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      Biden and Harris unveil first federal gun violence prevention office, citing 100 people shot and killed daily – live

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      From 2h agoBiden urged that “it’s time to ban assault weapons, high capacity magazines”, and for Congress to do more.He said the new federal Office of Gun Violence will be overseen by Kamala Harris, who has been “on the frontlines” her entire career as a prosecutor and as a attorney general.Listing the four primarily responsibilities of the newly formed office, he said none of those steps would alone “solve the entirety of the gun violence epidemic”. “Together, they will save lives,” he said.
      I never thought even remotely say this in my whole career: guns are the number one killer of children in America. Guns are the number one killer of children in America.
      In 2023, more than 500 mass shootings have taken place and “well over 30,000” deaths as a result of gun violence, he said, describing it as “totally unacceptable”.Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
      The Republican-led House all but disappeared for the long weekend after abruptly wrapping up its work on Thursday when the embattled speaker, Kevin McCarthy, failed to advance a stopgap government spending bill.
      The White House planned to begin telling federal agencies to prepare for a shutdown. If Congress does not pass a spending bill before 1 October, the lapse in funding is expected to force hundreds of thousands of federal workers to go without pay and bring a halt to some crucial government services.
      The historic US autoworkers’ strike as the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, called on 38 additional plants across 20 states to join the strike. During a livestream update, Fain announced the additional strikes at automaker plants as contract negotiations with the big three automakers remain far apart on economic issues. He invited Joe Biden to the picket line.
      Joe Biden pledged to fight for gun safety laws while unveiling a new White House office of gun violence prevention. Kamala Harris will oversee the office. “On this issue, we do not have a moment to spare nor a life to spare,” she said in remarks on Friday.
      Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, and his wife have been charged with bribery offenses in connection with accepting gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz, among other gifts, in exchange for protecting three businessmen and influencing the government of Egypt.
      The conservative justice Clarence Thomas has attended at least two donor events organized by the Koch network, the ultra-right political organization founded by the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which has brought multiple cases before the supreme court, according to a new report.
      The third Republican presidential primary debate will be held on 8 November in Miami. Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner of the party’s race, skipped the first debate and recently announced he’ll also forego the second.
      Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced he is leaving the Democratic party and becoming a Republican.
      That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the US politics live blog today. Have a good weekend.The third Republican presidential primary debate will be held on 8 November in Miami.The date, first reported by CNN, is more than a month after the second debate which is scheduled to take place on 27 September at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The first took place on 23 August in Milwaukee.Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner of the party’s race, skipped the first debate and recently announced he’ll also forego the second.Maxwell Frost, the 26-year-old congressman from Florida, described Joe Biden as “one of the fiercest champions of gun violence protection” as he stood beside the president and vice president at the Rose Garden.Frost said that as the first member of Gen Z to be voted into Congress last year, he is often asked what got him involved in politics and his answer is:
      I didn’t want to get shot in school. I was 15 years old when a shooter walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and murdered 20 children and six teachers. Like millions of kids, I went to school the next day with anxiety and fear that my life would be taken, my friends’ lives would be taken, and my family’s lives would be taken by senseless gun violence.
      He said that he had served as the national organizing director for March for Our Lives before being elected to Congress, and that he learned the “brutal truth” that the time people pay the most attention is usually “coupled with carnage and death”.
      Not today. Today the country sees us here, at the White House, with a president who is taking action.
      Biden said that for every member of Congress who refuses to act on gun violence, we will “need to elect new members of Congress”.
      There comes a point where our voices are so loud, our determination is so clear, that we can longer be stopped. We’re reaching that point. We’ve reached that point today, in my view, where the safety of our kids from gun violence is on the ballot.
      He said the “deadly and traumatic price” of inaction on gun control “can no longer be the lives of our children and the people of our country”.Biden urged that “it’s time to ban assault weapons, high capacity magazines”, and for Congress to do more.He said the new federal Office of Gun Violence will be overseen by Kamala Harris, who has been “on the frontlines” her entire career as a prosecutor and as a attorney general.Listing the four primarily responsibilities of the newly formed office, he said none of those steps would alone “solve the entirety of the gun violence epidemic”. “Together, they will save lives,” he said.
      I never thought even remotely say this in my whole career: guns are the number one killer of children in America. Guns are the number one killer of children in America.
      In 2023, more than 500 mass shootings have taken place and “well over 30,000” deaths as a result of gun violence, he said, describing it as “totally unacceptable”.Joe Biden, who was introduced by Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, announced the creation of the first ever federal office of gun violence prevention and said he was “determined to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country”.He said that after every mass shooting, he has heard the same message all over the country: “Please do something. Do something to prevent a tragedy.” He said his administration has been working “relentlessly to do something”.He said that last year, he signed into law the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which he descried as “the most significant gun safety law” and an “important first step”.
