US Politics

The St Louis man who brandished his gun at Black Lives Matter protesters last summer, Mark McCloskey, announced on Tuesday that he is running for Senate in Missouri.McCloskey told the Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday that he is running in the 2022 election. “If we don’t stand up now and take this country back, it’s going away,” McCloskey said on Tucker Carlson Tonight.McCloskey and his wife, Patricia, gained international notoriety after drawing their guns on peaceful protesters marching past their marble-faced palazzo home in June 2020. The incident was embraced by many Republicans and the couple, both personal injury attorneys in their 60s, spoke at the Republican national convention.McCloskey posted a campaign ad on Twitter that repeatedly warned of mob violence and said systemic racism does not exist. “I can promise you one thing, that when the mob comes to destroy our homes, our state and our country, I will defend them,” he said.In the ad, McCloskey references the incident that made him famous and repeated a lie about it that he has said many times before: “An angry mob marched to destroy my home and kill my family.”On 28 June 2020, Black Lives Matters protesters entered the McCloskeys’ private gated neighborhood on the way to a demonstration outside the home of Lyda Krewson, the St Louis mayor. The couple pointed their weapons at the crowd and argued with some protesters, but no shots were fired.The couple were later charged with a felony for unlawful use of a weapon in the incident.They pleaded not guilty and their case is set to go to trial in November. Missouri’s governor, Mike Parson, a Republican, has said he would pardon the couple if they were convicted.The incident also drew attention to the couple’s near constant conflict with others, usually over private property.The St Louis Dispatch revealed last year that the McCloskeys had a long history of suing other people. The variety of legal actions includes Mark McCloskey suing a dog breeder in 1996 for selling him a German shepherd without papers and in 2013 threatening a Jewish congregation with legal action after they placed beehives outside their mansion’s northern wall. McCloskey destroyed the beehives before threatening the congregation with a restraining order. More

Joe Biden’s love of trains is well known. “Amtrak Joe” has vowed to invest in America’s crumbling railways and encourage Americans to embrace clean and green mass transit over gas-guzzling automobiles. For decades, the American left has urged the government to make massive investments in rail travel for just these reasons. Yet there is another simple, cheap, and instant way to upgrade our public transit infrastructure, reduce carbon, alleviate traffic, and provide efficient and affordable intercity travel: the government should buy Greyhound.Greyhound Canada recently announced that the company plans to permanently cease operations there. The move was yet another sign that the financial woes of the inter-city motorcoach industry are not going away. Since the pandemic no transport industry has been more hurt than commercial bus lines. Nearly all schedules for the entire industry were shut down for months with no end in sight; Greyhound USA has recently been able to reopen most of its scheduled routes, but a continued depression in ridership means the company can’t keep all of its lines open. Greyhound has even resorted to selling stations in Chicago and Denver.Unlike most major transport industries, inter-city bus operators received very little help from the United States government during the pandemic. Commercial airlines got a whopping $60bn, Amtrak got $1.5bn, and public transit was awarded a much-needed $30bn to keep the trains, buses, and trolleys moving. Yet motorcoaches – which collectively make nearly 600 million passenger trips a year in the United States, and employ around 100,000 workers – received a paltry $100m.Despairing bus industry executives organized a “Rolling Rally” in Washington to demand more cash. While the sector has since received slightly greater attention it’s unlikely that the funds will be enough to make up for the loss in ridership, which dipped to historic lows.A cash handout is effectively a bet that the industry will recover to pre-Covid profits and grow after; right now that’s not a bet any private investor would make.Low-cost air travel and affordable car travel, have made things difficult for the intercity bus industry. Yet bus travel does maintain a great advantage over both rail and air competition: the sheer number of destinations a rider can choose. Using America’s already nationalized interstate system, Greyhound alone still services some 2,400 station stops. Unfortunately, this practical strength is also a business weakness.Greyhound is in trouble, which means the feds can buy the company for cheap … the federally owned bus system could pay for its own operating cost through faresA daily roundtrip from Newport News to Norfolk is significantly less profitable than hourly trips to and from a major hub such as New York City. Lacking extensive regulation and government subsidy, Greyhound executives are forced to focus their investments on the most profitable schedules while ditching small-town and rural communities. Yet this is another bind: while coastal schedules have the highest ridership they also face the stiffest competition from budget and Chinatown bus lines such as Megabus and from Amtrak and regional rail. The profit squeeze is tight and it will only get tighter.So the only way to save the intercity bus system as it exists is to greatly increase ridership to and from low-priority destinations while staying