US Politics

A hospital in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is being charged under the country’s National Security Act for sounding the alarm over a lack of oxygen that resulted in Covid deaths. The hospital’s owner and manager says police have accused him of “false scaremongering”, after he stated publicly that four patients died on a single day when oxygen ran out.Since Covid-19 exploded in India, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, seems to be trying to the control the news more than the outbreak. On Wednesday, India recorded nearly 363,000 cases and 4,120 deaths, about 30% of worldwide deaths that day. But experts say India is vastly understating the true number. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, estimates at least 25,000 Indians are dying from Covid each day.The horror has been worsened by shortages of oxygen and hospital beds. Yet Modi and his government don’t want the public to get the true story.One big lesson from the Covid crisis: lying makes it worse.Vladimir Putin is busily denying the truth about Covid in Russia. Demographer Alexei Raksha, who worked at Russia’s official statistical agency, Rosstat, but says he was forced to leave last summer for telling the truth about Covid, claims daily data has been “smoothed, rounded, lowered” to look better. Like many experts, he uses excess mortality – the number of deaths during the pandemic over the typical number of deaths – as the best indicator.Trump wants the credit for developing the vaccine. Then he also gets the blame for so few of his voters taking it“If Russia stops at 500,000 excess deaths, that will be a good scenario,” he calculates.Russia was first out of the gate with a vaccine but has fallen woefully behind on vaccinations. Recent polling puts the share of Russians who don’t want to be vaccinated at 60% to 70%. That’s because Putin and other officials have focused less on vaccinating the public than on claiming success in containing Covid.The US is suffering a similar problem – the legacy of another strongman, Donald Trump. Although more than half of US adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, more than 40% of Republicans have consistently told pollsters they won’t get vaccinated. Their recalcitrance is threatening efforts to achieve “herd immunity” and prevent the virus’s spread.Like Modi and Putin, Trump minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and spread misinformation about it. Trump officials ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downplay its severity. He declined to get vaccinated publicly and was noticeably absent from a public service announcement on vaccination that featured all other living former presidents.Trump allies in the media have conducted a scare campaign about the vaccines. In December, Fox News host Laura Ingraham posted a story on Facebook from the Daily Mail purporting to show evidence that Chinese communist party loyalists worked at pharmaceutical companies that developed the coronavirus vaccine.As recently as mid-April, Fox News host Tucker Carlson opined that if the vaccine were truly effective, there’d be no reason for people who received it to wear masks or avoid physical contact.“So maybe it doesn’t work,” he said, “and they’re simply not telling you that.”Why then should anyone be surprised at the reluctance of Trump Republicans to get vaccinated? A recent New York Times analysis showed vaccination rates to be lower in counties where a majority voted for Trump in 2020. States that voted more heavily for Trump are also states where lower percentages of the population have been vaccinated.The Republican pollster Frank Luntz says Trump bears responsibility for the hesitancy of GOP voters to be vaccinated.“He wants to get the credit for developing the vaccine,” Luntz said. “Then he also gets the blame for so few of his voters taking it.”Trump’s Republican party is coming to resemble other authoritarian regimes around the world in other respects as well – purging truth tellers and trucking in lies, misinformation and propaganda harmful to the public.This week the GOP stripped Liz Cheney of her leadership position for telling the truth about the 2020 election. At last week’s congressional hearing about the 6 January attack on the Capitol, one Republican, Andrew Clyde, even denied it happened.“There was no insurrection,” he said. “To call it an insurrection is a bold-faced lie … you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”Biden says he plans to call a summit of democratic governments to contain the rise of authoritarianism around the world. I hope he talks about its rise in the US too – and the huge toll it’s already taken on Americans. More