      For the first time in three decades, we came together to overcome the relentless opposition from a gun lobby, gun manufacturers and so many politicians opposing common sense gun legislation.
      “We’re not stopping here,” Biden added.Harris said she “owed” it to the parents and children she has comforted who has been traumatized by losing a family member to gun violence.
      On this issue, we do not have a moment to spare nor a life to spare.
      The vice president said the administration will “use the full power of the federal government” to “strengthen the coalition of survivors, and advocates, and students, and teachers, and elected leaders, to save lives and fight for the rights of all people to be safe from fear”.Kamala Harris, speaking at the Rose Garden, said Americans “should be able to shop in a grocery store, walk down the street, or sit peacefully in a classroom” and be safe from gun violence.The US has been “torn apart by the fear and trauma that results from gun violence”, the vice president said, standing besides Joe Biden and Florida congressman Maxwell Frost.
      In our country today, one in five people has lost a family member to gun violence. Across our nation every day, about 120 Americans are killed by a gun.
      The impact of gun violence is not equal across all communities, she said.
      Black Americans are 10 times more likely to be victims of gun violence and homicide. Latino Americans twice as likely.
      Harris said that, as a former courtroom prosecutor, she had seen “with my own eyes what a bullet does to the human body”.
      We cannot normalise any of this. These are not simply statistics. These are our children.
      My colleague David Smith is at the Rose Garden event and has tweeted this picture of Biden and Harris emerging from the White House:Tennessee state representative Justin Jones has been spotted heading to the Rose Garden ahead of Joe Biden’s speech announcing the formation of the nation’s first federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention, according to a White House pool report.Jones is one of the “Tennessee Three”, along with Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson, who was expelled earlier this year for his role in a pro-gun control protest inside the Tennessee Capitol.Throughout his presidency, Joe Biden has used executive actions to regulate homemade firearms – known as ghost guns – in the same way as traditional firearms, and to clarify who counts as a gun seller and thus is required by law to conduct background checks.Last year he also signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that, among other things, tightens background checks and bolsters mental health programs.Biden has advocated for re-instating the national assault weapons ban and expanding background checks since he was vice-president. A historic increase in gun homicides in 2020 pushed community-based violence prevention further up the administration’s agenda.Joe Biden is expected to announce the nation’s first federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention during a Rose Garden event at 2.45pm Eastern time.The office will be overseen by the office of the vice president, Kamala Harris, who will also be speaking at the event.In a statement released on Thursday, Biden said:
      In the absence of that sorely-needed action, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention along with the rest of my Administration will continue to do everything it can to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities, and our country apart.
      The White House just skirted around a question from the press about whether Joe Biden believes the New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez should resign.The senator, who has an influential position as chair of the US Senate committee on foreign relations, was indicted earlier today on bribery charges.“I’m going to be really careful here and not comment because it is an active matter,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.Jean-Pierre said the matter was the US Senate’s to deal with and that “discussions are happening” there about the “next steps.”Congresswoman Lucy McBath is addressing the press in the west wing at the daily briefing, which today is headlining on the new national gun violence prevention office. The new project will be officially launched just under an hour from now.Georgia representative McBath told how her young son was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2012 and she was “robbed of every dream that a mother holds,” she said, and noted that she would never see her son graduate high school, go to college or get married.“Every single day, over 100 people are shot and killed in the United States. Gun violence has no boundaries,” she said, whether people become victims in suburbs, cities or rural areas.McBath will join Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the rose garden shortly for the formal launch of the new office to prevent gun violence.Joe Biden and Kamala Harris plan to speak in the rose garden at the White House in about an hour on the creation of the nation’s first federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to be led by the US vice president.In a few moments, the White House press briefing will begin, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accompanied at the podium by Georgia representative Lucy McBath, who campaigns on gun safety. She lost her son to gun violence.This is what she posted yesterday:Joe Biden has told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the US will provide a small number of long-range missiles to help in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, three US officials and a congressional official told NBC News on Friday.The officials did not confirm when the missiles would be delivered and remain anonymous as they have not been authorised to speak on the subject publicly.A congressional official told NBC News that there was still a debate about the type of missile that would be sent and how many would be delivered to Ukraine.The news comes after the White House rejected Zelenskiy’s request for Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to be sent to Ukraine as part of a new military aid package to bolster the country’s counteroffensive.For all the developments in the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion and related geopolitics, follow our Ukraine live blog here.Zelenskiy was given the red carpet treatment at the White House yesterday, after two days in New York at the United Nations General Assembly. Before visiting Biden he was on Capitol Hill meeting with US Senators. More

