US Politics

Bernie SandersBernie in Trumpworld: Sanders visits ‘imperative if democracy is to survive’Vermont senator tells New York Times $2tn or $3tn will not be enough for new infrastructure package Martin Pengelly in Washington@ More

The ObserverNew York‘My story resonates’: India Walton details the life experience that put her on a mayoral path A candidate for Buffalo’s mayor seat, Walton attributes her success to ‘really experiencing so many tragedies and traumas’Erum SalamSun 11 Jul 2021 03.00 EDTIndia Walton was just 14 when she had her first baby. After leaving a home for young mothers, and quitting high school at 19 when her twins were born, she went on to get her GED (the general educational development test for those who did not complete their schooling), have a fourth child and become a nurse.Now she’s firmly on the path to becoming the mayor of Buffalo, New York – the first socialist mayor elected to a US city since 1960, when mayor Frank Zeidler of Milwaukee, Wisconsin left office.Once seen as a long shot in the race for the Democratic party mayoral nomination against Byron Brown, a 15-year establishment incumbent, Walton may soon make history in more ways than one. Not only would she be the first socialist mayor of a US city in decades, but she would also be Buffalo’s first female mayor.Ex-police captain Eric Adams wins Democratic primary for New York mayorRead moreWalton’s nomination success created headlines and provided a shot in the arm for America’s socialists, who see a chance of wielding real power in a big city.When asked to what she attributed her success, Walton said: “The struggle. The struggle of being a black woman, of being a teenage mother, of growing up poor, and really experiencing so many tragedies and traumas.”Buffalo is the second-largest city in New York state, with a population of just over 250,000. Located on the shores of Lake Erie, it’s next door to Canada.With a population that is 36.5% black and 12.3% Latino, it’s rich in diversity but poor compared with the average US standard of living.According to the US census, the median household income for the city is around $37,300 (about £27,000), just over half that of the national figure. The city, once a centre for railroad commerce, steel manufacturing and shipping, is now struggling, with 30% of residents living below the poverty line.While she lacks a political background, Walton said: “My experience is the Buffalo experience. When I was growing up, we had one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the nation. I was a part of those stats. But I overcame. I think it’s a remarkable story that resonates with a lot of people who are average people in Buffalo.”Although Walton beat Brown – a traditional Democrat – in the primary and thus secured the Democratic nomination, he won’t go down without a fight.Brown refused to concede the result and has launched a campaign, asking voters to write in his name on the November ballot.Brown also refused to debate with Walton during the campaign. “He didn’t even acknowledge that there was an election happening. And the fact he now is not cooperating – it just speaks to his character,” she said. Despite her victory and seemingly smooth path to office in the majority Democratic Buffalo, Walton said she still can’t rest until the November election is over. “We won, but it wasn’t a landslide,” she said. Walton is not afraid of her socialist identity. In a video circulated on social media, Walton was asked directly by the press if she considers herself a socialist. Without missing a beat, she replied: “Oh, absolutely.”Her quick response is reflective of a new sentiment felt by a younger, far-left constituency inspired by democratic socialist trailblazers such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.‘First of many’: socialist India Walton defeats four-term Buffalo mayor in primary upset Read moreThey are unafraid to align themselves with politics branded controversial by establishment Democrats and those on the right. The refusal to shy away from the “s” word many Democrats deem a handicap or even political suicide could be indicative of a new approach on the left that is expanding.“It’s just semantics,” Walton said. “We all want the same thing but we’re allowing the right to use our language against us as a dog whistle and as a way to make people afraid. For me, it’s more about policies. We have to stop coddling the elite and business class and really draw down resources and power into the hands of the people who are doing the work.