Damon Weaver, who was 11 when he attracted national acclaim by interviewing President Barack Obama at the White House in 2009, has died.Weaver died on 1 May, his sister, Candace Hardy, told the Palm Beach Post. He was 23. Hardy said he died of natural causes.Further details were not immediately released. Weaver was studying communications at Albany State University in Georgia.On 13 August 2009, he interviewed Obama for 10 minutes in a conversation posted to YouTube. Weaver largely focused on education, including what could be done to improve school lunches.“I remember when I used to get school lunches, sometimes they didn’t taste so good, I’ve got to admit,” Obama said. “We are actually seeing if we can work to at least make school lunches healthier. Because a lot of school lunches, there’s a lot of french fries, pizzas, tater tots. All kinds of stuff that isn’t a well-balanced meal.”Weaver said: “I suggest that we have French fries and mangos everyday for lunch.”Weaver also told the then-president he appeared to get “bullied a lot” and asked how Obama handled it.“I think that when you’re president, you’re responsible for a lot of things,” Obama said. “A lot of people are having a tough time and they’re hurting out there. And the main thing I just try to do is stay focused on trying to do a good job, and try to be understanding that sometimes people are going to be mad about things.”Weaver had also interviewed then-vice-president Joe Biden and basketball legend Dwyane Wade. He told Obama the sports star promised to play a one-on-one match with the president if he agreed to sit for his questions.“Would you be willing to play him on a one-on-one basketball game?” Weaver asked.“I would play Dwyane Wade,” Obama said. “I’ve got to admit, though, Dwyane Wade’s a little bit better at basketball than I am.”Obama told Weaver he was once able to dunk, but no longer could.Weaver also asked the former president to be his “homeboy”, noting that Biden had already agreed.“Absolutely,” a smiling Obama responded, shaking Weaver’s hand.“He was just a nice person, genuine, very intelligent,” Hardy said of her brother. “Very outspoken, outgoing. He never said no to anybody.”She said the interview with Obama was “a one-in-a-lifetime experience … it was life-changing for him.”Weaver started in journalism in grade five, volunteering for the school newscast at KE Cunningham/Canal Point Elementary, in an agricultural community on Lake Okeechobee in Florida.“Damon was the kid who ran after me in the hall to tell me he was interested,” Brian Zimmerman, his teacher, told the Palm Beach Post in 2016. “And right away, I just saw the potential for the way he was on camera. You could see his personality come through. He wasn’t nervous being on camera.” More

Venmo accounts for Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden were removed on Friday after BuzzFeed News said it easily found the US president on the payment app – a discovery it said raised national security questions.The website went looking for Biden’s account after it was mentioned in a New York Times report on White House conditions and working practices.Under the headline “Beneath Joe Biden’s Folksy Demeanor, a Short Fuse and an Obsession With Details”, the Times reported lengthy policy debates, angry outbursts at advisers and officials – and plenty of time spent with grandchildren.“They have been known to show their grandfather apps like TikTok,” the story said. “One adviser said he had sent the grandchildren money using Venmo.”The Trump administration wrestled unsuccessfully with the popularity of TikTok, an app for sharing short videos, over its ownership by a Chinese company, ByteDance.Venmo, which is owned by PayPal, enables simple payments between contacts. Transactions are public by default. They can be made private but contact lists remain visible. Biden’s payments were private. BuzzFeed did not publish names of his contacts.Reporters commonly scan Venmo for leads. The scandal engulfing the Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, for example, has included reporting on payments to women, allegedly for sex, made by a former associate.One recent Daily Beast headline read: “Gaetz Paid Accused Sex Trafficker, Who Then Venmo’d Teen”. Gaetz denies all such accusations.BuzzFeed said it took “less than 10 minutes” to find Biden’s account, “using only a combination of the app’s built-in search tool and public friends feature”.“In the process,” it said, it “found nearly a dozen Biden family members and mapped out a social web that encompasses not only the first family but a wide network of people around them, including the president’s children, grandchildren, senior White House officials and all of their contacts on Venmo.”The White House did not immediately comment. By late Friday, BuzzFeed said, accounts for the president and first lady had been removed.A Venmo spokesman said: “The safety and privacy of all Venmo users and their information is always a top priority, and we take this responsibility very seriously.“Customers always have the ability to make their transactions private and determine their own privacy settings in the app. We’re consistently evolving and strengthening the privacy measures for all Venmo users to continue to provide a safe, secure place to send and spend money.”In a 2018 Guardian report, Christine Bannan, then of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said: “Venmo is an unusual app because it combines social media with financial transactions.“One of those is usually fairly public and one is usually very private, so it’s hard to gauge consumer expectations of privacy.”Gennie Gebhart, acting activism director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told BuzzFeed: “Venmo’s privacy failures are already a big problem for everyday folks who use Venmo, and that’s been the case for years.“All of those problems are magnified when we’re talking about a major public figure.” More