competitive on the highly profitable coastal corridors. In order to do both, you need to greatly reduce the price of fares – which have increased in recent years and are more expensive than comparable service in other countries.That’s where the US government comes in.Greyhound is in trouble, which means the feds can buy the company for cheap. Once purchased, the government could temporarily ignore the profit problem and focus on rescuing the fleet – providing affordable travel as a public good. Just as the US post office does not use a dime of taxpayer money, the federally owned Greyhound bus system could pay for its own operating cost through fares; without the burden of costly executives and grubby shareholders, the organization would likely save a great deal of money in overhead.The benefits of an old-fashioned nationalization scheme like this are enormous. It would simultaneously save the Greyhound bus system, which transports up to 17 million people a year, put it to good public use with positive impacts elsewhere in the economy, and protect thousands of stable union jobs. But there’s another, less obvious benefit.The British environmentalist George Monbiot raised eyebrows a few years ago when he argued that, as far as carbon emissions are concerned, our best bet is not just to rebuild and expand the railways but instead to provide nearly universal motorcoach transit.Switching from car to coach, Monbiot noted, cuts carbon by an astonishing 88%. And these efficiencies could be dramatically increased in a relatively short period of time by improving the bus fleet technology with all-electric vehicles and by some clever infrastructure tweaks.For one, let’s move bus stations out of city centers and to the edges of major hub cities, nearer to the interstate highways. By getting rid of the awful winding trips buses make in and out of city centers, motorcoaches would be free to hit the open road and speed off to their destination. Even better, let’s add dedicated motorcoach lanes to major highways to help speed bus travel. Highway bus lanes would not only provide speedier service for bus passengers but also greatly alleviate overall traffic. Each full coach would replace many cars’ worth of traffic. And, as Monbiot notes, the buses would effectively advertise themselves: individual motorists, watching buses zoom by them, will soon realize that if you want to get somewhere fast, the bus is the way to go.With a few small tweaks, a government-owned Greyhound system could go from clunky, expensive, and slow to efficient, affordable, and speedy. But such a transformation would require a state visionary enough to challenge the dogmas of private market competition. More

Legislation to cancel utility debts for millions of low-income households and bail out struggling utility companies is to be introduced in the US Senate on Thursday.Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, will propose a $30bn low-interest loans program for electric, water and sewage and broadband providers as part of the Maintaining Access to Essential Services During the Covid Emergency Act of 2021.The loans would allow utilities to recoup money in order to stay afloat without resorting to fines and shutoffs. Utilities have long justified using disconnections as a way to force people to keep up with bills.“We cannot rebuild the strength and resilience of America from the ground up if millions of families lose electricity, water and broadband, we have to keep these essential services turned on if people are going to get back on their feet,” Merkley told the Guardian. “This is like PPP for utilities. If we can get the concept in place, we can later add more funds if needed.”It’s unclear how much is owed to utility companies nationwide, though it is probably significantly more than the $30bn earmarked in the bill.A survey by the California state water board earlier this year found at least 1.6m households were behind on water bill payments due to the pandemic, with debt totaling at least $1bn. At least 25 small and medium-sized water utilities – 1% of the total – were at imminent risk of going under. Earlier this month Governor Gavin Newsom announced $2bn in aid for utilities to help keep the taps and lights on for millions of low-income residents.In Merkley’s bill, the loans would be conditional on utilities canceling debts for low-income households. Two years after the end the pandemic, public and small utilities could see the loans forgiven for the amount of outstanding arrears, as long as they had not reverted to using punitive measures. Utilities that disconnect or fine customers would be obliged to immediately repay the loan in full.“The conditions are very much the heart of the bill. The goal is to enable utilities to do the right thing but not suffer catastrophic economic consequences as a result,” added Merkley.Even before the pandemic, the cost of water and sewage was a growing problem. A landmark investigation by the Guardian last year found millions of Americans were at risk of being disconnected or losing their homes due to increasingly unaffordable water bills. People of color have been disproportionately affected by rising bills and punitive measures.Detroit, a city which has disconnected tens of thousands of mostly Black residents as part of a widely condemned debt recuperation program, was the first to order a moratorium as the pandemic took hold. Thousands of public utilities and numerous states followed, and at one point about two-thirds of Americans were protected from shutoffs.But shutoffs recommenced as moratoriums expired, leaving millions of families facing debts accumulated over the past year and new monthly bills.Mary