Biden administration

Subterms

    Latest story

    163 Shares36 Views

    Amid chaos of US politics, Netanyahu finally gets attention he craves in Washington

    by

    On his third day in Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu finally got the attention he so desperately wanted in the US capital.Republicans and their guests in the House chamber stamped their feet and whistled as a joint session was gaveled into order, while the Democrat lawmakers who chose not to boycott someone whom colleagues had called a “war criminal” looked on in sullen silence. In a 56-minute speech punctuated with 50 rounds of applause, the Israeli prime minister dashed hopes of a quick end to the war in Gaza and dispensed red meat to the Republican faithful, blasting anti-war protest culture and vowing to fight until “total victory”.For two days, Netanyahu had mostly been ignored at the Watergate hotel, passed over for the spectacle of a US political cycle averaging a West Wing season finale a week. Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race amid rumours of his cognitive decline, endorsing the vice-president, Kamala Harris, weeks before the convention and reinvigorating the Democratic party overnight. A bullet had grazed Donald Trump’s ear in an assassination attempt just 11 days ago, sparking comparisons to the resurrection of Lazarus and Jesus Christ. America has been living decades in just weeks; was there even room on the cable TV schedule for Netanyahu to deliver another incendiary speech?But the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Republican, had put Netanyahu on the schedule on 24 July and neither the US political tumult nor Biden’s bout of Covid-19, nor a requested international criminal court warrant accusing him of “crimes against humanity” would deter Israel’s prime minister from coming to Washington to make his case before Congress for a record fourth time (once more than Winston Churchill).So when he had his moment, Netanyahu stood up to give a speech filled with verve but absolutely devoid of details: when and how Israel’s war in Gaza would come to an end and the 120 remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October would be brought home.There was a vague reference to a “civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel” after his “total victory”, a “vision for Gaza” that said the strip of land would be “demilitarised and deradicalised”. But Netanyahu gave no vision of how to get there, besides more of the same, which has already left an estimated 39,000 Palestinians dead on top of the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on 7 October.This was not a speech declaring a ceasefire, a word that was not uttered once by Netanyahu, despite weeks of negotiations with Hamas and the Biden administration’s insistence that a “framework” had already been agreed. Shortly after the speech, a senior administration official conceded there may still be some “very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved”.On the streets outside the Capitol, police deployed teargas and pepper spray as protests descended into melees so confused that anti-Netanyahu protesters from different factions ended up clashing angrily with one another.Despite the violence, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters voiced frustration with the Israeli prime minister and a war that had killed thousands with no resolution in sight.View image in fullscreenJessica Pliska, a pro-Palestinian protester who carried a sign calling Netanyahu “Satanyahu”, said she drove 11 hours from Michigan to demonstrate against his address. “I feel disappointed in our government. The fact that the person perpetrating these war crimes is invited to our Congress is insidious.“I think it’s wonderful that people are boycotting,” she said. “I think it shows a moral imperative among the masses to come out and protest, not only here in the streets but in Congress as well.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSeveral blocks away, Brad Young, a dual US-Israeli citizen from North Carolina, said he was “very much in favour of the Israeli right to exist but [I] believe that the government in place right now is corrupt and not acting in the best interests of Israel or of anyone in the region. It’s outrageous that Bibi [Netanyahu] is here and speaking to Congress when he should be focused on sealing the deal and bringing the hostages home.”When he finally took the rostrum on Thursday, Netanyahu quickly waded knee-deep into the American culture wars that have divided the US ahead of the presidential elections. At times it can feel that US politics has become the world’s politics, particularly when foreign leaders curry favour with Donald Trump and parrot his politics before the vote.Netanyahu used his hour to lambast woke culture and the pro-Palestinian protest movement, echoing the Republican talking points of the moment. Somewhere between calling protesters “Iran’s useful idiots” and saying those holding signs reading “gays for Gaza” might as well call themselves “chickens for KFC”, the Israeli prime minister brought up the North Carolina frat boys who surrounded the US flag during a pro-Palestinian protest at the campus of Chapel Hill UNC.“USA! USA! USA!” his backers in the hall chanted, their shouts echoing off the walls. Netanyahu would be at home at a football match or a stump speech, but his remarks in Congress on Wednesday gave little sign that this war is any closer to coming to an end. More