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      US and Iran expected to complete $6bn prisoner swap deal

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      The US and Iran are expected to pull off a controversial prisoner swap on Monday involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money held in South Korea since 2018.Tehran and Washington are due to swap five prisoners each, including the conservationist Morad Tahbaz, a British-American citizen.In an elaborate and delicate diplomatic deal, months in the making, the five Americans are due to be flown from Tehran to Qatar before transferring to flights to Washington.Republicans and some former Iranian political detainees have accused Joe Biden of striking a deal with the world’s No 1 terrorist state that will only encourage Iran to keep hostage taking as a central part of its diplomatic arsenal. The state department says the money that is being released is Iranian-owned oil money frozen by the Trump administration in 2018 when the US left the Iran nuclear deal.Last week three European countries including the UK accused Iran of building stocks of highly enriched uranium that could have no possible civilian purpose.The US says the prisoner swap’s mediator, Qatar, will ensure that the unfrozen money is only spent on goods – primarily food, agricultural goods and medicine – that are not subject to sanctions. Critics say it will be impossible to police, and that the US threat to pull out if Iran breaks the agreement is bogus.The path to the swap reached a turning point when the state department agreed a waiver facilitating the release of the cash from South Korean banks to accounts in Switzerland and Doha.The five Americans have already been transferred out of Evin jail in Tehran to various hotels in the capital. They are due to be flown initially to Doha before flying to the US for a homecoming.Tahbaz was left in Iran when the British Iranian dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released as part of a deal negotiated by the then UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss.The identities of five Iranians that are being granted clemency in the US have all been made public by Tehran. It is not clear that all of them want to return to Iran. Most of them were jailed for breaches of US sanctions.The deal is a coup for Qatar, which has acted as a mediator between two countries that deeply distrust one another. The Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, due to speak to the UN general assembly on Tuesday in New York, is likely to laud the deal as another sign of US weakness.Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, has accused Biden of being naive and returning to the mistakes of the past .The Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis described Biden’s decision as outrageous, adding that it “has sent a signal to hostile regimes that if you take Americans, you could potentially profit … A rogue regime should know that if you touch the hair on the head of any American, you will have hell to pay.”Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has criticised the timing of the release, so close to the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody.It is not clear if the deal will lead to a wider diplomatic breakthrough, or a new, less ambitious route to constrain Iran’s civil nuclear programme in which Tehran agrees to lower its stocks of highly enriched uranium.Iranian Americans, whose US citizenship is not recognised by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations. In the last week there have been reports that three dual nationals were arrested in Iran and it was confirmed two weeks ago for the first time that Johan Floderus, an EU diplomat based in Iran, has been jailed since April 2022. More

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      Does Wile E Coyote explain US voters’ gloom amid buoyant economy?