Grant, a campaign director from the non-profit Food and Water Watch, said: “The economic devastation of the pandemic is threatening to crush families with billions of dollars of water debt.”Affordability is just one part of America’s Water Crisis.Federal investment in water systems peaked in 1977, since when local utilities have been mostly forced to raise money through higher bills and commercial loans to pay for infrastructure upgrades and environmental cleanups.Last month, the Senate passed the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act 2021 which would invest $35bn over five years to improve access to clean, affordable drinking water and sanitation.Both bills have been welcomed by advocates and trade groups as important first steps: an estimated $35bn a year over the next 20 years is needed to ensure universal access to water and sanitation.Grant added: “We must guarantee safe, clean water for all.” More

Joe Biden has sought to spur an expansion in renewable energy and electric vehicles since entering the White House but his climate agenda has also stirred something wholly unintended – a surge in blame foisted upon migrants for environmental degradation.An unusual lawsuit filed last month by Mark Brnovich, Arizona’s attorney general, is indicative of a growing nativist framing of the climate crisis, according to academics. In the lawsuit, Brnovich, a Republican, demands the reinstatement of Donald Trump’s immigration policies to help remedy the “pollution and stress on natural resources” caused by migrants who move to the US.“Migrants (like everyone else) need housing, infrastructure, hospitals, and schools,” the lawsuit reads. “They drive cars, purchase goods, and use public parks and other facilities. Their actions also directly result in the release of pollutants, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which directly affects air quality.”Groups opposed to immigration and “overpopulation” have also found fresh impetus following the election of Biden. One group, called NumbersUSA, has complained that huge swaths of Arizona have been paved over due to immigration policies that amount to a “forced US population growth program”.Another organization, Negative Population Growth, recently launched a new campaign aimed at persuading the US president to undertake a “complete elimination of illegal and quasi-legal immigration and reduction of current legal immigration by 80%” in order to slash planet-heating emissions.Craig Lewis, executive vice-president of the group, urged members and supporters to bombard the White House with pleas to limit America’s population growth. “If the goal is to reduce emissions, it stands to reason that the number of emitters must be part of any calculations considered,” Lewis said.Concerns over population growth are not new, but the recent rhetoric indicates that the rightwing response to the climate crisis could be shifting from dismissal to antipathy aimed at the actions of other countries and their migrants as the impacts of global heating become undeniable, researchers have suggested.“This sort of language is coming back again and it’s not surprising,” said Betsy Hartmann, an academic at Hampshire College who specializes in the environment and migration. “The overt position of Trump to blame immigrants for crime and calling Mexicans rude names mobilized these tropes and now we have a liberal administration they being adapted to these times.”Hartmann said she was “very concerned this will be used by far-right groups to fuel hatred. It has become a sort of conventional wisdom now, which poses a real danger.”Warnings over unsustainable population growth stretch back decades, spanning proponents of Malthusianism and environmental groups that advocated for limited family sizes to reduce pressures upon the natural world. The issue is still occasionally aired by progressives and environmentalists – Jane Goodall, the famed primatologist, said last year that many ecological issues “wouldn’t be a problem” with a smaller population.But more recently the theme has been seized upon by those on the right pushing for toughened borders. France’s far-right National Rally party has declared that “borders are the environment’s greatest ally; it is through them that we will save the planet”, while, in Germany, the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany has warned the country’s environment faces “a great danger” if it allows in more migrants.In the US, the most prominent voices linking environmentalism with anti-immigration has been the web of groups dubbed the Tanton network, named after John Tanton, an ophthalmologist from Michigan who was once active in the Sierra Club and died in 2019. The Center for Immigration Studies, one of these groups, has welcomed Brnovich’s lawsuit.“Arizona is the first state to sue, but we can hope that it will not be the last,” said Julie Axelrod, director of litigation at the group and former adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency during Trump’s presidency. “The environmental consequences of immigration have never been more apparent.”The most extreme versions of this thinking, known as eco-fascism, has cropped up in the screeds issued by those accused of mass murder. Shortly before Patrick Crusius entered a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019 and shot dead 23 people and injured dozens of others, police say he uploaded a rambling manifesto to the 8chan website where he complained about the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and how “the environment is getting worse by the year.”According to some scientists, blaming migrants for the unfolding climate and biodiversity crises racking Earth not only stokes resentment, it also obscures more important causes such as overconsumption by the planet’s richest – the world’s wealthiest 10% produce around a half of all consumption-based emissions, while the poorest half of humanity contributes only 10% – and the entrenched power of fossil fuel companies and their political allies.Environmental groups have now largely moved away from talking about overpopulation to focus on these other themes. “In the environmental community it has become a bit of a third rail issue. It’s very difficult to talk about,” said Dale Jamieson, a professor of environmental studies and philosophy at New York University.Jamieson added: “But if you’re trying to hang environmental concerns on to an anti-immigration agenda, that is so transparent, it’s just not sincere.