Biden administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      January 6 committee to use last meeting to refer Trump to justice department

      by

      January 6 committee to use last meeting to refer Trump to justice departmentLawmakers expected to outline findings and vote to issue criminal and civil referrals on Monday The House January 6 select committee plans to use its final meeting on Monday to refer Donald Trump, among others, to the justice department for conduct connected to the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.As it prepares to release its voluminous investigative report, the panel is expected to use its meeting, announced for 1pm, to take several conclusive steps. These include outlining an executive summary of its findings and legislative recommendations, voting to formally adopt the report, and then voting to issue criminal and civil referrals.The committee was scheduled to meet over the weekend to finalize the referrals, which, in the case of Trump, center on obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other potential charges, the Guardian first reported.The referrals for Trump mark a remarkable moment for the precedent-shattering investigation, which has looked into the former president’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat at any cost, culminating in the Capitol attack last year.Tennessee man accused of plot to kill FBI agents in latest January 6 chargesRead moreIn addition to Trump, the select committee is likely to proceed with criminal referrals against top former White House advisers, including the former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and to make civil referrals to the House ethics committee for GOP members of Congress and recommend disbarments for Trump lawyers.The criminal referrals are only suggestions. Congress has no ability to compel prosecutions by the justice department, although the department has increasingly ramped up its own investigations into January 6 and subpoenaed a parade of top Trump advisers to testify before at least two grand juries in Washington.But the expected referrals – essentially letters to the justice department urging charges – presage a moment of high political drama at Monday’s final business meeting of the select committee, which has run a supercharged investigation staffed by multiple former federal prosecutors.The panel has broadly concluded the Capitol attack was a conspiracy, according to sources familiar with its work. It concluded Trump oversaw a “political” plan to have his vice-president, Mike Pence, refuse to certify the election for Joe Biden, and a “coup” plan to pressure Congress if Pence refused.For the investigators on three principal teams – the gold team examining the Trump White House and Republican congressmen, the red team examining January 6 rally organizers, and the purple team examining the extremist groups that stormed the Capitol – the chief suspect has, for months, been Trump.Exclusive: January 6 panel considering Trump referral to justice department for obstruction of CongressRead moreThe former president’s desire to illegally impede the certification was clear months before January 6, the investigators are said to believe, from when Trump assented to a fake elector plot to have states replace electoral college votes for Biden with votes for him, to refusing for many hours to call off the attack as it happened.Though Trump did not leave a paper trail that might come back to haunt him as evidence, his aides did. And although Trump deftly wielded the powers of the presidency while in office to stymie investigations, once out of office he found those powers drastically reduced.As a result, the select committee was able to draw upon testimony from hundreds of witnesses and thousands of documents that investigators believe amount to compelling evidence of criminality, the sources said.The panel is only expected to provide a top-level outline of its report on Monday, though the entirety of the eight-chapter document is scheduled to be made public on Wednesday, and all of the deposition transcripts will be released before the end of the year.The final report – which will include an extended executive summary of more than 100 pages – roughly tracks the select committee’s public hearings from the summer. Chapter topics include Trump’s fake-elector plot, his illegal effort to pressure Pence, and his inaction in the West Wing during the 187 minutes of the Capitol attack.“We obviously want to complete the story for the American people,” the congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee, said. “Everybody has come on a journey with us, and we want a satisfactory conclusion, such that people feel that Congress has done its job.”The transcripts and other evidence cited in the report will be uploaded, with some redactions, through the Government Publishing Office, another federal agency, in an attempt to ensure that the House Republican majority in the next Congress cannot unilaterally remove the documents.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US National Archives releases more than 12,000 documents on JFK assassination