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      Strolling past the colorfully restored Victorian homes of the Fourth Ward, watching the barman hand-carve blocks of ice for old fashioneds at the jam-packed bar of The Crunkleton, it’s easy to fall for Charlotte’s ample southern charms. And yet, people are not happy – at least according to the polls.Consumer sentiment in North Carolina is now lower than it was at the height of the pandemic, according to High Point University’s confidence tracker. “People are just not feeling particularly good,” said Martin Kifer, director of the university’s survey research center.North Carolina is not alone. Official figures suggest the US pulled off an astonishing recovery from the Covid pandemic and recession.More than 20 million people in the US lost their jobs in April 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the world’s largest economy. The unemployment rate rose to 14.7%. But the rebound was just as dramatic. Unemployment has hovered near 50-year lows since January 2022 and is now 3.8%. In North Carolina, it’s just 3.3%. More than 100 people are moving to the city every day.But as an exclusive Guardian/Harris Poll survey found this week, two-thirds (68%) of Americans report it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month.Across the country, poll after poll shows people are not feeling it. That’s not good news for the Biden administration, particularly in a potential swing state where the perceived success – or failure – of “Bidenomics”, as Biden has dubbed his economic strategy, will be one of the key issues in next year’s election.The election is still a way out, and Biden has proven pollsters wrong in the past. Nevertheless, the economy – or voters’ perception of it – will be a defining issue in one of the most consequential elections in US history.Americans are deeply divided on the economy. The Harris poll shows over half (53%) of Americans believe the economy is getting worse. Some 72% of Republicans share that view compared with 32% of Democrats. But the unhappiness runs deep on both sides. Only a third of Democrats believe that the economy is getting better.Even when Americans say they are doing OK financially, they believe the economy is in trouble. According to the Federal Reserve’s annual survey of economic wellbeing, 73% of households said that they were “at least doing OK financially” at the end of 2022. In 2019, that figure was 75% of households. But back then, 50% said the national economy was good or excellent. By 2022, that number had fallen to just 18%.Some heavyweight voices share the gloom. Both the former Treasury secretary Larry Summers and Bill Dudley, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, have speculated that having shot out of the pandemic like a coyote chasing a roadrunner, the US may be in a “Wile E Coyote” economy and, like Warner Brother’s cartoon canine, the US economy may be heading off a cliff. “Falling back to earth will not be a pleasant experience,” Dudley has warned.Partisanship explains much of the seeming disconnect between economic data and sentiment. But not all of it. Large forces are reshaping the US economy and may explain the nation’s vertigo.Many low-wage workers, have been living with that fear of falling for a long time.Ieisha Franceis’s wages have shot up from $12.50 to $17 since the Durham, North Carolina, resident made the shift from working in fast food to a job at a senior living facility. Wages are – finally – running ahead of inflation overall but for Franceis, “everything looks the same. Inflation’s not gone down, it’s just not going up,” she said. “These days $17 an hour is looking a lot like $12.50,” said the low-wage activist.Franceis used to buy her family’s side dishes, boxes of macaroni and cheese, mashed potato, at Dollar General. The Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (“the good stuff”) has gone. “Now they only carry a cheaper brand with the powdered cheese.” At the average grocery store, that Kraft Mac and Cheese is over $2.“The Dollar Tree went from everything being $1 to everything being $1.25. Now they even have a $5 section and a $10 section. Huh? This was a dollar store,” she said. “Bidenomics” means little to Franceis. “What we need is higher wages and more unions,” she said.Even entrepreneurs are finding the new, post-Covid economy taxing.Cocktail queen Tamu Curtis saw her business boom during lockdown. A Los Angeles transplant, she started giving cocktail classes online and saved enough to open her bricks-and-mortar shop. The Cocktailery – nestled between an Anthropologie and Warby Parker inside an old streetcar station – opened in September 2021 when the vaccines started rolling out. “I thought, OK everybody is going to run and get the vaccines. We are saved! Of course, it didn’t work out that way,” she said ruefully. “That was a plot twist.”Up and running now for over a year, business has been strange. “This has been the craziest summer. It’s so slow,” she said.Retail sales have collapsed but classes have boomed. “People will spend money on experiences. On travel. We spent two years filling our houses with stuff. Maybe we just don’t need that any more.”On top of that, she said, “inflation is killing me.” An order of cocktail bitters that used to cost her $700 shot up to $1,500. “There’s only so much you can pass on. I can’t sell a bitter for $42. There’s a max people will pay.”At the same time, rent is high and financing is getting tougher as interest rates rise. “It’s difficult,” she said. And more so for a minority, woman-owned business. She hasn’t been able to get a traditional bank loan yet or a line of credit from her bank, Charlotte-based Bank of America. “Now the banks aren’t lending the way they were.”Post-Covid has been an easier ride for other local business people but still, existential questions remain, ones that may point to a wider national malaise.Desmond Wiggan and his partner Aubrey Yeboah launched their business, BatteryXchange, in 2019, just before the pandemic. The company sets up battery charging stations for mobile devices and the idea had originally been to target people at conferences or out on the town. “Suddenly there were no people,” said Wiggan.BatteryXChange retooled and now rents its equipment to healthcare providers and others who use the service to help keep their customers online. It worked and business is booming, as is Wiggan’s profile. He has just returned from a business symposium on swanky Martha’s Vineyard. A copy of Propel, a local Black business magazine, sits on his office table. Wiggan’s headshot is above a message from Michelle Obama: “Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make.”But Wiggan has some wider concerns. He spent two years living in China and has seen firsthand that other countries think on a longer timescale. Back in the US, he said, it’s all about the next election cycle. On top of that another likely hot election issue worries him. “The age gap of our leaders. They are old. The torch has got to be passed.“These other countries are starting to sniff us out,” he said. Foreign students were getting their education in the US then going home because they see their country looking to the future, he said. “They are thinking 2060 not every four, eight years when we go back and forth.”****Why people feel so bad about an economy that – technically – appears strong is a question that is vexing not just the White House but Nobel economic laureates. Historians will have a better answer. For now, the reasons look manifold.As HPU’s Kifer points out “the perception of the economy is not the economy.” The disconnect between the official figures and how people feel may be temporary. Nor is it unusual for the hangover of a recession to outlast what looks like the beginning of a recovery. High Point’s own consumer confidence index started in 2010, two years after the peak of the 2008/2009 recession. It wasn’t until September 2011 that confidence started rising.The US’s pandemic recession began in February 2020 and ended two months later, making it the shortest recession on record. The body blow it dealt to confidence is, however, proving hard to shift. And things are different this time. For one, there is relatively high inflation – something never directly experienced by Americans under 40. Slowing increases have done little to calm people’s nerves and most people in North Carolina expect inflation to get worse next year, according to another HPU poll.The mood of economic despondency is fueled by other fires, too, illustrated by life in North Carolina and felt across the country.Politics plays a huge role. The University of Michigan’s national consumer confidence index shows Republican confidence soared under Trump and dropped under Biden while Democrats’ did the opposite.But it’s not the only factor. While people may not have lost their jobs, America’s middle class has lost $2tn in wealth since 2020 thanks to inflation and the fastest increase in interest rates since the 1980s, according to data compiled by economists at the University of California, Berkeley.That fall comes after outsized gains from stimulus cheques, rising house prices and other assets for those who rode out the pandemic with little financial cost. Still, the psychological pain of losing is about twice the pleasure of winning, according to Nobel-winning psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman. Losses loom larger than gains.Then there are the epochal issues of our day – ones that will spread far beyond North Carolina and the Biden presidency.North Carolina has been voted the best state for business for two consecutive years and business is still good. But there are signs of a slowdown. According to the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, the Charlotte area expects businesses to invest $2.3bn in the region this year and create 7,200 jobs. That’s down from $8bn in investment and 20,000 jobs last year.Uncertainty is a large part of that drop, said Danny Chavez, chief business recruitment officer of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance. Concerns about the direction of interest rates and political change are part of it – businesses waiting to see what happens next year, a natural part of the cycle. There is also something more.The number of jobs created per investment is also decreasing as tech takes jobs. Financial services and manufacturing are extremely important to the region. They remain so, said Chavez. “But in terms of jobs, both those industries are highly vulnerable to automation and AI,” he said.While Charlotte is better positioned than most to ride out that change, Chavez said the region – and the rest of the US – is also increasingly competing with global players. India and China are challenging the US’s rank as the world’s largest economy.Biden’s economic plans are playing to the long term and America has proved resilient to big shocks before. The president also has a track record of beating expectations. If hiring stays steady and inflation keeps receding, maybe Americans will hear the good news soon. That may or may not happen before the 2024 election.But the polls may also reflect a wider anxiety about the existential challenges the US (and other economies) face. Perhaps those challenges explain some of the national mood. It’s hard to measure existential dread.Longer term, neither Bidenomics – nor Trumponomics – are likely to fix America’s broken healthcare and childcare systems or the climate crisis. Nor do they offer clear solutions to the global trade winds that threaten American exceptionalism or the challenges presented by AI and automation.Little wonder then that so many in the US feel like Wile E Coyote, running off the cliff, treading air, waiting for the fall. More

