US Politics

RepublicansRepublicans’ effort to deny the Capitol attack is working – and it’s dangerous As politicians and the rightwing media downplay the attack or shift the blame, fears of a replay growDavid Smith Washington bureau chief@ More

OpinionAfghanistanThe Guardian view on Afghanistan withdrawal: a retreat into uncertaintyEditorialJoe Biden’s actions will be felt most keenly in Kabul, but they pose a broader question for an army-dominated Pakistan Mon 5 Jul 2021 14.20 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Jul 2021 16.10 EDTBy bringing home US troops from Afghanistan, and leading Nato and allied forces out of the country, the US president, Joe Biden, is acting on his campaign trail argument that American “forever wars” distract from more pressing issues at home. While the effect of the withdrawal will be felt most keenly in Afghanistan, where there are justifiable fears that the Taliban are poised to reclaim power, the broader question Mr Biden poses is for neighbouring nuclear-armed Pakistan and the role that it wants to play in the region.Bluntly, there is little trust between Washington and Islamabad despite Pakistan being a frontline state in America’s longest war. Mr Biden served as vice-president to Barack Obama, who in his memoir, A Promised Land, wrote that he had preferred not to involve Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in 2011 because it was an “open secret” that elements inside Pakistan’s military, and especially its intelligence services, “maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaida, sometimes using them as strategic assets to ensure that the Afghan government remained weak and unable to align itself with Pakistan’s number one rival, India”.In Pakistan’s defence, it might be said that the past is another country. It says that it no longer provides any haven for terrorists or seeks to radicalise Muslim opinion with which it has influence. Pakistan has undoubtedly been the victim of terror attacks and shelters millions of refugees. Yet there was no disguising the anger of the Biden administration when, after eight days in office, Pakistan’s supreme court ordered the release of the man convicted in 2002 of orchestrating the abduction and killing of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter.Pakistan is an army with a country attached. Imran Khan serves as prime minister. But it is the chief of army staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who calls most of the shots. The general has had a phone call from Mr Biden’s secretary of defence. After it, the army chief pledged to “bury the past” with India. Mr Khan has yet to be rung up by the White House. That may be because Washington had wanted to pressurise Pakistan into granting the CIA a base in the country to launch drone strikes against the Taliban. The US was kicked out of its last Pakistani facility in 2011. Last month, Mr Khan wrote an op-ed quashing the idea that the US could regain a military foothold in the country.The ever-growing risks of a Taliban takeover will shape the region’s dynamics. Not least because decades ago they subjected the country to a reign of pious Sunni terror. Adjoining Iran sponsored an armed resistance. A Taliban regime in Kabul gave Pakistan the idea that it could control Afghanistan and acquire the “strategic depth” needed to challenge India. Since then, China has drawn closer to Islamabad. New Delhi, faced with a hostile Beijing, has attempted to improve relations with Pakistan. Mr Biden knows that Afghanistan is known as a “graveyard of empires” for good reason. He wants his foreign policy to mark a break with the past and face the challenges of the future. But turning points only work out if one knows where to turn.TopicsAfghanistanOpinionJoe BidenAl-QaidaBarack ObamaUS foreign policyNatoPakistaneditorialsReuse this content More