      by

      US National Archives releases more than 12,000 documents on JFK assassinationDocuments disclosed after Joe Biden issued an executive order authorizing them to be made available to the public The US National Archives on Thursday released thousands of documents related to the 1963 assassination of then President John F Kennedy shortly after Joe Biden issued an executive order authorizing the release that also kept hundreds of other sensitive records secret.Sixty years ago, true statecraft avoided a nuclear war. We need that again over Ukraine | Jonathan SteeleRead moreThe release of 12,879 documents was not expected to include any new bombshells or change the conclusion reached by the commission led by chief justice Earl Warren that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and communist activist who had lived in the Soviet Union, acted alone. However, the latest cache will be useful for historians focusing on the events around the assassination.Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in his motorcade through Dallas on 22 November 1963, at the age of 46.Thousands of books, articles, TV shows and films have explored the idea that Kennedy’s assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy. None have produced conclusive proof that Oswald – who was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days after killing Kennedy – worked with anyone else, although they retain a powerful cultural currency.There were initial concerns that Ruby might have had some connection to Oswald. But a newly released September 1964 memo to the presidential commission investigating the assassination said “the Central Intelligence Agency has no indication that Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald ever knew each other, were associated, or might have been connected in any manner”.Congress in 1992 had ordered that all remaining sealed files pertaining to the investigation into Kennedy’s death should be fully opened to the public through the National Archives in 25 years, by 26 October 2017, except for those the president authorized for further withholding.In 2017, then President Donald Trump released a cache of records, but decided to release the remaining documents on a rolling basis.All of the remaining JFK files were originally supposed to have been released in October 2021. Biden postponed that planned release, citing delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and announced they would be instead disclosed in two batches: one on 15 December 2021, and another by 15 December 2022, after undergoing an intensive one-year review.With Thursday’s release, 95% of the documents in the CIA’s JFK assassination records collection will have been released in their entirety, a CIA spokesperson said in a statement, and no documents will remain redacted or withheld in full after an “intensive one-year review” of all previously unreleased information.In a memorandum on Thursday, Biden said that until 1 May 2023, the National Archives and relevant agencies “shall jointly review the remaining redactions in the records that had not been publicly disclosed”. After that review, “any information withheld from public disclosure that agencies do not recommend for continued postponement” will be released by 30 June 2023.TopicsJohn F KennedyUS politicsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden signs bill protecting same-sex and interracial marriage rights – as it happened