    More stories

    • 188 Shares75 Views

      in US Politics

      The tragedy and resilience of Joe Biden: a look back at a life in politics

      by

      Joe Biden’s historic decision on Sunday to step down as the Democratic nominee for president signals an imminent end to one of the most consequential American political careers.At 81, the oldest president ever sworn in has finally yielded to time – and his own party. Someone else, possibly the vice-president, Kamala Harris, will face Donald Trump in November.Biden, who endorsed Harris on Sunday, will remain in the White House until January. But Democrats and Republicans will soon survey something new: a political landscape without Biden at its centre.Born in Pennsylvania in 1942, Biden attended the University of Delaware and Syracuse law school, became a public defender, then entered politics. A natural campaigner, in 1972, at just 29, he ran for US Senate, scoring a huge upset over J Caleb Boggs, a two-term Republican more than twice his age.View image in fullscreenThe same year, voters gave Richard Nixon a landslide win. Nixon was the 37th president. In 2021, Biden would become the 46th. In that 49-year span, as eight presidents came and went, Biden was a senator for 36 years, vice-president for eight.View image in fullscreenAs a junior senator, Biden suffered his first, but not last, tragedy when a car crash killed his wife, Neilia Biden, and one-year-old daughter, Naomi, at Christmas in 1972. Biden became known for riding the rails, from Delaware to Washington DC and back, to care for his sons, Beau and Hunter, who survived the accident.He married his second wife, Jill Jacobs, in 1977, and their daughter, Ashley, was born four years later.For 17 years, Biden was a ranking member or chair of the Senate judiciary committee. He led five supreme court confirmations. In 1991 the nominee, Clarence Thomas, was accused of sexual harassment and Biden was widely seen to have mishandled the hearings. In 2019, he said Thomas’s accuser, Anita Hill, “did not get treated well. I take responsibility for that.”Biden’s record on crime would also haunt him, particularly his support for a 1994 bill many say contributed to problems of mass incarceration and racial injustice. Another 1994 bill, banning assault weapons, remained a source of pride.View image in fullscreenFor 11 years, Biden was chair or ranking member of the foreign relations committee. In 1991, he voted against the Gulf war. In 2002, after 9/11, he voted for the invasion of Iraq. He later said that vote was wrong.In 1987, Biden first ran for president. At 45, he sought comparison with John F Kennedy but as reported by Richard Ben Cramer in the campaign classic What It Takes, youth, ambition and drive were not enough to prevent embarrassing failure.Biden took to quoting Neil Kinnock, then Labour leader in Britain, about being the first member of his family to go to college. Unfortunately, Biden stopped saying he was quoting.View image in fullscreenKinnock didn’t mind but the US press did. Biden’s freewheeling speaking style (and accompanying evocations of his Irish ancestry) often left him open to error. But he was undoubtedly an effective communicator, all the more remarkably so given he stammered as a child.Months after abandoning his presidential campaign, Biden suffered a brain aneurysm so severe a priest was called to administer last rites. Months later, he suffered another.He was nothing if not resilient. Twenty years later, he ran for president again. A great debate stage line, about a Republican rival, went down in history: “Rudy Giuliani, there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11.” But Biden soon dropped out.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBarack Obama won the nomination. When the Illinois senator, 47, picked Biden, 66, as his running mate, the New York Times said Obama had acquired “a longtime Washington hand” who could “reassure voters” rather than “deliver a state or reinforce [a] message of change”.View image in fullscreenBiden spent eight years as vice-president, his working relationship with Obama, reporting suggested, not quite so close as it was often portrayed. Biden played key roles in successes including advancing LGBTQ+ rights, legislating to prevent violence against women and securing healthcare reform. A push for gun reform failed.Biden eyed a third presidential run but in 2015 the death of his son Beau from brain cancer took a terrible toll. Furthermore, Obama backed Hillary Clinton.Amid the chaos of the Trump years, Biden decided to run again. Significant support from Black voters propelled a primary win. In the year of Covid, campaign travel was limited. For a 77-year-old candidate, that wasn’t much of a problem. Come the election, Biden won by more than 7m votes and with electoral college ease.The first major book on 2020 was called Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. Regardless, his campaign message about a “battle for the soul of America” fueled two productive years. With congressional Democrats, Biden secured major legislation, boosting the economy after Covid, securing infrastructure investment and funding the climate crisis fight.Trump had incited an attack on Congress, but Trumpism would not die. Republicans took back the House. Biden oversaw foreign policy disaster – the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan – and success, marshalling support for Ukraine against Russia.The dam could not hold. Questions about Biden’s age and fitness ran at a hum before the disastrous debate in Atlanta in June saw Democratic dissent burst through.At first, Biden displayed characteristic fire, blaming “elites” to which he never felt he belonged, vowing to fight on. But then Trump survived an assassination attempt and emerged seemingly stronger than ever.Democratic calls for Biden to quit grew louder. Eventually, he heard them. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden housing plan seeks to curb rent increases by penalizing landlords