US newsRepublican governors urge vaccine-hesitant residents to get Covid shotsLeaders of Arkansas, West Virginia, and Utah describe high stakes as Delta variant poses threat Edward Helmore in New YorkMon 5 Jul 2021 14.02 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Jul 2021 14.03 EDTSeveral Republican governors with lagging vaccine rates in their states have urged residents to accept the shots as the Biden administration comes under pressure to reopen US borders to overseas visitors.The Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson, West Virginia’s Jim Justice and Spencer Cox of Utah warned against vaccine hesitancy, which some disease experts, including the White House chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said could create “two types of America”.“We are in a race,” Hutchinson said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. About 32% of people in Arkansas are fully vaccinated, compared with 47.9% nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. “If we stopped right here, and we didn’t get a greater per cent of our population vaccinated, then we’re going to have trouble in the next school year and over the winter.” The solution, he said, “is the vaccinations”.In a Fourth of July address on Sunday, Joe Biden called vaccination “the most patriotic thing you can do”, saying the US had moved into a new phase of virus response. But he also warned that while the country is “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus”, the effort was not complete. “We’ve got a lot more work to do,” he said.Justice told ABC’s This Week: “Red states probably have a lot of people that are very, very conservative in their thinking and they think, ‘Well, I don’t have to do that.’ But they’re not thinking right.”01:28West Virginia, which has been offering vaccine incentives from college scholarships to free hunting and fishing licenses, has a similar rate of vaccination to Arkansas.“When it really boils right down to it, they’re in a lottery to themselves,” Justice said. “We have a lottery that says if you’re vaccinated, we’re going to give you stuff. Well, you’ve got another lottery for them, and it’s a death lottery.”Cox called Utah’s low vaccination rates “troubling”, and placed blame on the state’s youthful population. He told CBS’s Face the Nation “hopefully reason will rule”.Cox’s delicacy in urging his state’s residents to accept vaccination comes as a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 74% of people who have not been vaccinated said they probably or definitely would not get the shots.The divide corresponds to political affiliation, the survey found, with 86% of Democrats and only 45% of Republicans having received at least one vaccine shot. Six per cent of Democrats and 47% of Republicans said they were unlikely to get the shot.Asked about whether he is concerned the Delta variant of coronavirus could cause outbreaks in the US, Fauci said: “I don’t think you’re going to be seeing anything nationwide. Because fortunately, we have a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated. So it’s going to be regional. … We’re going to see, and I’ve said, almost two types of America.” Persistent resistance to vaccination in red states led Fauci to warn on Sunday that fully vaccinated Americans should “go the extra step” and wear masks when traveling to parts of the country with low rates.“If you put yourself in an environment in which you have a high level of viral dynamics and a very low level of vaccine, you might want to go the extra step … even though the vaccines themselves are highly effective,” Fauci told NBC’s Meet the Press.Fauci added that the situation was lamentable: “When you talk about the avoidability of hospitalization and death, it’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable.”The warnings came as the administration’s Covid response coordinator, Jeff Zients, acknowledged that it had narrowly missed its goal of 70% of adults having at least one shot by the Fourth of July.“I think we’re much further along than anyone would have anticipated at this point, with two out of three adult Americans with at least one shot,” Zients told CNN, noting that 90% of those age 65 and older had received at least one shot.The situation comes as the administration comes under increasing pressure to lift international travel restrictions that have been in place since March 2020.Steve Shur, president of the trade group Travel Technology Association, told the Hill on Monday that the administration’s travel bans were “frozen in time.”With exceptions for citizens, green-card holders, students and some family members, US entry bans remain in place for travelers from China, Iran, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, India and South Africa.“We believe it’s possible now, at least for countries of low risk, to start to reopen international travel” to the US, Shur told the outlet.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, came under pressure late last month from European heads to reciprocate the EU’s recent reopening of borders to vaccinated travelers from the US.“I can’t put a date on it,” Blinken said at a press conference in Paris on 25 June. “I can tell you we’re working very actively on this right now, and we are – like France, like our other partners in Europe – both anxious and looking forward to restoring travel. But we have to be guided by the science. We have to be guided by medical expertise.”TopicsUS newsArkansasWest VirginiaUtahVaccines and immunisationCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