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      ‘We build those cars’: US workers on Ford picket line demand a fair share

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      Under blue skies in Wayne, Michigan, a half-hour outside Detroit, the mood was festive but defiant as hundreds of autoworkers settled in for the first weekend of picketing at the entrances to Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant.Ford’s workers were among the first to go out in a series of targeted strikes that marked the beginning of the largest industrial action taken by US car workers in over a decade.A chorus of horns blared in support from Michigan Avenue, a busy highway running through the nation’s automotive heartland. Strikers turned away semi-truck after semi-truck trying to deliver parts to the plant, which produces the Ranger and Bronco. “Hell no, you’re not coming in here, keep it moving,” a worker yelled.The United Auto Workers (UAW) president, Shawn Fain, called the strike after failing to reach new union contracts with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis before a midnight Thursday deadline.The strikers’ message: they’re no longer accepting the automakers’ “corporate greed”. They point to the companies’ record profits in recent years and huge stock buyback programs that are enacted as workers struggle to make ends meet.Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, briefly stopped by to meet with picketers. Several workers near retirement weren’t particularly impressed by the gesture. He made $29m a year, they noted, while hourly workers were “fighting to get money to survive after we leave here”, said plant worker Stu Jackson. “How many years do we even have left to live after we retire? Ten years?” asked Jackson, who highlighted the toll factory work exacts on workers’ bodies and health.“Did you see Farley in his tailored European suit? Wasn’t he sharp?” Jackson asked. “He looks like the $29m man. Those nice shoes.“And look at us,” Jackson added with indignation, motioning to the small group dressed in jeans, T-shirts and sweatpants. “This isn’t fair.”As Fain has pointed out repeatedly, CEO pay has soared as the car companies have recovered from the 2008/2009 financial crisis. Pay for the big three companies’ bosses jumped by 40% between 2013 and 2022. The GM boss, Mary Barra, took home $29m in 2022. Meanwhile, auto manufacturing workers have seen their average real hourly earnings fall 19.3% since 2008, according to the Economics Policy Institute.Domonique Hicks, a young mother of three who lives in Detroit, said the $16.67-an-hour wage she received was not feeding her children.“We’re here to take back what Ford took from us,” Hicks said. “They didn’t want to bargain with us so we’re making a statement – if you can make millions and billions, then we deserve something. We build those cars.” The strike will go on for as long as Ford “wants to keep their checkbook in their pocket”, she added.Among other issues, the union is calling for a 40%-plus pay increase, an end to two-tier wage systems in which new hires are paid significantly less for doing the same work and the restoration of benefits cut to help save the car companies after the 2008/2009 recession drove them to bankruptcy.Auto executives expressed frustration as the strike entered its first weekend. A Ford spokesman called the UAW’s terms “unsustainable”. “I’m extremely frustrated and disappointed. We don’t need to be in a strike right now,” Barra told CNBC on Friday.The White House is watching developments closely. On Friday Joe Biden said his team was engaged in trying to find a resolution and called on the car companies to “go further” in their negotiations with striking workers.“The companies have made some significant offers. But I believe that should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record contracts,” he said. “Record corporate profits, which they have, should be shared by record contracts for the UAW,” Biden reiterated.Hicks said she had a message for those who oppose the strike, or worry about how it will affect the economy. “People are hurting. You’re talking about shutting down the economy? [The auto companies] are shutting down the economy because they aren’t putting money back into it, so we’re here to get it.“How am I supposed to feed my kids?” Hicks asked. “We’re just trying to live and support our family.”Even with a wage of about $24 an hour after starting at $16 nearly four years ago, plant worker Amanda Robinson says she can barely afford the payments on her car and there’s not much left after bills at the end of the month to raise her three-year-old son.Working in the plant is not an “easy walk in the park, sit at a desk” job, she said. It was grueling and took a physical toll, Robinson added, and they deserved better wages.“We’re showing them that we’re not playing,” she said. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes. Everybody is standing behind us.” More