      by

      President Joe Biden wants to curb rent increases by penalizing landlords who hike rents beyond 5% each year, but he needs the help of Congress to put the plan into action.The Biden administration will announce the idea in Nevada on Tuesday along with a host of other housing-related policies, including an influx of funds to add more housing in Nevada and elsewhere and a plan to use public federal lands for affordable housing near Las Vegas.The rent control plan for larger landlords with over 50 units would restrict increases to 5% or less, or those landlords who increased at higher rates would lose access to tax breaks. The administration estimated it would apply to 20m units nationwide. It would be in place for two years if Congress approves Biden’s plan, cast as a way to help renters while developers build more housing stock to meet demand and increase affordability.The announcement comes as Republicans gather in Milwaukee for their convention to officially appoint Donald Trump as their nominee. Affordability has become a main issue for voters this election, as the price of housing and goods has increased over the past four years.The likelihood is low that Congress would work in a bipartisan way to pass Biden’s rent control plan and deliver him a legislative victory to use on the campaign trail.In a statement, Biden said he is determined to make housing more affordable after “decades of failure to build enough homes”.“Today, I’m sending a clear message to corporate landlords: If you raise rents more than 5%, you should lose valuable tax breaks,” he said. “My Administration is also taking action to cut red tape and repurpose public land to build more affordable homes – including thousands of new homes in Nevada – and announcing new grants to build thousands of homes from Las Vegas to Syracuse. And I’m reiterating my call for Congress to pass my plan to build 2 million new homes – to lower housing costs for good, we need to build, build, build.”The Biden administration announced other plansto try to lower housing costs in the absence of congressional action.The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $325m in grants for affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization that will bring more than 6,500 units of new housing and add childcare centers and parks in communities around the country. One grant of $50m will go to the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority and the city of Las Vegas to restore existing units and build new ones, and will go toward small business support and an early childhood center, the agency said.For renters in multifamily properties that are financed by federal Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans, the administration announced renter protections like a 30-day notice before rent increases and a five-day grace period for late payments.Also in Nevada, the Bureau of Land Management plans to sell 20 acres of public land to Clark county, Nevada, below market value in what the administration says will allow for about 150 affordable homes to be built. Another land sale will go to the city of Henderson to build about 300 affordable housing units.Several other agencies, including the US Forest Service and US Postal Service, were directed to explore using their land or properties for affordable housing.“This is a crucial component of our agenda,” Neera Tanden, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, said in a press call. “The federal government is the biggest landowner in the country, and some of its land is currently underutilized or entirely unused. President Biden is asking federal agencies, from the Department of Interior to the Department of Defense, to identify opportunities to repurpose surplus property to build more affordable housing.” More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris: insiders rally behind VP to replace Biden if he bows out

