Biden’s agenda the state Republicans will present and whether their strategy of appeasing their base could pave the way for a new Trump run at the presidency in 2024. More

OhioOld Democratic hostilities suppressed in Trump era resurface in primary fight Nina Turner and Shontel Brown will square off Tuesday in Ohio race that has turned nasty and could foreshadow midterm risksDavid Smith in Cleveland, Ohio@ More

The ObserverAfghanistanUS launches emergency airlift to rescue Afghan allies at risk of Taliban’s revengeEvacuation flights start before visas are issued after insurgents make sweeping gains in provinces Emma Graham-HarrisonSun 1 Aug 2021 04.15 EDTLast modified on Sun 1 Aug 2021 05.51 EDTAmerica has launched emergency airlifts for Afghans who worked with its armed forces and diplomats, evacuating hundreds who are still waiting for their visas to the United States on military flights.Only people in the final stages of a long, slow and bureaucratic visa process are eligible for the airlift, but bringing applicants to the continental US in large numbers is still unprecedented in recent years, officials working on the programme say.It reflects growing political pressure in the US over the fate of Afghans who supported the Nato mission in Afghanistan and now face retaliation as the security situation deteriorates.Tens of thousands of Afghans with a US connection are waiting for a response to their visa applications, including more than 18,000 who worked for the military or embassy, and in excess of 50,000 family members eligible to travel with them. Some have been in limbo for years.There is increasing concern about the fate of Afghan allies in the UK too. Dozens of former military commanders last week called on the government to allow more people who worked for British forces to settle in the country.Last week CNN reported that a former interpreter for American troops had been beheaded by Taliban fighters at a militant checkpoint. Others still in the country say they face regular death threats and fear they will be hunted down as the insurgents seize more territory.The Taliban’s sweeping gains, in a campaign launched in May, have so far been confined to rural areas, but government troops and militias that back them have been struggling to hold back Taliban fighters inside three provincial capitals.In the south, airstrikes were called in to protect Lashkar Gah in Helmand and Kandahar City, while in western Herat, fighting closed the airport for several days and the UN said its compound came under attack by militants who killed a guard.The first evacuation flight to America landed on Thursday, with about 200 passengers from Kabul, said JC Hendrickson, senior director for policy and advocacy at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which is supporting the new arrivals. In a sign of how hastily the programme has been set up, Hendrickson said they were only asked to take part last week and rushed staff to Virginia to prepare.The IRC has helped more than 16,000 Afghans settle in the US after securing special immigrant visas (SIVs), but this is the first time they have been involved with visa processing. They expect up to 3,000 people to arrive on the special flights.“Certainly in the last decade or two, I’ve never heard of anything like this … in the territorial United States,” Hendrickson said.“It’s a big step in the right direction, supporting people whose lives are at risk because of their affiliation with the United States.”He called on the government to go further in supporting Afghans at risk, including clearing the backlog of SIV applications, and setting up a separate visa programme for Afghans who have American links that could make them Taliban targets, but do not qualify for an SIV visa.“The government should take an ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ approach to helping people who are US-affiliated,” Hendrickson said, praising moves in Congress to allocate additional resources to processing visas for military and embassy staff, and create a visa pathway for other Afghans at risk. “There are tools that the US government can can deploy outside of this specific (SIV) process. And we think it’s urgently necessary that they do so.”President Biden has promised that the US will not abandon allies in Afghanistan, as it did during its hasty exit from Vietnam.The government is scrambling around for ways to get the tens of thousands of visa applicants to safety, while they are still being vetted, and is reportedly in talks with governments in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf about hosting them.Those being allowed directly into the US, under a condition known as “humanitarian parole”, are the small proportion who had already completed strict background and security vetting. They were only waiting for medical checks, or for visas to be issued.Normally people who secure SIV visas are expected to arrange their own travel from Afghanistan, but military planes have flown this group to the US. They will be housed on the Fort Lee military base until they have completed the final stages of visa applications, the Pentagon said last week.The Taliban have said they will not harm interpreters but few of those who served with the US military trust that assurance. There have been multiple reports of human rights abuses, including targeted killings, in areas seized by the group.These include video that appeared to show Taliban fighters executing a group of commandos as they tried to surrender in May. The Taliban deny executing the soldiers and say the video was faked.Last month militants also mutilated the body of Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Danish Siddiqui, who worked for the Reuters news agency, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing photographs as well as Afghan and Indian officials.TopicsAfghanistanThe ObserverUS militarySouth and Central AsiaTalibanUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

OpinionDonald TrumpRepublicans will defend their Caesar but new revelations show Trump’s true threatLloyd GreenThe DoJ has dealt two blows and the 6 January committee is winding up for more. They know democracy is in danger