Sixteen minutes and out. The purging of Liz Cheney from Republican leadership in the House of Representatives did not even go to a secret ballot. Instead a voice vote was all it took to confirm the party’s capitulation to Donald Trump and his “big lie” about a stolen election.But Cheney went down swinging, vowing to reporters on Capitol Hill: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” then using a high-profile TV interview to say of would-be challengers for her seat in Wyoming: “Bring it on.”The public defiance instantly turned Cheney into one of the leaders of the “Never Trump” movement of disaffected Republicans. But it also raised strategic questions over the future direction of that movement and whether it can still regain control of the party – or should now abandon it as a lost cause.Some insist that the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan was their home long before Trump’s populist-fantasist invasion and they will fight to drive him out. Others believe that it is time to abandon ship and their future lies as independents or Democrats or even, perhaps, in a breakaway party.“We’re torn,” said Joe Walsh, a former congressman from Illinois. “I left the Republican party a year ago. Liz Cheney isn’t there yet. [Congressman] Adam Kinzinger, who I know well, isn’t there yet. They want to still try to reform and save the Republican party; I don’t think it can be saved.“So there’s a split in the Never Trump world and most Never Trumpers still agree with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger: let’s try to reform the party from within. I just don’t think it’s reformable. They still harbour ideas that the Republican party can be wrestled away from Trump; it can’t be.”Walsh, who mounted a long-shot challenge to Trump for the Republican nomination last year, believes that a third party is now the only solution. “We’re at a weird moment in American history where, because the Republican party has become a cult, there’s an opportunity to start something new. I think eventually that’s where everybody’s going to get to.”On Thursday a coalition of more than 150 anti-Trump Republicans started a “political movement” urging the party to turn its back on extremism and lies. Members of A Call for American Renewal include lawyer George Conway, husband of former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, and Anthony Scaramucci, ex-White House communications director, as well as 27 former members of the House.The group stopped short of proposing a new party – for now. Co-organiser Evan McMullin, who ran for president as an independent in Utah in 2016, said: “We definitely don’t rule it out but our preference is to reform the Republican party, not necessarily from within. I think most of us believe that the only way to reform the Republican party at this point is to act independently of it.“It means that we will support good Republicans who are upholding the rule of law and defending and promoting truth and the constitution, but we’ll also support viable independents where they exist. If we have to support a unifying Democrat in order to defeat an extremist Republican, we’re going to do that. If it’s Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona running for re-election against extremist Kelli Ward, then we’re going to be for Captain Mark Kelly.”McMullin, a former CIA operations officer, added: “I think in this next cycle we’ll have people who will run under our banner, people who are in office now, people who are capable of mounting credible campaigns for public office. We will invite all to associate with our principles regardless of their party registration and to run as a part of this effort.”Other initiatives in the Never Trump universe include the Lincoln Project, Principles First, the Republican Accountability Project and the Bulwark website. Kinzinger, who with Cheney was among 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment after the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol, launched a group called Country First to recruit and back anti-Trump Republican candidates.Cheney herself now has a platform guaranteed by her family name (her father was George W Bush’s vice-president, Dick Cheney) and looks set to be a more prominent voice than retired senators such as Bob Corker and Jeff Flake. She is reportedly planning more travel and media interviews and a political operation to support candidates who share her contempt for Trump’s false claims of election fraud.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “Liz Cheney has positioned herself to be a prominent spokesperson for the old style Republican but also a very conservative party that does not kneel before an authoritarian, which is what the others are doing.“She deserves the position that she has has just earned. Now, that’s not to say she’s going to be elected president: she’s pretty far to the right. But how can you not admire her for sacrificing the power she has now and maybe her seat?”I think most of us believe that the only way to reform the Republican party at this point is to act independently of itThere are some signs that Trump’s sway over the party is not what it was. His favourability rating among Republicans in December was 91%, with 74% holding a very favourable view, an Economist/YouGov poll found. This month the same survey showed him at 78% favourability, with 58% very favourable. But congressional Republicans appear to have concluded they cannot fight next year’s midterm elections without him.Kevin Madden, a former adviser to Mitt Romney, now a senator for Utah and outspoken Trump critic, is in no doubt that a long haul lies ahead for Never Trumpers. “What is the plan to mobilise and grow that movement and is that best done inside the party or outside the party?” he asked. “What is the calendar of action on that?