      by

      As Joe Biden faces increasing pressure to withdraw his candidacy following last week’s poor debate performance, Kamala Harris has emerged as the frontrunner to replace him.The president forcefully rejected calls to end his campaign on Wednesday, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.” His defiant remarks came after the New York Times reported that Biden had privately told allies he understood he might not be able to salvage his candidacy if he could not convince voters of his viability.As the White House has continued to deny reports that Biden was weighing the future of his campaign, talks of who would step up if he did withdraw have escalated.Senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee told Reuters that the vice-president was the top alternative.Harris, a former senator from California, has stood by the president’s side as he weathers the debate fallout this week, and reportedly told campaign staffers on Wednesday: “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead.”But pundits advocating that Harris take over the ticket have pointed to polls suggesting that she could have advantages over Biden in a race against Donald Trump. A post-debate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that one in three Democrats think Biden should quit, and that 81% viewed Harris favorably, compared to 78% for Biden. Michelle Obama was the only hypothetical Democratic candidate to beat Trump in the poll, but the former first lady said in March she was not running. Biden and Trump were tied in that poll, and Harris performed similarly, earning 42% of votes compared with Trump’s 43%.A CNN poll published Tuesday also found Harris “within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup” – 47% supporting the former president, and 45% supporting Harris, a result within the margin of error. The Biden-Trump matchup in that poll had Trump earning 49% of votes and Biden earning 43%. Harris’s modest advantage was due partly to her having broader support from women and independents, CNN said.With two Democratic congressmen now publicly calling on Biden to step aside, other party leaders have privately suggested they favor Harris as his potential replacement, according to reports. Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, signaled to members that she would be the best option, the Washington Post reported.James Clyburn, a senior congressional Democrat, said publicly he’d support Harris if Biden were to withdraw his candidacy, urging Democrats to “do everything to bolster her, whether she’s in second place or at the top of the ticket”. Summer Lee, a House Democrat from Pennsylvania, also said Wednesday that Harris was the “obvious choice” to replace Biden, if he decided not to run.Some Harris supporters who are advocating she take over the campaign have argued that she would perform better than Biden with Black and Latino communities, and that she is a more powerful abortion-rights spokesperson than Biden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSkeptics, however, have noted that Harris also remains fairly unpopular and have pointed to polls suggesting she has vulnerabilities in terms of voters’ trust in her ability to handle immigration, China relations and Israel’s war on Gaza.The other names that have been floated as possible replacements include California governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois governor J B Pritzker and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. The Reuters poll, however, suggested they would all perform worse than Biden and Harris.If Harris became the presidential candidate, she could take over the funds raised by the campaign since the account is registered under Biden and Harris.On Wednesday, the White House also announced a series of “summer of engagement” events for Harris, including visits to New Orleans, Las Vegas, Dallas and Indianapolis. More

    • 138 Shares128 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump loyalists plan to name and shame ‘blacklist’ of federal workers

      by

      Armed with rhetoric about the “deep state”, a conservative-backed group is planning to publicly name and shame career government employees that they consider hostile to Donald Trump.This “blacklist” of civil servants, which will be published online, is intended to advance Trump’s broader goals, which, if elected, include weeding out government employees and replacing them with loyalists.The group behind the list is the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), which was founded in 2020 and describes its mission as “working non-stop to expose the left’s secrets and hold Biden accountable”. A 2022 New Yorker profile described AAF as a “conservative dark-money group” and “slime machine”.In recent years, AAF has focused its efforts on derailing Biden’s political appointments. Now, according to a press release, the AAF is getting to work on a new mission: “Project Sovereignty 2025”.Backed with a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing thinktank, AAF will compile information, including social media posts, about civil servants they suspect will “obstruct and sabotage a future conservative president”. They plan to publish dossiers on those non-public facing individuals, starting with the Department of Homeland Security, and expose them to scrutiny.