Sidney Blumenthal: What did Jim Jordan know and when?
Sun 1 Aug 2021 01.00 EDTOn Friday, Donald Trump received two more unwelcome reminders he is no longer president. Much as he and his minions chant “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton and other enemies, it is he who remains in legal jeopardy and political limbo.IRS must turn over Trump tax returns to Congress, DoJ saysRead moreTrump’s allies on Capitol Hill will again be forced to defend the indefensible. That won’t be a bother: QAnon is their creed, Trump is their Caesar and Gladiator remains the movie for our time.But in other ways, the world has changed. The justice department is no longer an extension of Trump’s West Wing. The levers of government are no longer at his disposal.Next year, much as Trump helped deliver both Georgia Senate seats to the Democrats in January, on the eve of the insurrection, his antics may cost Republicans their chance to retake the Senate.Documents that would probably not have seen the light of day had Trump succeeded in overturning the election are now open to scrutiny, be they contemporaneous accounts of his conversations about that dishonest aim or his tax returns.Those who claim that the events of 6 January were something other than a failed coup attempt would do well to come up with a better line. Or a different alternate reality.Ashli Babbitt is no martyr. Trump will not be restored to the presidency, no matter what the MyPillow guy says. Trump’s machinations and protestations convey the desperation that comes with hovering over the abyss. He knows what he has said and done.First, on Friday morning, news broke that the justice department had provided Congress with copies of notes of a damning 27 December 2020 conversation between Trump, Jeffrey Rosen, then acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s deputy.As first reported by the New York Times, the powers at Main Justice told Trump there was no evidence of widescale electoral fraud in his clear defeat by Joe Biden.He replied: “Just say that the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me.”That goes beyond simply looking to bend the truth. As George Conway, a well-connected, prominent anti-Trump Republican, tweeted: “It’s difficult to overstate how much this reeks of criminal intent on the part of the former guy.”One White House veteran who served under the presidents Bush told the Guardian: “‘Leave the rest to me’ sure sounds like foreknowledge.”Just “connect the dots and the dates”, the former aide said.The insurrection came 10 days later. As the former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist Steve Bannon framed it on 5 January: “All hell is going to break loose.”Truer words were never spoken.Unfortunately for Trump, Friday’s news cycle didn’t end with the events of 27 December. A few hours later, the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), its policy-setting arm, once led by Bill Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, opined that Trump’s tax returns could no longer be kept from the House ways and means committee.Ever since Watergate, presidents and presidential candidates have released their tax returns as a matter of standard operating procedure. Trump’s refusal to do so was one more shattered norm – and a harbinger of what followed.The OLC concluded that the committee’s demand for those records comported with the pertinent statute. Beyond that, it observed that the request would further the panel’s “principal stated objective of assessing the IRS’s presidential audit program – a plainly legitimate area for congressional inquiry”.Here, the DoJ was doing nothing short of echoing the supreme court. A little over a year ago, the court rejected Trump’s contention that the Manhattan district attorney could not scrutinize his tax returns and, in a separate case, held that Congress could also examine his taxes.In the latter case, in a 7-2 decision, the court eviscerated the president’s argument that Congress had no right to review his tax returns and financial records. Writing for the majority, John Roberts, the chief justice, observed: “When Congress seeks information ‘needed for intelligent legislative action’, it ‘unquestionably’ remains ‘the duty of all citizens to cooperate’.”At that point, Trump had made two appointments to the high court. Both joined in the outcome. So much for feeling beholden.Prospective witnesses before the House select committee on the events of 6 January ought to start worrying. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, Congressman Jim Jordan: this means you. By your own admissions, you spoke with Trump that day.It was one thing for Merrick Garland’s justice department to continue the government defense of Trump in E Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit. It’s a whole other thing to expect Biden’s attorney general to play blocking back for Trump. It is highly unlikely here.The justice department does not appear ready to come to the aid of those who sought to overturn the election. Already, it has refused to defend Mo Brooks, the Alabama congressman who wore a Kevlar vest to a 6 January pre-riot rally.‘Just say the election was corrupt,’ Trump urged DoJ after loss to BidenRead moreOn top of that, the Democrats control Congress and Liz Cheney, dissident Republican of Wyoming and member of the 6 January committee, hates Jordan. It is personal.“That fucking guy Jim Jordan. That son of a bitch,” Cheney told the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, about Jordan, according to Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post.Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who like Cheney voted to impeach Trump over 6 January and has joined the select committee, may also be in the mood to deliver a lesson. Congressional Democrats may want to see Jordan and McCarthy sweat. The House GOP got the committee it asked for when it withdrew co-operation. It faces unwelcome consequences.As for Trump, he may well continue to harbour presidential aspirations and dreams of revenge. But as Ringo Starr sang, “It don’t come easy.” Indeed, after Friday’s twin blows, things likely became much more difficult.TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionTrump administrationUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS taxationUS domestic policycommentReuse this content More

US SenateSenate convenes for rare weekend session over infrastructure dealSchumer: ‘We’re going to get the job done’Republican Cornyn predicts a long ‘grind’ A More