“Anybody who thinks that this is going to be waged between now and the midterms or now and 2024 is probably being very unrealistic. The more realistic scenario is that, if Liz Cheney is to be believed about her dedication in this respect, today is the first day of what is probably a decades-long battle for the direction of the party.”A breakaway remains unlikely with the odds stacked against anyone trying to shake up America’s two-party system. Competing with Democrats and Republicans’ vast fundraising machines would be daunting. In the first-past-the-post electoral system, a third party would struggle to convince people that their vote would be not be wasted in hundreds of districts.Madden, who became an independent last year and wrote in the name of Lynne Cheney, mother of Liz, on his presidential election ballot, added: “The work of building the infrastructure to compete across 50 different states or 435 different congressional districts? That is a monumental undertaking.” More

The scandal engulfing Matt Gaetz, one of Donald Trump’s brashest supporters in Congress, deepened on Friday after an associate admitted sex trafficking involving a minor and agreed to cooperate with investigators.Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Florida, said he and unidentified others paid a 17-year-old girl for sex and he provided the girl with drugs, according to court papers cited by multiple media outlets.Greenberg, 37, is expected to plead guilty to six federal charges, including financial crimes, in court in Orlando on Monday. He could be a pivotal witness if prosecutors charge Gaetz, 39, over an alleged sexual relationship with the 17-year-old girl.Citing an anonymous source, the New York Times reported that Greenberg has told investigators Gaetz had sex with the girl and knew she was being paid. Gaetz denies all accusations and has said he will not resign from Congress.Greenberg said he recruited women for commercial sex acts between 2016 and 2018 and paid them more than $70,000, court documents say. He also admits providing drugs to an underage girl and introducing her to “other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts”.Prosecutors say Greenberg met the girl online, where she was posing as an adult, then met her on a boat, paying her $400. He later invited her to hotels where he and others had sex with her, and supplied the girl and other people with ecstasy, according to the plea deal.Greenberg allegedly had sex with the girl at least seven times and “also introduced the Minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts with the Minor”.Prosecutors say Greenberg used his position as Seminole county tax collector to access a state database and “investigate” women he was having sex with. He searched for the underage girl because he “had reason to believe the Minor was under the age of 18”, the plea agreement says.Greenberg was arrested last summer on charges of stalking a political opponent. According to an indictment, he mailed fake letters to the school where the opponent taught, signed by a non-existent “very concerned student” who alleged the teacher engaged in sexual misconduct with another student.In August, Greenberg was charged with sex trafficking a girl between ages 14 and 17 and using the state database to look up information about the girl and others with whom he was engaged in “sugar daddy” relationships.Charges that he embezzled $400,000 from his office were added earlier this year. Investigators have also been looking at whether Gaetz and associates tried to secure government jobs for some of the women, the Associated Press said, citing anonymous sources.They are also reportedly scrutinising Gaetz’s connections to medical marijuana interests, including whether associates sought to influence legislation he sponsored.Gaetz has faced calls to resign. The House of Representatives’ ethics committee launched an investigation last month.Harlan Hill, a spokesman for Gaetz, said: “The first indictment of Joel Greenberg alleges that he falsely accused another man of sex with a minor for his own gain. That man was apparently innocent. So is Congressman Gaetz.”Gaetz has maintained a high profile, including a rally last week with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman from Georgia who has trafficked in conspiracy theories and advocated violence against political opponents.Democrats in control of the House stripped Greene’s committee assignments. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, has not taken action against Greene or Gaetz.While Trump was in power, the Daily Beast reported, Greenberg allegedly sought a pardon via the Republican strategist Roger Stone, in exchange for $250,000. Stone acknowledged the approach but denied seeking or receiving payment.No pardon was forthcoming but cooperation with prosecutors could reduce Greenberg’s sentence – and land Gaetz in trouble. After a hearing in Florida last month, Greenberg’s lawyer told reporters: “I’m sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.”The judge at that hearing set a 15 May deadline for any plea agreement. Signed on 12 May, the agreement became public two days later.Earlier this month, Anna Eskamani, a Democratic Florida state representative who made public a strange voicemail message left by Gaetz and Greenberg, told the Guardian: “It’s not like Matt Gaetz created bro culture, but he absolutely benefited from it, exploited it and is being protected by it today.