US politicsCapitol attack: what Pelosi’s select committee is likely to investigateThe body created by the speaker will have a broad mandate to examine the facts, circumstances and causes of the Capitol attack Hugo Lowell in WashingtonMon 5 Jul 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Jul 2021 05.30 EDTNancy Pelosi’s creation of a House select committee to investigate the 6 January insurrection reopens the possibility of a comprehensive inquiry into myriad security failures and the causes of the deadly attack on Congress by a pro-Trump mob.Nancy Pelosi signals hard line on formation of 6 January select committeeRead moreThe committee will have subpoena power and a broad mandate to examine the facts, circumstances and causes of the Capitol attack against the seat of modern American democracy.The move comes after Senate Republicans blocked the creation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, fearful of scrutiny that could tarnish their party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.Now, six months after the attack, here are the key issues that the committee may look at:What were Trump and members of his administration doing during the attack?At some point after he delivered his incendiary speech to thousands of supporters opposite the White House, the former president watched TV coverage of the unfolding insurrection from the Oval Office.Trump also knew that the rioters had breached the Capitol since he was told in real time over the phone by Republican senator Tommy Tuberville that his colleagues were being evacuated from the chamber.Yet the former president appeared to do nothing to call off the rioters – almost exclusively his own supporters. Nor did he act later when he was begged to do so by House minority leader Kevin McCarthy.In conflicting accounts, Trump later claimed he called in the national guard, but his acting defense secretary Christopher Miller later testified that he never spoke to the former president during the entire day.Why were police and US intelligence agencies so unprepared?At a Senate hearing in the weeks after the insurrection, the former US Capitol police chief Steven Sund, former House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving, and his Senate counterpart, Michael Stenger, deflected and laid the blame at each other.The convoluted accounts of the three top officials illustrated the chaos of the day as well as the difficulty of now untangling testimony, which differed from police chief to police chief, as they sought to quell the riot.The officials also blamed the FBI and the US intelligence community for failing to provide adequate warnings that rioters planned to seize the Capitol, and criticized the Pentagon for moving too slowly to authorize the national guard.Yet the initial part of their complaints was contradicted by revelations that an FBI field office in Virginia issued an explicit warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence a day before 6 January.Why did it take hours for the national guard to be deployed?The commander of the DC national guard at the time, Maj Gen William Walker, has said that he did not receive approval to mobilize troops until more than three hours after he first made the request.Defense department and Capitol security officials have given conflicting statements to explain the delay as well as an unusually restrictive command policy that appeared to come directly from the Trump White House.Walker said he was unable to move troops even from one traffic stop to another without permission from then army secretary Ryan McCarthy, he testified.He added he was uncertain why the restrictions were in place specifically, but raised the prospect that “army senior leaders did not think it looked good” and sending troops in to subdue Trump supporters would not be a “good optic”.Was there any coordination between Trump White House officials, Republican lawmakers and the rioters?An organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rally, Jim Arroyo, who also leads the Arizona chapter of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia group, has previously said that three members of Congress “schemed up” the events of 6 January with him.House Republican and longtime Trump ally Paul Gosar was certainly among the lawmakers who participated in the rally that immediately preceded the Capitol attack, though he has denied any involvement with the insurrection.The DoJ is also investigating whether a number of House Republicans provided tours of the Capitol and other information about the Capitol complex to people who might have gone on to be part of the Trump mob.TopicsUS politicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More

Washington DCFourth of July: US celebrates but White House does not mandate masks or vaccinesCoronavirus coordinator defends move at event: ‘You’re protected if you’re vaccinated. You’re not protected if you’re not’ Martin Pengelly in Washington and agencies@ More

US crimeRepublicans revive soft-on-crime rhetoric amid rise in US homicidesBiden rolls out fresh policy proposals to try to counter rising crime as Democrats look to bat away Republican attacks Daniel Strauss in Washington@ More

RepublicansRon DeSantis: is the Trump-aligned Florida governor plotting a White House run? The fast-rising Republican is topping polls and raising millions of dollars – but what if the former president wants his job back?Richard Luscombe in Miami@ More