“WE ARE DECLARING WAR ON THE DEEP STATE,” AAF wrote in a post on Twitter/X earlier this week.News of the project has reportedly sent alarm bells ringing among the civil service community, and it’s the latest sign that Trump and his allies are seeking to wrest control of Washington DC, which they believe has been overrun by their opponents.The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union (and which has endorsed Joe Biden), described Project Sovereignty 2025 as “an intimidation tactic to try to menace federal workers and sow fear”.“Civil servants are required to take an oath to the Constitution,” they wrote on X. “Not a loyalty test to a president.”Project Sovereignty 2025 has also drawn comparisons to the anti-communist blacklisting techniques employed during the McCarthy era.Donald Moynihan, a political scientist and the McCourt chair of Georgetown University’s McCourt school of public policy says those comparisons are valid, and that AAF’s plans reveal a “deep animus towards state actors who are seen as disloyal to the party and party ideology, and a desire to punish those actors”.During the first Trump administration, Trump and his allies made no secret of their animosity towards non-political government workers who they believed were working internally to impede his policies, particularly on immigration. Those suspicions have been increasingly rolled into nebulous conspiracies about the “deep state” – a cabal of government officials with a sinister agenda.“Trump used to talk about ‘The Swamp’, and that rhetoric has become sharper and more negative since it’s merged with discussion about ‘the deep state’,” said Moynihan. “This is also because he views the state as a threat to him personally.”Moynihan says it’s also important to consider Project Sovereignty 2025 in the context of broader patterns of intimidation against individuals across institutions, and across all levels of government.“Librarians, teachers, professors, public health officials, election officials, who were previously anonymous, and left to do their jobs, now have to worry about being doxxed, being accused of being disloyal and being part of the deep state,” said Moynihan. “I think that is really quite new.”“Project Sovereignty” would lay the groundwork for Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025”, a 900-page blueprint for Trump to follow if he’s elected. Project 2025, which explicitly makes “Christian nationalism” a priority for Trump, also seeks to reorganize the federal government. Critics have labeled it “authoritarian” in nature.One of Project 2025’s top priorities is the implementation of “Schedule F”, which would reclassify tens of thousands of career civil servants as political appointees. This move would allow Trump to conduct mass dismissals and replace those employees with his supporters.Trump introduced Schedule F via executive order in October 2020, which was later rescinded by Biden. Earlier this year, the Biden administration ushered in additional protections to “safeguard federal employees from political firings”. Trump has vowed to reimplement Schedule F on his first day in office, “I will shatter the Deep State,” he said in a statement last year.On the surface, it would be easy to perhaps dismiss AAF as some fringe outfit steeped in “deep state” conspiracies. But that’s not the case. AAF is run by Tom Jones, former legislative director to Republican Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson. Jones also ran opposition research for Senator Ted Cruz’s unsuccessful bid for president in 2016.“This isn’t just some crank in his basement,” said Moynihan. “This is someone funded by the Heritage Foundation, who has worked with Republican senators, and is part of the broader Republican mainstream operation.”Jones and AAF have not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment.Some of AAF’s tactics in recent years offer some insight into what Project Sovereignty 2025 could look like. For example, they haven’t just targeted Biden’s high-profile nominees for cabinet and court seats. They’ve also gone after lesser-known political appointees, whose relative obscurity leaves them particularly vulnerable to smears, which are then published to the website bidennoms.com along with their photos.The AAF also has a track record of disproportionately targeting women and people of color. According to the New Yorker in 2022, more than a third of the 29 candidates they’d singled out were people of color, and nearly 60% were women.“Those sorts of lists create more intimidation,” said Moynihan, “More fear, and more consequences when these actors have access to power to potentially fire people, in addition to intimidating them.” More