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      US economy going strong under Biden – Americans don’t believe it

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      Americans do not trust the government’s economic news – or the media’s reporting of it – according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian that presents the White House with a major hurdle as it pushes Biden’s economic record ahead of next year’s election.The US has roared back from the Covid recession by official measures. But two-thirds of Americans are unhappy about the economy despite consistent reports that inflation is easing and unemployment is close to a 50-year low. And the poll suggests many are unaware of or don’t believe the positive economic news the government has reported.The results illustrate a dramatic political split on economic views – with Republicans far more pessimistic than Democrats. But unhappiness about the economy is widespread.
      Two-thirds of respondents (68%) reported it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month (Republicans: 69%, Democrats: 68%).
      Two-thirds of Americans (65%) believe that the economy is worse than the media makes it out to be rather than better (35%).
      In August the unemployment rate was 3.8%, close to a 50-year low. But the poll found that 51% wrongly believe that unemployment is nearing a 50-year high rather than those who believe it’s actually low (49%).
      The lack of confidence in the economy has many academics and politicians puzzled. Some have blamed the US’s polarized politics and this was illustrated in the poll. But Harris’s data also shows that fears are widespread – and reinforced by disbelief of or ignorance about official figures and a mistrust of the media’s reporting of them.Some 82% of Republicans and 66% of independents believe the economy is worse than the media’s portrayal. But nearly half of Democrats (49%) also said the media viewed the economy too favorably.Overall, the poll found widespread despondency about the state of the economy. More than half of Americans (53%) believe the economy is getting worse instead of better or staying the same. Republicans and independents are more likely to think it’s getting worse (72% and 58%, respectively, v Democrats: 32%), while more Democrats think it’s getting better (32% v Republicans: 8%, independents: 13%).The results paint a difficult picture for Joe Biden, who is making “Bidenomics” – his economic policy record – a central plank of his re-election platform.The views of those familiar with Bidenomics showed a perhaps unsurprising party split. Some 60% of Democrats believe his plans are improving the US economy overall compared with 12% of Republicans.There is a widespread belief that Bidenomics is good in theory but isn’t being implemented well – something both Democrats and Republicans agree with (62% v 58%).Biden supporters have just launched a $13m advertising campaign extolling the president’s economic achievements, which include a landmark $1.2tn infrastructure and climate bill, massive investment in domestic microchips production and green energy solutions. His legislative actions are predicted to create 1.5m jobs per year for the next decade.That message may be hard to sell given the widespread disbelief of and ignorance about the health of the US economy highlighted by the poll.As well as being wrong about the unemployment data, respondents were unaware of, or chose to mischaracterize, other major economic data points.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe widest measure of economic growth – gross domestic product – increased at a 2.1% annualized rate last quarter and has been steadily improving since the Covid downturn. But more respondents (59%) believe that the US economy is shrinking this year than those who believe it is growing (41%). More Republicans (72%) and independents (63%) believe the economy is shrinking than do Democrats. But still, a sizeable 44% of Democrats believe the economy is shrinking.The S&P 500 stock market index is up 16% so far this year. But 59% of respondents wrongly said they believe the S&P is down for the year compared with those who said they believe it is up (41%). The majority of all those asked said the S&P was down whether Republican (66%), independent (60%) or Democrat (52%).US wages are, finally, growing faster than inflation. But 75% of those polled wrongfully believe that wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. That view is held by the majority of Republicans (84%), independents (75%) and Democrats (67%).There was some good news for Biden. The poll found that 75% of respondents support at least one of the four main branches of Bidenomics: improving infrastructure, attracting high-tech electronics manufacturing, building clean energy manufacturing facilities and attracting more high-paying union jobs.Still, 51% of Americans believe that government spending under the current administration is having a negative impact on the US economy (Republicans: 72%, independents: 54%, Democrats: 30%) rather than a positive impact (21%) or no impact (28%). And only just over a third of Democrats (35%) believe it’s having a positive impact (Republicans: 11%, independents: 16%).“All these perceptual-reality gaps underscore Biden’s difficulty in claiming credit for economic gains. Americans either view the economy through their politics or aren’t feeling it in real life, or both,” said John Gerzema, the CEO of Harris Poll.
      This survey was conducted online within the US by the Harris Poll from 1 to 3 September among a nationally representative sample of 2,055 US adults, where 1,063 were familiar with Bidenomics. More