      by

      Joe Biden has signed the legislation into law, in a joy-filled ceremony on the south lawn at the White House.In attendance were the first lady, Jill Biden, as well as the vice-president, Kamala Harris, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, and hundreds of LGBTQ+ couples, senior members of Congress, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and gay lawmakers looking on.Here’s the Guardian’s Washington Bureau chief, David Smith, who has witnessed the event:Joe Biden: “Today is a good day!… Marriage is a simple proposition. Who do you love and will you be loyal to that person you love? It’s not more complicated than that.” pic.twitter.com/ZsL2PEkLri— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
      Biden made a short but spirited speech.Biden: “Now the law requires that interracial marriage and same sex marriage be recognised in every state in the nation.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
      Biden pays tribute to many of those activists and campaigners gathered.Biden: “Those who believe in equality and justice, you never gave up… You put your relationships on the line, you put your jobs on the line, you put your lives on the line. From me and the entire nation, thank you, thank you, thank you.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
      Here’s the president on Twitter:Today is a good day. Today, America takes another step toward equality. Toward liberty and justice not just for some, but for all. Because today, I sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law.— President Biden (@POTUS) December 13, 2022
      It’s been a lively though unusual day in US politics. We’re ending this live blog now and we’ll be back on Wednesday morning to bring you all the day’s developments as they happen.Here’s where things stand:
      Joe Biden signed the Respect For Marriage Act into law, in a joy-filled ceremony on the south lawn at the White House.
      The US president noted that: “Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia – they are all connected. But the antidote is love.”
      The January 6 House select committee will on 19 December vote on referring people they believe broke the law to the justice department, Politico reports, citing committee chair Bennie Thompson.
      Carolyn Maloney, chair of the oversight committee in the House wrote to the National Archives asking for a review of what’s been discovered at a storage unit at Donald Trump’s Florida residence, the Washington Post reported.
      Government energy officials announced that the US has taken “the first tentative steps towards a clean energy source that could revolutionize the world” through a successful fusion experiment.
      Biden cheered government data released today that showed inflation declining by a greater amount than expected in November, calling it proof that his economic policies were delivering Americans relief from the price increase wave battering the economy.
      Samuel Bankman-Fried is not testifying before Congress, because he was arrested in the Bahamas yesterday. Instead, the newly appointed CEO of FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange Bankman-Fried founded, is being grilled by lawmakers alone.
      Reforms to the Electoral Count Act intended to stop another January 6 may end up being included in year-end spending legislation Congress is negotiating.
      It’s official: rightwing lawmaker Lauren Boebert has been re-elected, after winning her unexpectedly close House race.
      Under sunny skies, the ceremony for Joe Biden to sign the Respect for Marriage Act was a lively one, just wrapping up now.The bill’s primary driver, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, can be seen smiling broadly, just behind a beaming Nancy Pelosi.Joe Biden has signed the legislation into law, in a joy-filled ceremony on the south lawn at the White House.In attendance were the first lady, Jill Biden, as well as the vice-president, Kamala Harris, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, and hundreds of LGBTQ+ couples, senior members of Congress, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and gay lawmakers looking on.Here’s the Guardian’s Washington Bureau chief, David Smith, who has witnessed the event:Joe Biden: “Today is a good day!… Marriage is a simple proposition. Who do you love and will you be loyal to that person you love? It’s not more complicated than that.” pic.twitter.com/ZsL2PEkLri— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
      Biden made a short but spirited speech.Biden: “Now the law requires that interracial marriage and same sex marriage be recognised in every state in the nation.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
      Biden pays tribute to many of those activists and campaigners gathered.Biden: “Those who believe in equality and justice, you never gave up… You put your relationships on the line, you put your jobs on the line, you put your lives on the line. From me and the entire nation, thank you, thank you, thank you.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
      Here’s the president on Twitter:Today is a good day. Today, America takes another step toward equality. Toward liberty and justice not just for some, but for all. Because today, I sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law.— President Biden (@POTUS) December 13, 2022
      Joe Biden says love is the antidote to discrimination.“Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, they are all connected. But the antidote is love,” Biden just said at the White House, as he prepares to sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law.Biden reminds those gathered that the legislation was spurred by the signal made by supreme court justice Clarence Thomas that, having overturned Roe v Wade, access to contraception and the right to same sex marriage could be next on the conservative bench’s agenda.Joe Biden is now speaking and thanking the lawmakers who drove the legislation that he is about to sign into law as the Respect for Marriage Act.He thanks, to a huge cheer from those gathered, Wisconsin’s Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin, the first out gay person ever to serve in the US Senate, who introduced the legislation and helped steer it to victory.The US president thanked Maine Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, who joined Baldwin in pushing the bill forward and garnering bipartisan support.Biden is celebrating the new law that protects not just same sex marriage but also interracial marriage, which have federal protections via the US Supreme Court but are not codified in US legislation.As the nation saw when the right-wing supermajority on the supreme court in June ditched the federal abortion legalization afforded by Roe v Wade in 1973, without congressional support in the form of legislation, rights can be taken away overnight by the court.Biden just quoted the great Edie Windsor’s words about gay marriage: “Don’t postpone joy.”“The road to this moment has been long,” Biden said. He tips his hat to those who “put their jobs on the line” to fight for the rights “I’m about to sign into law.”Goodbye, Edie Windsor. Thank you for never giving up | Steven W ThrasherRead moreKamala Harris is speaking at the White House ceremony, and she recalls Valentine’s Day, 2004, when she performed some of the US’s first same sex marriages, in San Francisco city hall, when she was the district attorney in that city.She quotes the late Harvey Milk in saying: “Rights are won by those who make their voices heard.”The vice president talks of marrying friends, the tears of joy, and also recalls the victory, ultimately, over the ban on marriage equality in California that had been passed in 2008, known as Proposition 8. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      African leaders gather in US as Joe Biden aims to reboot rocky relations