“When it comes to problems like climate change, nationalism is the problem, not the solution. Ecological boundaries do not care about national boundaries so trying to solve climate change within one nation state is not an effective way of doing things.” More

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly attack on the Capitol in January. Thirty-five Republicans joined Democrats in passing the measure, with the vote largely falling along party lines. A total of 175  Republicans voted against the bill, with Democrat congressman Tim Ryan saying it was ‘slap in the face to every rank and file cop in the United States’. Republicans in leadership have played down the violence of the Capitol riot that left five people dead

US House votes to create 9/11-style commission to investigate Capitol attack More

“Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States.” So begins the report of the 9/11 commission, which investigated the terrorist attacks 20 years ago with bipartisan support.Will there be a similarly limpid introduction to a similarly weighty (567 pages) study of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January 2021? Not if Republicans can help it.The formation of a January 6 commission passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday evening thanks to the Democratic majority and 35 Republicans. But 175 Republicans voted against it. It will be a similar story in the Senate, where the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, announced his opposition earlier on Wednesday.There are sound reasons for a commission. Rarely has the old question “What did the president know and when he did know it?” been more applicable than to Trump on the day that a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol as his election defeat was being certified.It was one of the greatest security failures in American history. US Capitol police were overrun. More than three hours passed before the national guard was deployed. A full investigation is surely critical for the public record.But Republicans’ logic is ruthlessly simple. Now that they have surrendered to Donald Trump, manifest in the ousting of Liz Cheney from House leadership, they would rather recycle false claims of election fraud than talk about 6 January.It was the spectacular culmination of Trump’s presidency, the moment when all the forces of anger and hatred he stoked for years were unleashed at the cost of five lives. Whereas 9/11 bequeathed memorials carved in granite – never forget – there is a concerted effort under way to airbrush 1/6 from history.Kurt Bardella, a political commentator who quit the Republican party, tweeted: “Asking Republicans to investigate 1.6 is like asking Al-Qaeda to investigate 9.11. The people who helped plan/promote the attack aren’t going to be partners in the investigation.”As always, there are outliers pushing the boundaries, trying to shift the centre of gravity and normalise the abnormal. Andrew Clyde, a Republican congressman, told a hearing that, based on TV footage inside the Capitol on 6 January, “you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit” – even though a photo shows him desperately barricading the House chamber.His colleague Louie Gohmert said on the House floor: “I just want the president to understand. There have been things worse than people without any firearms coming into a building.”Such pro-Trump loyalty from the rank and file is unsurprising. They don’t have to convince the public of what did or did not happen, just muddy the waters enough to cause confusion so that rightwing media partisans can play “bothsidesism”.But the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, knows better. He reportedly argued bitterly with Trump as the riot was unfolding and later said the president “bears responsibility”. Yet as the removal of Cheney demonstrated, McCarthy believes Trump is key to his ambition of becoming speaker after next year’s midterm elections.McConnell was even more sharply critical of Trump after the riot and, in theory, is an upholder of institutions who should welcome a commission. But he argued on the Senate floor on Wednesday that, with law enforcement and Senate investigations under way, “the facts have come out and they’ll continue to come out”.It was proof positive of Trump’s reach beyond the presidential grave. Republicans dare not alienate him or his base by rejecting “the big lie”. If election expediency takes precedence over the need to understand an attack on American democracy, is there any line they will not cross?Or as the Democratic congressman Tim Ryan put it to Republican members: “Holy cow! Incoherence! No idea what you’re talking about … We have people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol police with lead pipes across the head, and we can’t get bipartisanship. What else has to happen in this country?” More