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      in Elections

      ‘We’re not asking to be millionaires’: workers strike at US car giants – video

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      Car workers have launched a series of strikes after their union failed to reach agreement on a new contract with the three largest US vehicle manufacturers, kicking off the country’s most ambitious industrial action in decades.
      The deadline for talks between the United Auto Workers union (UAW) and the car manufacturers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis expired at midnight on Thursday, with the sides still far from agreement on UAW’s contract priorities More

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      in US Politics

      Auto workers strike after contract talks with US car giants fail

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      Auto workers have launched a series of strikes after their union failed to reach agreement with the US’s three largest manufacturers over a new contract, kicking off the most ambitious industrial labor action in decades.The deadline for talks between Ford, General Motors, Stellantis and the United Auto Workers (UAW) expired at midnight on Thursday, with the sides still far apart on the union’s new contract priorities.The strike – which marks the first time all three of the Detroit Three carmakers have been targeted by strikes at the same time – is being coordinated by UAW president Shawn Fain. He said he intended to launch a series of limited and targeted “standup” strikes to shut individual auto plants around the US.The strikes kicked off at midnight at a General Motors plant in Wentzville, Missouri, a Stellantis plant in Toledo, Ohio, and a Ford assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan.They involve a combined 12,700 workers at the plants, which are critical to the production of some of the Detroit Three’s most profitable vehicles including the Ford Bronco, Jeep Wrangler and Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck.“This is our defining moment,” said Fain during a livestream on Thursday night, less than two hours before the strike was set to begin.Fain said he would join the picket line at the Wayne plant when the action began at midnight and did not rule out broadening the strikes beyond the initial three targets. “If we need to go all out, we will.”The UAW has a $825m strike fund that is set to compensate workers $500 a week while out on strike and could support all of its members for about three months. Staggering the strikes rather than having all 150,000 members walk out at once will allow the union to stretch those resources.A limited strike could also reduce the potential economic damage economists and politicians fear would result from a widespread, lengthy shutdown of Detroit Three operations.Stellantis has more than 90 days worth of Jeeps in stock, and has been building SUVs and trucks on overtime, according to Cox Automotive data.But a week-long shutdown at Stellantis’ Jeep plant in Toledo could cut revenue by more than $380 million, based on data from the company’s financial reports.“If the negotiations don’t go in a direction that Fain thinks is positive, we can fully expect a larger strike coming in a week or two,” said Sam Fiorani, a production forecaster at Auto Forecast Solutions.He estimated the limited action would stop production of about 24,000 vehicles a week.Among the union’s demands are a 40% pay increase, an end to tiers, where some workers are paid at lower wage scales than others, and the restoration of concessions from previous contracts such as medical benefits for retirees, more paid time off and rights for workers affected by plant closures.Workers have cited past concessions and the big three’s immense profits in arguing in favor of their demands. The automakers’ profits jumped 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250bn. During this same time period, chief executive pay increased 40%, and nearly $66bn was paid out in stock dividends or stock buybacks to shareholders.The industry is also set to receive record taxpayer incentives for transitioning to electric vehicles.Despite these financial performances, hourly wages for workers have fallen 19.3%, with inflation taken into account, since 2008.The Biden administration is reportedly considering emergency aid for smaller supply firms to the automaker manufacturers due to the strike, and president Biden spoke to Fain on the status of negotiations on Thursday.Ford said in a statement the UAW’s latest proposals would double its US labor costs. A walkout could mean that UAW profit-sharing checks for this year will be “decimated,” the company said.GM and Stellantis declined to comment ahead of the midnight strike deadline.However in an earlier video GM’s top manufacturing executive Gerald Johnson said that the UAW’s wage and benefits proposals would cost the automaker $100 billion, “more than twice the value of all of General Motors and absolutely impossible to absorb.” He did not detail how the union proposals would result in that cost, or over what time frame.And in an appearance on CNBC on Thursday evening, Ford CEO Jim Farley also criticized the union, claiming, “there’s no way we can be sustainable as a company,” if they met the union’s wage demands.GM CEO Mary Barra also said in a letter to employees about the status of negotiations and the company’s latest offer to the union, “Remember: we had a strike in 2019 and nobody won.”The contract fight has garnered significant support from the public and US labor movement. Drivers represented by the Teamsters have pledged not to cross the picket line, halting deliveries of vehicles from the automakers throughout the strike. Several labor unions, environmental, racial and social justice groups have publicly announced support for the UAW in their fight for new contracts. More