    • 200 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on the WikiLeaks plea deal: good for Julian Assange, not journalism | Editorial

      by

      Julian Assange should never have been charged with espionage by the US. The release of the WikiLeaks founder from custody in the UK is good news, and it is especially welcome to his family and supporters. He is due to plead guilty to a single charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents at a hearing early on Wednesday, but is not expected to face further jail time. The court in Saipan, a remote Pacific island which is a US territory, is expected to approve the deal, crediting him for the five years he has already spent on remand in prison.His opportunity to live with his young family comes thanks to Australian diplomacy under the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who had made clear his desire for a resolution, and the Biden administration’s keenness to get a controversial case off its plate, particularly in an election year. Seventeen of the charges have been dropped. The one that remains, however, is cause for serious alarm. It was the Trump administration that brought this case. But while the Biden administration has dropped 17 of the 18 charges, it insisted on a charge under the 1917 Espionage Act, rather than the one first brought against him of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.This is no triumph for press freedom. Mr Assange’s plea has prevented the setting of a frightening judicial precedent for journalists, avoiding a decision that might bind future courts. Nonetheless, this is the first conviction for basic journalistic efforts under the 1917 act.Using espionage charges was always a bad and cynical move. The case relates to hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, which were made public by WikiLeaks working with the Guardian and other media organisations. They revealed appalling abuses by the US and other governments, which would not otherwise have been exposed – and for which no one has been held liable, despite the pursuit of Mr Assange.National security laws are necessary. But it is also necessary to acknowledge that governments keep secrets for bad reasons as well as good. Alarmingly, the Espionage Act allows no public interest defence, preventing defendants from discussing the material leaked, why they shared it, and why they believe the public should know about it. The Obama administration correctly identified the chilling effect that spying charges could have on investigative journalism, and chose not to bring them on that basis. The Biden administration – which proclaims itself a champion of press freedom globally – should not have pursued them. The UK government should never have agreed to Mr Assange’s extradition.The bad news is that the prosecutorial policy is now clear. Federal prosecutors can chalk this one up as a win. It is possible that future administrations could take this case as encouragement to pursue the press under the Espionage Act. It is likely that an emboldened second Trump administration would do so. The Republican candidate has repeatedly cast the media as his “real opponent” and the enemy of the people.The political solution to this lengthy saga is welcome, particularly given the reported impact on Mr Assange’s health after years holed up in London’s Ecuadorian embassy and then in Belmarsh prison. But the threat to press freedom has not ended. Its defence cannot rest either. More