When the South Korean president goes to Washington DC on Friday, his discussions with Joe Biden about China will test the limits of the US president’s rhetoric to “work with [its] allies to hold China accountable”. It will also exhibit the dilemma faced by middle-sized powers such as South Korea.The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said last month that Moon Jae-in’s visit “will highlight the ironclad alliance between the United States and [South Korea], and the broad and deep ties between our governments, people and economies”.But observers of the relationship think that, despite the talk of a strong alliance, it is unlikely South Korea will even go as far as its neighbouring Japan in showing a united front with Washington on the approach to China.Shortly after the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, visited Biden in the US capital last month, a joint statement issued by the two leaders underscored “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan strait” and encouraged “the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues”.It was the first time since 1969 that Washington and Tokyo had referred to Taiwan in a written statement, a move that some saw as a manifestation of the US’s unity with one of its most significant allies in the region.Analysts said such a public position on an extremely sensitive subject was unlikely to be found in Moon’s discussion with Biden this week, even though a recent Pew poll showed that 75% of South Koreans feel “somewhat” or “very unfavourable” towards China.Japan and South Korea confront a common dilemma when it comes to China. They are both key US allies, but both trade heavily with China, said Haruko Satoh of the Osaka School of International Public Policy in Japan, who studies Korea and Japan in the evolving China-US relations.“[But] if the US-China competition is a given, Japan is more of a balancing power in these new dynamics because of its size of population and economy. By contrast, Korea is a much more vulnerable player, especially considering how dependent South Korea is on China’s vast market,” she said.For South Korea and Japan, China and then the US are the top two export markets. But Seoul’s economy is even more heavily dependent on Beijing, accounting for nearly 26% of South Korea’s exports last year, followed by the US at 14.5%. Japan exported 22% of its goods to China last year, with 18.5% to the US.“When it comes to China, South Korea takes a two-pronged approach that pleases both Beijing and Washington,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, the KF-VUB Korea chair at the Brussels School of Governance.“But the bottom line of Moon’s approach is that he is not going to criticise China so publicly as other US allies have done,” said Pacheco Pardo. “In some ways it shows Biden the limits to how much his allies are willing to be openly critical of China on things such as human rights.”Ahead of Moon’s visit, his government announced that South Korea would “partially” join the US-led quadrilateral security dialogue (Quad) by cooperating with the forum on coronavirus vaccines, climate change and new technologies. It is noticeable that the security aspect of this involvement is missing.Beijing has repeatedly accused Quad of a US-led clique that reflects Washington’s “cold war mentality”. It has also urged Seoul to clarify its position on it. A ruling party official told Korean press that the US had been asking Seoul to join, “but we think we can cooperate with the Quad countries on a case-by-case basis in fields where we have a contribution to make”.This half-in, half-out approach has so far proved less direct and confrontational to China – and to some extent more effective, according to Pacheco Pardo. It also reflects old lessons from the past that still cast a shadow over South Korea’s China policy.Five years ago, when Seoul agreed to host the US anti-missile system Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad), China came up with a host of measures in what analysts believed was economic retaliation. Beijing saw the ultimate target of Thaad as China itself.One of South Korea’s biggest companies, Lotte, had several of its stores in China shut down overnight for agreeing a land swap deal with the South Korean government for the deployment of Thaad. Online and offline boycotts ensued by Chinese consumers. Chinese tourists – who once flooded the streets of Seoul and Jeju Island – disappeared.Tellingly, Washington provided little support to Seoul on this matter. “South Korean policymakers felt abandoned at the time. They will now think that if previous US administrations didn’t support South Korea under such circumstances, why would the current Biden administration do so when it happens again?” said Pacheco Pardo.John Nilsson-Wright, a Korea Foundation Korea fellow at the London-based thinktank Chatham House, said: “That is precisely why it’s harder for Seoul to push a security line against China if Beijing holds the bigger sway in market access.”Shortly after the Thaad saga, South Korea’s then foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, laid out three “noes” in parliament. Two of them were no additional deployment of Thaad, and no forming a military alliance with the US and Japan.Of course, the issue of North Korea and China’s role in it also sways Moon’s thinking. But there is another reason that could explain his approach to the US and China, according to Nilsson-Wright.“Like many countries, South Korea has also been asking itself: what if a ‘Trump 2.0’ turns up in the next few years? This would then put South Korea in an even more awkward position having been caught in the middle.” More