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      in US Politics

      Impeaching Biden is a desperate Republican gamble that will backfire | Lloyd Green

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      Already in a footrace for re-election, Joe Biden now faces an unwelcome impeachment inquiry. Against the backdrop of a likely government shutdown, the US again stands to be buffeted by our deep and wide partisan divide. Practically speaking, however, he will survive. Conviction by the Senate is a mathematical impossibility.Democrats are in control and Senate Republicans are nowhere near being onboard. “It’s a waste of time,” as one anonymous Republican senator told the Hill. “It’s a fool’s errand.” Said differently, impeachment will scar all concerned – Republicans included.Already, Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, appears desperate and craven. “Maybe this is just Kevin giving people their binkie to get through the shutdown,” the same Republican senator remarked.Even so, Biden confronts rough political terrain. His numbers are underwater, and the US lacks confidence in his capacity to vanquish inflation. His age is a turn-off, too, rivaled only by the unpopularity of Kamala Harris, his running mate.Meanwhile, the indictment of Hunter Biden, the First Son, is a foregone conclusion, a matter of a few weeks not months. Some of the president’s past statements about his lack of nexus to Hunter and businesses do not withstand scrutiny, according to sworn statements. The Republican party possesses ammo.Hunter, in fact, did make money in China and Biden did meet with one of his associates. On top of it all, the president clings to his surviving son, inviting him to a state dinner and vacations with him. The psychodrama continues.Likewise, expect Peter Doocy of Fox News to remain parked at the pivot point between squeegee pest and human thorn. Just a reminder, it was Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post that stuck with the Hunter Biden laptop story. There was a “there” there after all.Yet, this is only the half of the story. Impeachment will likely pave the way for Republican overreach and stories aplenty of the speaker being inept and beholden to Republican jihadists. It might even cost him his job. The latest polls peg McCarthy’s favorability at minus 16.While the public has little love for Biden, the impeachment drive could well strike swing voters as a bridge too far. First, the inquiry appears to be legally defective. McCarthy embarked on this voyage without an authorization vote and that may be a big deal, one that rules out the prospect of compliance or assistance from Merrick Garland’s justice department.Perversely here, Biden may owe Donald Trump a “thank you” of sorts. Back in September 2019, House Democrats initially launched their impeachment without a vote. A month later, one followed. Then in January 2020, Trump’s justice department formally determined that without an authorization vote, impeachment inquiries lack legal teeth.The Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel opined: “The House of Representatives must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony in support of the House’s power of impeachment.”Unfortunately for Trump and his allies, the opinion remains on the books and binds the present administration. As a result, the justice department and the White House will be able to smile as they stiff-arm House Republicans.Then there is McCarthy’s growing credibility problem. Two weeks ago, he told Breitbart that he had the votes in hand. On 1 September 2023, Breitbart’s headlines screamed: “EXCLUSIVE – McCARTHY DETAILS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY PROCESS: ‘IF WE MOVE FORWARD,’ IT ‘WOULD OCCUR THROUGH A VOTE’ ON THE HOUSE FLOOR.”Not anymore. Pressed about his prior commitment, McCarthy grew testy, telling CNN: “I never changed my position.”At the same time, he may be facilitating the end of the current House majority and, by extension, his gig as speaker. Just as abortion limited Republican gains in the midterms, impeachment will likely remind purple America of the Republican party’s capacity for excess and extremism – particularly if House Republicans impose a prolonged government shutdown.Warning lights flash. “I recommend … against [an impeachment] inquiry unless more evidence that directly connects to President [Biden] is found,” Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Nebraska, has said. He is also “skeptical” that a vote to launch the inquiry would have succeeded.Meanwhile, McCarthy can’t even move a partisan defense bill forward and continues to catch incoming fire from the right. The emperor may be stark naked. On Wednesday night, Matt Gaetz labeled him “a sad and pathetic man who lies to hold on to power”.“Eventually, the lying has to come to an end and the votes are gonna start on a motion to vacate,” the Florida congressman explained.For his part, Andy Biggs has publicly attacked McCarthy for distracting from the budget fight. “I think the timing is interesting, don’t you?” the Arizona conservative hinted. “It might be seen by some as a deflection.”For that matter, “desperation” might be the better word. Even as McCarthy seeks to oust Biden, it is his own job that is now in jeopardy.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More