“To me, [socialism] is about putting workers first – the people who make the wealth but don’t often have access to it.”She added: “Now that I’ve won this mayoral primary, it’s going to crack the seal on a lot of other US cities and we’re going to see similar trends. People are tired of working harder for less. Many of us are still poor, even though we are in one of the richest nations in the world.”Walton knows all about working hard for little reward. The nurse-turned-politician said the combination of her own hardships and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic are what drove her to politics.“Being a mother made me want to do it. I need to leave this place better for my children. And what makes me want to fight so hard is to make sure that other people have opportunities to make better choices and have a decent life. Everyone deserves a decent standard of living,” she said.“I decided to just go for it. Why wait? We can’t wait any more.”TopicsNew YorkThe ObserverUS politicsDemocratsWomenRacenewsReuse this content More

Kamala HarrisKamala Harris faces scrutiny and tests in first six months as vice-president The vice-president was handed what some saw as a poisoned chalice of leading the southern border response and faces ‘unique hurdles’ in the administrationDavid Smith Washington bureau chief@ More

BooksSpooked review: exposé of murky world of private spies is a dodgy dossier itselfBarry Meier brings distasteful characters and episodes to light but is happy to leave out that which does not suit his aims Charles KaiserSun 11 Jul 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 11 Jul 2021 01.02 EDTWhen Christopher Steele’s dossier about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia was published by BuzzFeed News, the salacious part got more attention than anything else.Trump told chief of staff Hitler ‘did a lot of good things’, book saysRead moreBut there was something else several reporters thought was much more intriguing: a description of a meeting between Carter Page, a Trump aide, and Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin collaborator and head of the Russian energy giant Rosneft.The dossier reported that Sechin “was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19% (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.”As the Mueller report pointed out, the dossier was wrong about the identity of the Rosneft official Page met: it was actually one of Sechin’s deputies, Andrey Baranov. The dossier was also off by half a percentage point about the size of the privatization.But just five months after Page’s Moscow meeting, Rosneft did in fact announce the privatization of 19.5% of the giant company, the largest privatization in Russian history. And Carter Page flew to Moscow the day after the deal was announced, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery.Reuters assigned no fewer than 11 reporters to try to find out who actually purchased the shares in the company and where the financing came from. But the resulting story said the “full identity of the new owners of the Rosneft stake” remained “a mystery”, as did “the complete source of the funds with which they bought it”.In testimony before the House intelligence committee, Page denied discussing “specifics” about sanctions with the Rosneft official. But when he was asked if they discussed the privatization of the energy giant, he said Baranov “may briefly have mentioned it”.As Martin Longman wrote for Washington Monthly: “When we try to assess whether the Steele dossier is ‘fake news’, as [Trump] insists that it is, we should keep this Rosneft deal in mind. Someone who was just making things up and didn’t have real sources could never have invented something so close to the truth.”Spooked, by the former New York Times reporter Barry Meier, identifies the Trump dossier as one of its three principal subjects. One might think Steele’s correct prediction of an imminent privatization of Rosneft, and Page’s confirmation that he “may” have been told about it five months before it happened, would at least deserve a paragraph. But only a glancing reference to this story appears.Asked about this omission, Meier cited an FBI report that quoted a “sub-source” of Steele’s “primary sub-source”, who said there was no evidence Page had been involved in any kind of bribery scheme. Meier concluded there was no evidence that Page had done anything wrong, so he omitted the whole subject.Another reason for the omission is that including it might have contributed to a more nuanced view of the Steele dossier. Nuance is not one of Meier’s specialties.Steele was a collaborator of Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who became a private spy. The purpose of Meier’s book is to prove that all private spies are evil, a clear and present danger to ethical journalists like himself. He says he wrote the book because he “wanted to understand how a predatory industry was operating unchecked”.While Meier never hesitates to attack the speculations of other reporters, the author treats his own guesses as dispositive. He dismisses the idea of an incriminating tape of Trump with Moscow prostitutes because “blackmail works best when only a few people know about it”. If such a tape actually existed, “it was unlikely it would have been the talk of Moscow”. Therefore, it should have been “clear from the start” to Steele that there was a “basic problem with the story”.However, actual Russian experts have reached the opposite conclusion. John le Carré, for one, told told the New York Times: “As far as Trump, I would suspect they have [kompromat] because they’ve denied it. If they have it and they’ve set Trump up, they’d say, ‘Oh no, we haven’t got anything.’ But to Trump they’re saying, ‘Aren’t we being kind to you?’”Meier told the Guardian the fact the tape has never become public is another reason to believe it doesn’t exist.Spooked is both a clip job, frequently relying on other people’s stories, and a hatchet job, making its subjects as unattractive as possible. Meier disparages anyone who has written a story which hasn’t been confirmed by other news outlets, including a reporter for this newspaper.No detail is too small to contribute to the author’s character assassinations. Simpson, he writes, “had an unhealthy pallor, the apparent result of too much drinking, too little exercise or both … he appeared stiff and slightly robotic”. Simpson is said to have thrown frequent parties in Washington “fueled by lots of alcohol and plenty of pot”.The book does describe some genuinely loathsome activities, including the alliance between the law firm of the noted litigator David Boies and Black Cube, a private investigation company that employed former Israeli spies.Boies claimed he was unaware of his firm’s deal with Black Cube, which promised a $300,000 bonus if it stopped the New York Times publishing an exposé of Harvey Weinstein. After Ronan Farrow published details of the deal in the New Yorker, it turned out Boies was representing the Times in an unrelated libel case. The newspaper immediately cut ties.Harvey Weinstein hired Black Cube to block New York Times article, jury hearsRead moreMeier includes dozens of other anecdotes that make private spies look very bad. But nearly all have been reported elsewhere, usually with more coherent narratives.Not surprisingly, two of the book’s principal victims, Simpson and Peter Fritsch, hit back as soon as Spooked was published, alleging Meier had repeatedly asked them for help in his reporting.Meier acknowledges this at the end of his book, writing: “While I was at the New York Times, I spoke with Glenn Simpson on several occasions though I don’t recall writing anything based on our discussions.” He insisted to the Guardian that the one tip he got from Simpson about the location of court documents pointed him in the wrong direction.Simpson and Fritsch also accuse Meier of an obvious conflict of interest, because an excerpt from Spooked was published in the business section of the Times, which is edited by Meier’s wife, Ellen Pollock.Meier told the Guardian there was no conflict, because his wife hadn’t commissioned the excerpt. That was done by one of her colleagues.TopicsBooksEspionageTrump-Russia investigationUS politicsRussiaDonald TrumpreviewsReuse this content More

US politicsCan Biden keep the left happy as he pushes key legislation?Democratic progressives urge Biden to go big on infrastructureRegular meetings with left but moderates remain powerful Daniel Strauss@ More

BooksFrankly, We Did Win This Election review: a devastating dispatch from Trumpworld As well as grabby headlines about Hitler, Michael Bender of the Wall Street Journal shows us how millions have been led astrayLloyd GreenSat 10 Jul 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 10 Jul 2021 03.11 EDTOn election night in 2016, Donald Trump paid homage to America’s “forgotten men and women”, vowing they would be “forgotten no longer”. Those who repeatedly appeared at his rallies knew of whom he spoke. Veterans, gun enthusiasts, bikers, shop clerks. Middle-aged and seniors. Life had treated some harshly. Others less so.Trump told chief of staff Hitler ‘did a lot of good things’, book saysRead moreSome had voted for Barack Obama, only to discover hope and change wasn’t all it was advertised to be. Regardless, the Democratic party’s urban and urbane, upstairs-downstairs coalition didn’t mesh with them. Or vice-versa. Politics is definitely about lifestyles.In his new book, Michael Bender pays particular attention to those Trump supporters who called themselves “Front Row Joes”. They attended rallies wherever, whenever. It was “kind of like an addiction”, Bender quotes one as saying.No longer did they need to bowl alone. Trump had birthed a community. Their applause was his sustenance, his performance their sacrament.One Front Row Joe, Saundra from Michigan, was a 41-year-old Walmart worker. On 6 January, in Washington DC, she made her way up the west side of the US Capitol.