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      Mitch McConnell 'plays the long game' to retain some power as it slips away

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      Out of power in the chamber, the Republican now faces unruly politicians and pressure over how to handle Trump impeachmentFor Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, the first few days of Joe Biden’s presidency has not been about fighting the new Democratic majority in government, it’s been about gaming out how much power he now has.McConnell, the leader of Senate Republicans for over a decade, now finds himself in the position every caucus leader dreads: out of power in the chamber, in charge of a somewhat unruly bunch of politicians, and under pressure over how to handle the impeachment of the last Republican president. Continue reading… More

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      'Racism is in the bones of our nation': Will Joe Biden answer the 'cry' for racial justice?

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      Activists are hopeful but cautious as president acknowledges ground shifted in the US after the police killing of George FloydIn his first few minutes as America’s new president, Joe Biden made a promise so sweeping that it almost seemed to deny history. “We can deliver racial justice,” Biden pledged to his factious nation. It wasn’t a commitment presented in any detail as he moved on to asserting that America would again be the leading force for good in the world, a claim that draws its own scrutiny.But Biden acknowledged that the ground has shifted over demands for racial justice in the US following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last May and the violent white nationalism of Donald Trump.“A cry for racial justice some 400 years in the making moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer,” said Biden. “And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.” Continue reading… More

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      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin demands US military sexual assault reports

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      In his first directive since taking office, US defense secretary Lloyd Austin has given his senior leaders two weeks to send him reports on sexual assault prevention programs in the military, and an assessment of what has worked and what hasn’t.Austin’s memo, which went out Saturday, fulfils a commitment made to senators last week during confirmation hearings. Joe Biden’s pick, a retired army general, vowed to immediately address the problems of sexual assault and harassment in the ranks.“This is a leadership issue,” Austin said in his two-page memo. “We will lead.”Senator after senator demanded to know what Austin planned to do about the problem. Reports of sexual assaults have steadily gone up since 2006, according to department reports, including a 13% jump in 2018 and a 3% increase in 2019. The 2020 data is not yet available.The 2018 increase fueled congressional anger and lawmakers have repeatedly called for action, including changes in the Code of Military Justice.“You do agree that we can’t keep doing the same thing that we’ve been doing for the past decade?” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said during Austin’s confirmation hearing. “Do I have your commitment to be relentless on this issue until we can end the scourge of sexual violence in the military?”Austin agreed, telling senators: “This starts with me and you can count on me getting after this on day one.”Austin arrived at the Pentagon on Friday but spent his first hours in meetings with key leaders. He was in the Pentagon again on Saturday, making calls to counterparts around the world, and he signed the memo.In his hearing and in the memo, Austin acknowledged that the military has long struggled with the problem, but must do better.The directive calls for each leader to submit a summary of the sexual assault and harassment measures taken in the last year that show promise, and an assessment of those that do not. And he asked for relevant data for the past decade, including efforts to support victims.“Include in your report the consideration of novel approaches to any of these areas,” he said, adding that “we must not be afraid to get creative.” Austin said he plans to host a meeting on the matter with senior leaders in the coming days.Nate Galbreath, acting director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said last April that he was cautiously optimistic that the lower increase in 2019 suggested a trend in declining assaults. But he also said sexual assaults are vastly under-reported.Galbreath and military leaders have rolled out new programs, including increased education and training and efforts to encourage service members to intervene when they see a bad situation. Last year officials announced a new move to root out serial offenders.Many victims don’t file criminal reports, which means investigators can’t pursue alleged attackers. Under the new system, victims who don’t want to file a public report are encouraged to confidentially provide details.Galbreath and others also have contended that the increase in reports was a good sign in that it showed that victims were more willing to come forward. More

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      Undoing Trump's legacy: Biden wastes no time in first 100 hours as president