    • 188 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Both sides of gun issue seek to stir up US voters as NRA influence wanes

      by

      Anti-gun-control groups and gun-safety advocates are launching hefty voter-mobilization drives this year with the stakes high in the fall elections given the stark differences on gun violence policy between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.But the long-powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), which has been beset with financial and legal headaches for several years, is not expected to be nearly as active as in 2016, when it spent more than $31m to back Trump’s victorious campaign by boosting his political fortunes in key states, say gun experts and ex-NRA insiders.Now, though, other anti-gun-control groups are trying to take up the slack.For instance, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), an influential firearms industry lobbying group, has begun an eight-figure voter-mobilization drive to help pro-gun interests defeat President Biden, whose strong support for gun-control measures it finds anathema.The NSSF’s general counsel, Larry Keane, said that the organization’s “GunVote” campaign will focus on seven to nine battleground states, where it will mount voter-registration, education and get-out-the-vote efforts to help Trump win the presidency again.On the other side of this year’s election brawl over gun control, Everytown for Gun Safety is planning a large effort to get its millions of supporters to help re-elect Biden and defeat Trump, who has a record of siding firmly with pro-gun priorities.“We’re going to knock on doors, make calls, rally and campaign for President Biden,” said Nick Suplina, the senior vice-president for law and policy at Everytown, which claims nearly 10 million supporters including mayors, students, gun owners, teachers and others.The stakes seem higher than usual given Biden’s successes as president backing new gun-control measures such as the first new law in three decades boosting gun safety, and Biden’s talk of doing more if he’s re-elected, including fighting for an assault weapons ban, which would probably need Democratic control of Congress to enact.By contrast, Trump has often reiterated his fealty to the pro-gun lobby, which characterized his presidency. At last month’s NRA annual meeting, Trump earned a ringing endorsement and pledged that if he wins, “no one will lay a finger on your firearms”.But the once deep-pocketed and five-million-member NRA remains mired in internal and financial headaches: its annual revenues have dropped for several years while its legal expenses have risen.The NRA’s problems were underscored when its longtime top executive, Wayne LaPierre, resigned in January as he was about to go on trial in New York, where he was convicted of looting the organization to enjoy lavish personal perks including fancy vacations and expensive clothes.“The NRA is going to again be a peripheral player for lack of funding this election cycle, and that could hurt Trump in several battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota,” a former NRA board member said.“It’s a vacuum compared to 2016 when the NRA was robustly engaged,” the ex-board member added.Longtime observers of gun-control fights agree.Robert Spitzer, the author of several books on gun issues and an emeritus political science professor at Suny Cortland in New York, said the NRA was “as strongly behind [Trump] as they have been before”.“However, the organization simply does not possess the money or personnel to be as influential as they were in 2016, when they spent over $31m on his campaign, and over $70m on Republican efforts around the country. Still, the gun issue will continue to be salient to an important segment of the Trump base.”Spitzer added: “Other gun groups, such as the NSSF and state gun groups, will be working to supplant the NRA’s traditional dominance in national politics. They do not possess the degree of organization, experience and reach as the NRA of old, but they will ratchet up their efforts.”That’s what the NSSF, whose members include such gun giants as Sturm, Ruger & Co and Smith & Wesson, plus other anti-gun-control groups say they intend to do. “There’s a stark difference between Trump and Biden,” Keane said in explaining the NSSF’s hefty effort this year. “It’s clear there are ongoing challenges at the NRA.”Some ex-NRA leaders credit NSSF with trying to fill the NRA’s vacuum. “NSSF has attempted, and continues, to fill the gap left by a weakened NRA,” Jim Baker, the NRA’s former top lobbyist, said.The NRA did not respond to a call seeking comments.Further, the Trump campaign in tandem with the Republican National Committee has launched Gun Owners for Trump including firearms makers and gun-rights advocates such as Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation; Women for Gun Rights; and some NRA officials.To spur more pro-gun votes at the polls, Trump has spoken twice this year at NRA events. At their May meeting, Trump employed some incendiary conspiracy-mongering, telling the crowd that Biden “has a 40-year record of trying to rip firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGun-control advocates and the Biden campaign are using Trump’s own pro-gun pledges and cavalier attitude towards gun violence to rev up their backers, including younger voters and women.After an Iowa school shooting in January, for instance, Trump callously opined that “we have to get over it”, a clip of which is being circulated by Democrats and pro-gun-control advocates.Likewise, another clip in circulation shows Trump boasting to NRA members in May that he “did nothing” as president on guns. Actually, Trump signed a “bump stock” ban after the country’s largest gun massacre ever in Las Vegas, but the supreme court overturned it this month.Biden cemented his gun-control credentials in 2022 when, after the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre, he pushed hard for a gun-safety bill that passed on a bipartisan basis, becoming the first new gun-control law in almost three decades.To energize his supporters, Biden spoke to an Everytown training event for about 1,000 gun-safety volunteers including students on 12 June, where he cited several major achievements, including setting up a White House office focused on curbing gun violence and beefing up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Explosives and Firearms.Biden urged a ban on assault-style weapons and universal background checks for purchases of firearms, both goals he has stressed before.“We need you to overcome the unrelenting opposition of the gun lobby,” Biden said.Suplina said Everytown’s plans for targeting states to help Biden and how much they intend to spend overall this election cycle were not ready to be announced, but he did reveal that Everytown intends to support 465 of its volunteers who are running for office this year. The majority of these races are state and local.Further, Everytown will be backing Senate and House candidates who support gun-safety measures, Suplina said.Overall, Everytown spent about $55m on 2020 election efforts.Other gun-control advocates have broad election plans“This cycle, GIiffords will use its unique identity as a gun owner and survivor-led organization to reach a broad gun safety coalition in battlegrounds – including Democrats, Republicans, young voters, gun owners, and people of color,” Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords, said in a statementThe group plans on “supporting gun safety champions in key House and Senate races, [and] communicating the Biden-Harris administration’s historic gun safety accomplishments in states across the map,” she added.Looking ahead, Spitzer stressed that Biden “has continued to speak out on gun safety, and gun-safety groups will surely redouble their efforts on his behalf, not only to help him get re-elected, but to advance the cause of down-ballot Democrats running for Congress and state offices, where the fate of many gun laws lie”. More