“It looked so neat,” she said.She also said she and other Trump supporters who stormed Congress did not do so “to steal things” or “do damage”. They had a different aim.“We were just there to overthrow the government.”The next day, Saundra flew home. Trump’s wishes, real or imagined, were her command. Later in January, two days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, Senator Mitch McConnell declared that the mob had been “fed lies” and provoked by Trump.Bender covers the White House for the Wall Street Journal. Frankly, We Did Win This Election is his first book. It is breezy, well-written and well-informed. He captures both the infighting in Trump’s world and the surrounding social tectonics.Trump goes on the record. The interview is a solid scorecard on who is up or down. He brands McConnell “dumb as a rock”. The loathing is mutual – to a point. The Senate minority leader has made clear he will back Trump if he is the nominee again.Liz Cheney occupies a special spot in Trump’s Inferno. The Wyoming representative, daughter of a vice-president, now sits on a House select committee to investigate 6 January. But to most of Trump’s party, six months after the insurrection, what happened that afternoon is something to be forgotten or at least ignored.Mike Pence dwells in purgatory.“I don’t care if he apologizes or not,” Trump says of his vice-president presiding over the certification of Biden’s win. “He made a mistake.”Once before, in their second year in office, the two men reportedly clashed over a political hiring decision. Back then, Trump reportedly called Pence “so disloyal”.Pence still harbors presidential ambitions. Good luck with that.Bender’s book is laden with attention-grabbing headlines. He reports Trump telling John Kelly, then White House chief of staff, that Hitler “did a lot of good things”. Trump denies it. Kelly stays mum. More than 30 years ago, Trump’s first wife, Ivana, let it be known that he kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. Everyone needs a hobby.Bender writes of Trump urging the military to “beat the fuck” out of protesters for racial justice, and to “crack their skulls”. The 45th president’s asymmetrical approach to law enforcement remains on display. “Stand back and stand by” was for allies like the Proud Boys. Law and order was for everyone else. Political adversaries were enemies.Trump now embraces the supposed martyrdom of Ashli Babbitt, an air force veteran who stormed Congress on 6 January and was killed by law enforcement.“The person that shot Ashli Babbitt,” he said this week. “Boom. Right through the head. Just, boom. There was no reason for that.”To say the least, that is highly contestable.Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, cowered behind the doors Babbitt rushed. Hours later, the bulk of the House GOP opposed certifying Biden’s win. The party of Lincoln is now the party of Trump.Focusing on the 2020 election, a contest under the deathly shadow of Covid, Bender conveys the chaos and disorganization of the Trump campaign. After a disastrous kick-off rally in Tulsa, Trump began looking for a new campaign manager. Brad Parscale’s days were numbered. He was a digital guy, not a major domo.According to Bender, Trump offered the job to Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee – and niece of Mitt Romney, the Utah senator, 2012 nominee and, in Trumpworld, persona decidedly non grata. Her reply: “Absolutely not.”Nightmare Scenario review: Trump, Covid and a lasting national traumaRead moreTrump also sent word to Steve Bannon, his campaign chair in 2016. He declined too. Bannon was banished from the kingdom for trashing Trump and his family. But he understood the base better than anyone – other than Trump himself.There was a reason Saturday Night Live spoofed Bannon as the power behind the throne, and that he appeared on the cover of Time. There was no return to court but Trump did pardon Bannon of federal fraud charges. Not a bad consolation prize.Parscale was demoted and kicked to the curb. Within months he appeared in the news, shirtless, barefoot, drunk and armed. His successor, Bill Stepien, brought Trump to within 80,000 votes of another electoral college win.Bender makes clear that Trump is neither gone nor forgotten. His acquittal in his second impeachment, for inciting the Capitol attack, only reinforced his desire to fight another day.“There has never been anything like it,” Trump tells Bender. So true.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS elections 2020US Capitol attackUS politicsPolitics booksreviewsReuse this content More