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      On Sunday afternoon, the US will reach the 100th hour of Joe Biden’s presidency. Already, there has been a blitz of executive actions and a bewildering pace of change. Four years after Donald Trump set about undoing Barack Obama’s legacy, Obama’s vice-president appears to be returning the gesture with interest.Here are the key developments:UnityBiden’s inaugural address was a soulful plea to come together after four years of division.“This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge and unity is the path forward,” he said, promising to be a president for all Americans.The pared-down ceremony at the US Capitol, stormed by a mob just two weeks earlier, was a bipartisan affair that included outgoing vice-president Mike Pence. Trump, who falsely claimed he won the election, was conspicuously absent.ClimateBiden lost no time in rejoining the Paris climate agreement, earning Republican criticism. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said the move indicated Biden was “more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh”, contending it would destroy thousands of jobs.The president also revoked the Keystone XL oil pipeline permit and instructed the Environmental Protection Agency and transportation department to reestablish fuel efficiency mandates weakened by Trump.CoronavirusBiden pledged a “wartime undertaking” to combat a pandemic in which more than 400,000 have died. He released a 198-page Covid-19 strategy and signed 10 executive orders and other directives.These included a mandate requiring anyone visiting a federal building or land or traveling on a plane, train, ship or intercity bus to wear a mask. There are stricter protocols at the White House, to avoid any repeat of Trump’s “superspreader” events.Biden ordered agencies to speed up manufacturing and delivery of personal protective equipment, directed officials to provide guidance on the reopening of schools and reversed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization.Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, returned to the White House briefing room after months of near banishment. “The idea that you can get up here and talk about what the evidence, what the science is and let the science speak, it is somewhat of a liberating feeling,” he said.EconomyBefore taking office, Biden sent Congress a proposed $1.9tn stimulus package. That remains the priority but he has ordered actions including a 15% boost to a programme for families whose children miss meals due to school closures. Nearly 30 million last week said they did not have enough food, according to the White House.Biden is seeking to extend moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures. He also wants a longer pause on student loan payments and interest. In a preview of demands from the left, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “OK, now let’s cancel them.”ImmigrationBiden sent Congress a bill overhauling the system and offering an eight-year pathway to citizenship for nearly 11m people without legal status. The president told the homeland security secretary to preserve and strengthen Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), which prevents the deportation of undocumented young people brought to America as children.He reversed an order excluding undocumented people from the census and ended an immigration ban on several Muslim-majority countries, an infamous Trump policy that press secretary Jen Psaki said was “rooted in religious animus and xenophobia”.Biden halted funding or construction of Trump’s wall at the US-Mexico border and cancelled the so-called “national emergency use” to divert billions of dollars to the wall. Trump proposed the wall when he launched his campaign in June 2015 and it remained his signature issue.Racial justiceKamala Harris was the first woman of colour to be sworn in as vice-president. “Don’t tell me things can’t change,” Biden said in his inaugural address. The breakout star of the ceremony was Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old African American poet.[embedded content]Biden issued an executive order on advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities, described by Psaki as a “whole-of-government effort to advance racial equity and root out systemic racism from federal programmes and institutions”. Notably, it rescinded a Trump order that blocked federal agencies from offering diversity and inclusion training involving critical race theory.Team BidenThe Senate confirmed Avril Haines as director of national intelligence, the first woman to lead the US intelligence community, and retired general Lloyd Austin as defense secretary, the first African American to run the Pentagon.Biden has leaned heavily on Obama alumni and his cabinet will not include progressive lions such as senators Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren – in part because their replacements in a 50-50 Senate would be nominated by Republican governors. But the Democrats have shifted left on economics, immigration and other issues. Biden’s pick for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for example, is Rohit Chopra, a Warren ally.Brian Deese, director of the national economic council, told reporters: “When you’re at a moment that is as precarious as the one we find ourselves in, the risk of doing too little, the risk of undershooting far outweighs the risk of doing too much.”Truth and transparencyIn four years, Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims, according to the Washington Post. On Wednesday Biden promised to “always level with you”. Psaki underlined his commitment is to “bring transparency and truth back to government,” during a restored daily press briefing light years removed from the lies and insults of Trump.The west wingLike his predecessors, Biden gave the Oval Office a makeover.In: a deep blue rug last used by Bill Clinton, a portrait of Benjamin Franklin and busts including civil rights activists César Chávez and Rosa Parks and former attorney general Robert Kennedy.Out: a red button that Trump reportedly used to summon a butler when he wanted a Diet Coke; a portrait of President Andrew Jackson; and a bust of Winston Churchill, triggering a media kerfuffle. Asked about its removal, Psaki replied sarcastically: “Oh, such an important question.” More