    • 200 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden is lurching right on immigration. Democrats must be the party of Dreamers | Chris Newman

      by

      Joe Biden is making a huge mistake by lurching to the right on immigration, away from his base and toward Donald Trump and the Republicans. In trying to be seen as tough at the border, ending asylum and curtailing immigrants’ rights, he is forgetting what happened the last time a Democratic president did right by immigrants in a big way.It happened 12 years ago this week, in the summer of an election year. Barack Obama took bold executive action to expand rights for an entire generation of undocumented immigrants. It was the right thing to do – and it helped him immensely at the polls.The move was Daca – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The policy offered hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought here as children, known as Dreamers, renewable protection from deportation and permission to work legally. It was the most important advance for undocumented immigrants in more than two decades.Ever since Congress first comprehensively regulated immigration with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, every generation since has seen immigrants fighting for legalization (or political equality) the way that previous generations moved from illegal to legal status. Germans, Jews, Irish, Italians, newcomers from across Asia – they were all Dreamers once. They all benefited from presidential leadership.During the Covid lockdown, I taught a course at the University of California, Los Angeles, on the history and legacy of Daca. My students – some of them Dreamers themselves – learned what a landmark achievement it was in the evolution of US immigration policy, while placing it within the long continuum of immigrants’ progress from “illegal” to “legal”. White nationalism and xenophobia are forever flaring up in our history, and immigrants are always the scapegoat. But until recently, US presidents have doused the flames of nativism while expanding the country’s capacity for inclusion and shared prosperity.On 15 June 2012, against the advice of his advisers, Obama stepped out into the Rose Garden to announce the new policy: if young people came forward and registered with the Department of Homeland Security, he would give them what some would call amnesty. Rather than being electrocuted on the so-called “third rail” of US politics for advancing immigrants’ rights, Obama won re-election with an overwhelming share of the Latino vote. His Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, looked cruel and even foolish by comparison. The incipient Tea Party movement was rattled.By November, after Obama secured a come-from-behind victory, Beltway pundits acknowledged that it had been a good idea to advance equal rights for undocumented immigrants. Even Sean Hannity of Fox News changed his tune and declared that he had “evolved” to support a “path to citizenship” for the longterm undocumented.This may seem like a forgotten memory from before the twin plagues of Trumpism and the pandemic threw politics as we knew it into a black hole. But Dreamers, their families, and their employers remember what Obama did. Daca gave about 600,000 young people the chance to plant roots and contribute to the national well-being. A small fraction of the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants finally caught a break and our economy and society didn’t collapse. Things actually got better.The biggest Daca myth is that it was a gift that a benevolent Obama bestowed on a needy and timid cohort of immigrants. On the contrary. Obama had stubbornly resisted using his deferred action authority, saying the constitution didn’t allow it. The Dreamers knew better; they found their own lawyers (I was one of them) to make their case, and they pushed the idea that the executive branch had every right to exercise discretion and its limited resources, particularly to recognize the inexorable fact that all immigrants’ status inevitably change over time.The reasons people come to America are very often different from the reasons they stay. Quite literally since the Declaration of Independence in 1776, constitutional values of inclusion have always powered through political forces of exclusion to expand the definition of who deserves equal rights.Emulating the gift that 1960’s civil-rights leaders bestowed on the country, Dreamers marched, fasted, protested and prayed. They had sit-ins and teach-ins. Significantly, they committed acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. They got themselves arrested and thrown into deportations. All to prove that Obama could and should use his presidential authority to expand protections for undocumented immigrants. They played political hardball too, vowing to take their support to whoever would listen to them – perhaps evenMarco Rubio, a senator from Florida, back when he was seen as a Republican who could be reasoned with.Unlike Biden, Obama began his presidency tacking hard to the right on deportations. He used his discretion to conscript police and sheriff’s departments across America into civil immigration enforcement. Imagine if all cops were compelled to check someone’s tax status with the IRS upon arrest – that is what Obama did with immigration. It is a decision he came to regret.While Obama carried out record deportations (significantly more than Trump), he resisted the Dreamers as long as he could. He spent his first term convincing the immigrant rights lobby to suspend their criticism of his deportations with the promise that he was pursuing a long shot “comprehensive” immigration deal with Republicans that would trade a harshly militarized border, workplace crackdowns and interior removals in return for a so-called path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents.Obama kept his end of the enforcement bargain by setting a record on expulsions that led immigrant-rights advocates and even The New York Times editorial page to label him “the Deporter-in-Chief”. While some in the administration winced at the moniker, Obama’s political advisors like David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel likely rejoiced: by moving to the right on immigration, Democrats ostensibly took an issue away from Republicans, while making caricatures of Republicans as anti-Latino racists.But the Republicans kept demanding more – and getting it. And then they got Trump. Not long ago the Republican immigration agenda was more border personnel, workplace verification and scattered job-site raids. Now they’ve moved on to second world war-style detention camps, with the US military used to effectuate the mass expulsion of millions.What did Obama and the Democrats achieve by trying to out-tough xenophobic Republicans on immigration? Little to nothing. They’re still labeled the party of amnesty by the Maga media machine. And to their own fractured coalition, their position on immigration became incomprehensibly illegible.Most insidiously, their weakness coupled with their own record of deportations gave Trump and his party tacit permission to be even worse. Every capitulation by the Democrats on punishing immigrants is seized on by Republicans as ratification of their big lie – that the country is being invaded and that the only way to save America is to shut the border and drive the dangerous aliens out.What is the alternative? Remember Daca. Remember how it was achieved. By fighting back. Honor and learn from the courageous young immigrant civil rights leaders who – putting their lives and livelihoods at risk – pushed Obama into the one immigration action he can be proud of. At this dire moment for the country’s future, we need more courage, not less. From everyone, but especially from Biden.If he values his legacy, Obama should step up alongside those immigrant kids (now adults) who convinced him to do the right thing. He should urge his friend and successor, Biden to do the same: respect and protect immigrants’ rights, draw from their courage as the nation trembles with fear of the prospect of Trump seizing power again.It is not hyperbole to fear, as the current president is fond of saying, that US democracy itself is on the ballot in this election. If it is to prevail this November, Biden must learn the lesson from Daca and use his singular authority to expand the definition of who “we” are as Americans. If he does so, he and the country will be rewarded.
      Chris Newman is legal director of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, which advocates for immigrants and low-wage workers’ rights More