BooksThe Engagement review: a tour de force on the fight for same-sex marriageDon’t let the length or density of Sasha Issenberg’s new book put you off – it is a must-read on the fight for true civil rights Michael Henry AdamsSun 4 Jul 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 4 Jul 2021 02.01 EDTSasha Issenberg’s tour-de-force, 900-word chronicle of “America’s quarter-century struggle over same-sex marriage” might have been even better had it been given even a few illustrations.This is the Fire review: Don Lemon’s audacious study of racism – and loveRead moreThe New Yorker contributor Michael Shaw’s cartoon of 1 March 2004 would have been one candidate. Its arch question, “Gays and lesbians getting married – haven’t they suffered enough?”, seems to encapsulate how an unlikely issue, consistently championed, achieved a broader vision of “gay liberation” than many dreamed could be attained so rapidly.Thanks to works of scholarship like Charles Kaiser’s The Gay Metropolis and The Deviant’s War by Eric Cervini, it has become clear that the seemingly impossible is often achievable. With The Engagement, Issenberg adds to such proof that one can write LGBTQ+ history in a way that is engaging, authoritative and impeccably sourced.He conveys a telling truth for activists beyond the campaign for gay rights. Brimming with a promise of inclusion, of acceptance beyond mere toleration, his book shows there are indeed more ways than one to skin a cat. Awakened and empowered by Black Lives Matter and Trumpism’s exposure of widespread white supremacist alliances, many progressives were certain that only the most radical policy positions – “defund the police”, anyone? – and candidates offered any real remedy. But older black voters were certain of a different way of maneuvering. And it looks as if they were right, just as proponents of marriage equality were right – to a point at least.If The Engagement lacks snappy cartoons or colorful or insightful photographs, Issenberg manages nonetheless to present compelling depictions of fascinating individuals. Their pursuit of gay marriage propels his narrative, lawsuit by lawsuit, legislative victory by legislative victory and political endorsement by political endorsement.False starts, setbacks, losses – they are all here too. But then finally, on 26 June 2015, with Obergefell v Hodges, the supreme court invalidated same-sex marriage bans all across the land. In time, a court-sanctioned right to self-determination expanded the rights of transgender people too.Gay marriage declared legal across the US in historic supreme court rulingRead moreIf the quest began with an almost stereotypically flamboyant figure, Bill Woods, Issenberg shows with deft sensitivity how for all Woods’ drive and flair for manipulating media and politicians, two more reticent lesbians played a pivotal role. Their relatable story is one of opposites determined to fashion a life together, just three months after meeting in 1990. Initially, the LGBTQ+ community was compelled to fight just to be allowed to love one another. But this committed couple’s saga goes a long way to showing how marriage, as opposed to a brave new world of sexual revolution and limitless pairings, emerged as the definitive cause of gay civil rights.When Genora Dancel, a broadcast engineer, presented a ruby ring to Nina Baehr, she “thought our love could withstand anything”. Coming home to find Baehr in pain from an ear infection, Dancel learned otherwise. Baehr’s university health coverage had yet to take effect. Her new “wife” had two policies from her employers but could not use them for her partner. She had to pay out of pocket to to aid her.Out of this practical desire to care for each other, the pair joined two other same-sex couples organized by Bill Woods. On 17 December 1990, in Honolulu, they applied for marriage licenses. When they were denied, Dan Foley, an attorney who was straight, sued the state on their behalf. After a battle lasting nearly three years, they were vindicated. The Hawaii supreme court was the first in the US to determine that the right to wed was a basic civil right.Many, like the lesbian feminist Paula Ettelbrick, were convinced there was an alternative to marriage and that “making room in our society for broader definitions of family” was better. They saw little utility in such a gain.Jasmyne Cannick, a journalist from Los Angeles, was dubious as well. Following the passage of Proposition 8, a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage in California, she outlined the looming disconnect between disaffected queers of color and our sometimes oblivious white brethren.
The white gay community is banging its head against the glass ceiling of a room called equality, believing that a breakthrough on marriage will bestow on it parity with heterosexuals.
But the right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both Black gays and Black straights. Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?
In books such as Nigel Nicholson’s Portrait of a Marriage and Elizabeth Drexel Lehr’s King Lehr and the Gilded Age, one gets a poignant look at how especially for upper-class gays, conventional alliances, with partners of the opposite sex and children, are as old as time, assuring inheritances and perpetuating dynastic ties. George Chauncey’s Gay New York tells of how in Harlem same-sex couples, from the 1920s on, staged elaborate nuptial ceremonies, anticipating current trends.The Deviant’s War: superb epic of Frank Kameny and the fight for gay equalityRead moreYes, one way or another, even in the realm of queers, marriage still seems to constitute a profound idea.Issenberg contends that without overwhelming opposition, gay marriage would never have subsumed gay activism; that conservatives, lying in wait, biding their time, are poised to try to take it away. When they do, will we be ready, armed with the lesson of Issenberg’s book?Today, self-segregated into competing camps of righteous activists and dogged pragmatists, freedom fighters still at struggle and insiders who just happen to be gay, do we sincerely value the efficacy of throwing down our buckets where we stand? Have we lost hope that every road leads to a common victory? That in a street fight, every contribution adds value to our effort?
The Engagement: America’s Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage is published in the US by Penguin Random House
TopicsBooksLGBT rightsSame-sex marriage (US)US constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US politicsActivismnewsReuse this content More