“It’s slimy characters, tons of money, inappropriate use of power when it comes to lavish trips, and the use of sex and drugs to also exhibit your power. It’s just gross all around.“There is no doubt in my mind that there will be charges he will face. I think it’s going to take time for the [Department of Justice] to build that case, but I feel confident there will be consequences for his behaviour.” More

Turns out campaigning across California with a 1,000lb bear is not a foolproof political plan.John Cox, a candidate vying to replace Gavin Newsom in the state’s gubernatorial recall vote, is under investigation for violating a San Diego city law that bans anyone, except zoos, from bringing wild animals – including lions and tigers and bears – into the area. The San Diego Humane Society’s law enforcement division confirmed it was conducting the investigation of Cox, who has made several appearances at lecterns with his ursine companion, Tag, wandering behind him.The stunt has drawn condemnation from animal rights groups and state lawmakers. “Gone should be the days when wild animals were treated as toys or props,” said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, adding that “dangerous wild animals” should not be part of publicity grabs. Ben Hueso, a San Diego Democratic representative, said a 2019 law barring the use of most animals in circuses should apply, in “spirit”, to Cox’s campaign.Cox defended the treatment of the bear. “Every care was taken to ensure Tag’s comfort and safety with the approval of several government agencies. California needs beastly change and that may ruffle some feathers of leftwing activists,” the campaign said in a statement, sticking firmly to Cox’s animal theme – he has positioned himself as the “beast” to Gavin Newsom’s “beauty” and is demanding “beastly” behavior via website, voteforthebeast.com, and his Twitter account, @beastjohncox.Thus far, despite Tag’s involuntary endorsement, Cox’s campaign isn’t exactly a roaring success. A recent poll put him neck and neck with the former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, with support from 22% of respondents. That compares with 49% who support keeping Newsom, a Democrat, in office. More

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said the Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene has a “fixation” on progressive members of Congress, and warned that Greene’s behavior has “raised concerns” among Democrats.Greene, a Trump loyalist and a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, was elected to the House in 2020, and has spent her first months in office harassing Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats.Ocasio-Cortez’s warning came after CNN unearthed a video showing her staff being harassed by Greene, then a private citizen, in 2019. The footage shows Greene, accompanied by a man who would go on to take part in the Capitol riot in January this year, shouting through the letterbox of Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional office.“You need to stop being a baby and stop locking your door and come out and face the American citizens that you serve,” Greene says. “If you want to be a big girl, you need to get rid of your diaper and come out and be able to talk to the American citizens. Instead of having to use a flap, a little flap. Sad.”The video emerged two days after Greene confronted Ocasio-Cortez outside the House chamber. Greene shouted at the New York congresswoman and accused her of supporting terrorists.Ocasio-Cortez told CNN: “This is a woman that’s deeply unwell. And clearly needs help. And her kind of fixation has lasted for several years now. At this point I think the depth has raised concerns for other members as well.”She added: “I think that this is an assessment that needs to be made by the proper professional.”Ocasio-Cortez, along with fellow progressives Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, have been regular targets for rightwing extremists including Greene. In September, when Greene was running for Congress, she posted a Facebook photo of herself holding a gun alongside images of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib.“We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart,” the caption read.In her 2019 video, which CNN posted online, Greene announces: “We’re going to go see, we’re going to visit, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”She adds: “Crazy eyes. Crazy eyes. Nutty.”Ocasio-Cortez referenced the video in a tweet, pointing out double standards between the behavior of some Republicans and that of Democrats.“And now it’s revealed that this person [Greene] showed up to members of Congress’ doors with folks from the mob who infiltrated the Capitol, beat Capitol police and strung up nooses in front of the House,” Ocasio-Cortez said.“If the shoe were on the other foot, the GOP would be calling for my expulsion.” More