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      Hurrah for triumph of the ‘centrist dad’ but don’t discount Joe Biden’s radicalism | Will Hutton

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      Last Wednesday in Washington was magnificent – the alchemy of a great republic’s democratic rituals, inspiring sentiments that did not fall into schmaltz, and the best of pop culture. Then there was the small matter of getting rid of the perpetrator of the Big Lie and welcoming a president who promised a new dawn, personified in Joe Biden’s dignity and decency.“Democracy has prevailed,” he declared. “There is truth and there are lies told for power and profit… each of us has a duty and responsibility to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.” It was the more extraordinary because it was all happening in the place threatened only a fortnight earlier by the ex-president’s menacing mob. America has shown us its best and worst and reminded us why it is such a compelling place.Absent from the celebrations was a large part of the Republican party, which, far from coming to terms with the extent of the deceit and deranged narcissism of their ex-president, was still holding on to his lie that the election was stolen. Amazingly, more than two-thirds of Republicans in the outgoing House of Representatives bowed to that view, voting not to certify the result only hours after the mob had been dispersed.The consensus is that this bodes ill for Biden and the US: the country needs the Republican party to break with Trump and recognise his lies. Until they do, America is a land divided. That is true, but it needs enough of the party’s base to believe the truth before enough Republican leaders will rupture their relationship with the master of Twitter invective and his mesmerising hold on his cult following. The liberal consensus on this prospect, however, is too pessimistic. Note that not one leading Republican turned up at Andrews Air Force Base to wave Trump’s plane goodbye. Republican leaders will openly turn on Trump if Biden and his team can drive inroads into the less cultish element of their support, so confronting them with a potential political death spiral. Here, the combination of beating the pandemic, the New Deal scale of Biden’s economic plans, along with the breadth of his support, including from donors fleeing the Republicans, offers him potential winning cards.Witness his surefooted moves in the first two days. The breathtaking scale and speed with which the US doubled economic production to support the war effort after Pearl Harbor was 80 years ago, but the cluster of Biden’s executive orders on Covid is an eerie reminder that when the US is minded it can mobilise like no other nation.It is now so minded. Biden is directing a “full-scale, wartime” Covid strategy, for example, to use the Defense Production Act to co-opt and direct the private sector to produce whatever is needed on the scale it is needed, from vaccine to PPE equipment. Masks are to be worn in federal buildings and on interstate public transport; incoming travellers will be required to quarantine; 100m vaccinations are to be rolled out by April.His Covid taskforce consists of can-do talents. Science is to rule: the top geneticist Eric Lander is to become his chief scientific adviser with cabinet rank. And to cap it all, rejecting Trump’s vaccine nationalism and recognising that to defeat the pandemic means good public health in Manaus or Mumbai as much as at home, the US is to rejoin the World Health Organization. The same reasoning informs Biden’s rejoining the Paris climate change accords; there is no point developing a national strategy for aggressive decarbonisation without the rest of the world acting in parallel.The US is rebuilding its multilateral bridges – expect the EU to be a crucial ally. Brexit Britain and its trade deal are second-order irrelevancies. Biden’s promise to deliver 2bn vaccinations internationally is an astonishing stroke; the 2 billion recipients will be the west’s best ally against the failing soft power ambitions of China – a foreign policy coup in 24 hours. Equally good moves were to freeze building the wall on the Mexican border and to rescind Trump’s “Muslim” travel ban as racist and discriminatory.The same change in values underpins domestic economic policy. A national emergency requires an emergency response, argues Biden, hence there are already discussions with Congress over a $1.9tn package to boost the incomes of the less well-off so hard hit by Covid. Beyond that, there are ambitious targets for a makeover of the US’s decaying infrastructure and to build a stakeholder economy – qualifying the privileged interest of shareholders, promoting the pursuit of purpose over profit and strengthening trade unions. Biden is a self-avowed “union man”.This is radical centrism. Biden’s values are there for all to see: he has already warned White House insiders he will have no truck with anybody who treats colleagues with disrespect; his cabinet’s diversity is in plain sight; his America is the majority and it is willing him on.Thus his success is likely, if beset by risk, and it could transform British politics. For Brexit is our Trump. Instead of the opposition conniving in the belief that the best that can be done is to improve the terms of the “deal” over many years ahead, the political task is to assemble a similarly broad coalition to Biden’s and oppose Brexit in the same terms. It is founded in the same Trumpite lies and disrespect for truth, it poses the same threat to decent values, the same isolation, the same rightwing dead end – and offers economic stagnation to boot.Leading Labour politicians, shattered by electoral defeat, have lost all self-confidence, their world narrowing to winning back former “red wall” seats. Biden demands a step change in ambition. Don’t resile from your beliefs – fight for them. What was done against Trump can be done against Brexit. Labour should heed Biden’s success: the US and its radical centrist show the way.• Will Hutton is an Observer columnist More

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      Biden urged to commute sentences of all 49 federal death row prisoners

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      Led by two prominent African American congresswomen, 35 Democrats have urged Joe Biden to commute the sentences of all 49 federal prisoners left on death row – days after the Trump administration finished its rush to kill 13 such prisoners.Early last Saturday Dustin Higgs, 48, became the last of those prisoners to be killed, after Trump lifted a long-standing moratorium on federal executions. Biden entered the White House on Wednesday.According to the Death Penalty Information Center, of the 49 people still on federal death row, 21 are white, 20 are black, seven are Latino and one is Asian.Among those prisoners is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of planting pressure-cooker bombs on the route of the Boston Marathon in April 2013, killing three and injuring 264. His death sentence was overturned last year, a decision that is now before the supreme court.In a letter sent to Biden on Friday, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Cori Bush of Missouri led lawmakers in calling on Biden “to take swift, decisive action”.“Commuting the death sentences of those on death row and ensuring that each person is provided with an adequate and unique re-sentencing process is a crucial first step in remedying this grave injustice,” they said.The representatives said they looked forward to the new administration enacting “just and restorative policies that will meaningfully transform our criminal legal system for the better”.Addressing Biden, they wrote: “By exercising your clemency power, you can ensure that there would be no one left on death row to kill.”Such a gesture, they said, would be “an unprecedented – but necessary – action to reverse systemic injustices and restore America’s moral standing.”Pressley has been consistently outspoken in her opposition to capital punishment. In July 2019, soon after Trump attorney general Bill Barr announced the lifting of a 16-year moratorium on federal executions, the Massachusetts Democrat proposed legislation to “prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for any violation of federal law, and for other purposes”.“The death penalty has no place in a just society,” Pressley said then.But by the time Trump left office, he had overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century.Among those supporting the new appeal is Kelley Henry, a supervising assistant federal public defender based in Nashville and an attorney for Lisa Montgomery, who on 12 January became the first woman killed by the US government in nearly 70 years.“Congress is right,” Kelley told CNN on Friday. “President Biden must go further than just not carrying out executions and should immediately commute all federal death sentences.“When the supreme court, without any explanation, vacates lower court stays to allow the execution of a woman whose mental illness leaves her with no understanding of why she is being executed, we know the federal death penalty system is broken beyond repair.”New White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not be drawn on specific plans to address the federal death penalty.“The president, as you know, has stated his opposition to the death penalty in the past,” Psaki said. “That remains his view. I don’t have anything more for you in terms of future actions or mechanisms, though.”Karen Bass of California, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York were among other well-known names to sign the letter to the new president.Appealing to Biden in December, Pressley said: “With a stroke of a pen, you can stop all federal executions.” More

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      Joe Biden's inner circle: meet the new president's close-knit team

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      Many of Biden’s new team have worked together before, and get on well – in sharp contrast to Trump’s ‘team of rivals’At the core of the administration Joe Biden is building is a trusted circle of officials, who are bound together by many years of working together in a close-knit team in the Obama administration, by a shared faith, or, in some cases, by a tie with Biden’s late son, Beau.It is the very opposite approach to the one taken by Donald Trump, who assembled a sharp-elbowed “team of rivals” – powerful men from different walks of life, who he had never met but thought looked the part. Biden treasures familiarity and nice-guy collegiality, and warned new appointees on Wednesday that if they don’t treat each other with respect, “I will fire you on the spot.” Continue reading… More