      by

      African leaders gather in US as Joe Biden aims to reboot rocky relationsPresident and Antony Blinken woo nations at summit in Washington in hope they will align with west rather than Russia or China Dozens of African leaders have assembled in Washington for a summit aimed at rebooting US relations on the continent, which have languished in recent years.The US-Africa summit, the first since 2014, will be the biggest international gathering in Washington since the pandemic and the most substantial commitment by a US administration to boosting its influence in the region for almost a decade.The summit comes amid the sharpest great power rivalry for many decades, worsening security problems and acute economic problems in Africa.All three challenges are sometimes blamed on the US, which has been pushed on to the defensive in many areas by determined and often unconventional strategies adopted by strategic rivals such as Russia and China.In all, 49 leaders and heads of states have been invited to the summit, and the guest list underlines the difficulty faced by President Joe Biden and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in balancing values with pressing demands of power politics.Observers have noted tensions in US policy between a desire to win friends and also to reach out to populations suffering under repressive, exploitative regimes through promotion of diversity, tolerance, free speech and democracy.“It seems it’s now a numbers game and getting more countries to align with the west against Russia now and, in the longer term, China. The continent feels a lot more cold war-ish than at any time in my career,” said Alex Vines, director of the Africa programme at Chatham House.Four countries that were suspended from the African Union – Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Sudan – were not invited to the summit because coups in those nations led to unconstitutional changes in power. The White House also did not invite Eritrea.But Equatorial Guinea was invited despite the state department stating that it held “serious doubts” about last month’s election, in which President Teodoro Obiang’s ruling party won nearly 95% of the vote. So too was Zimbabwe, which has faced years of US and western sanctions over poor governance, human rights abuses and widespread corruption, and Ethiopia, some of whose commercial privileges were withdrawn in an attempt to force an end to a war in the Tigray region that led to “gross violations” of human rights.A peace deal was signed last month, with the significant involvement of US diplomats, but implementation faces major challenges.Many African leaders have come with their own agendas, such as seeking help with high debt repayments, the devastating legacy of the coronavirus, climate change, or military assistance. Most countries are suffering too from the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has pushed up inflation and disrupted food supplies.Geopolitical competition goes beyond that between China, Russia, the EU and the US to include middling powers such as Turkey, Japan, the Gulf states and the UK too, said Vines.On a tour of three countries in Africa earlier this year, Blinken appealed to “governments, communities and peoples” across Africa to embrace Washington’s vision of democracy, openness and economic partnership.The US diplomatic strategy appears in part to appeal directly to ordinary people in Africa, rather than their leaders, by promising support for democracy and accountability. Few rulers on the continent welcome Washington’s admonishments about their often poor human rights records or failures to implement political reform.“I do strongly believe that the United States is still seen as a superpower from the African perspective, but most African leaders do not want to align with its promotion of democracy,” said Abraham Kuol Nyuon, a political analyst and associate professor of political science at the University of Juba in South Sudan. “They need the support of America but not the system of America.”China has made little secret of its preference for strongman rulers, offering assistance without conditions. Sub-Saharan nations have also been major recipients of Chinese investment through its now flagging “belt and road initiative”, which supported infrastructure development.Cold war echoes as African leaders resist criticising Putin’s warRead moreThe Russian strategy has been more opportunistic, and has been focused on unstable countries with significant resources such as Sudan or those where once pro-western political leaders are now seeking new allies.On his tour, Blinken sought to counter Russian and Chinese accusations that the US is a “neo-imperialist power” by stressing that Washington wants to act in consultation with local leaders and communities, reinforcing existing African initiatives.“The United States prioritises our relationship with Africa for the sake of our mutual interests and our partnership in dealing with global challenges,” said Molly Phee, an assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “We are very conscious, again, of the cold war history, we’re conscious, again, of the deleterious impact of colonialism on Africa, and we studiously seek to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of those earlier eras.”A further aim is to make sure failures of Trump’s administration – marked by drift and a series of insulting gaffes – are forgotten.African leaders will be looking for Biden to make some big commitments during the summit, including announcing his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa. One crowdpleaser may be support for adding the African Union as a permanent member of the G20, according to the White House.The Senegalese president, Macky Sall, the current AU chair, has argued that by adding the African Union, the G20 “would come to represent the views of 54 additional members, the bulk of low-income countries, and about 80% of the world’s population”.He wrote in July: “The G20 compromises its effectiveness and influence by omitting such a large fraction of humanity and the world economy.”TopicsUS foreign policyBiden administrationJoe BidenUS politicsAntony BlinkenAfrican UnionAfricanewsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘That’s Hitler, Bannon thought’: 2022 in books about Trump and US politics

      by

      ‘That’s Hitler, Bannon thought’: 2022 in books about Trump and US politics The former president continues to dominate political bestseller lists, from staffers’ tell-alls to his own compulsion to tell all to Maggie Haberman and Bob WoodwardDonald Trump has been out of office almost two years, but he is still lodged in America’s consciousness. In mid-November, he declared his 2024 re-election bid. Days later, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, appointed Jack Smith as special counsel.DeSantis and Pence lead Republican wave – of presidential campaign booksRead moreTrump has since demanded that the US constitution be terminated, and dined with Ye, the recording artist and antisemite formerly known as Kanye West, and Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist. This week, on a bleak Tuesday afternoon in New York, a jury found the Trump Organization guilty on all counts in a tax fraud trial.The Trump show is never dull. As expected, in 2022 the 45th president left his mark on what Americans read about politics.In February, Jeremy Peters of the New York Times delivered Insurgency, capturing how the party of Lincoln and Reagan morphed into the fiefdom of Trump. Peters caught Steve Bannon rating his former boss among the worst presidents, and likening Trump’s history-making 2015 escalator ride to a scene from Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film.“That’s Hitler, Bannon thought.” By extension, that makes Mar-a-Lago Trump’s Eagle’s Nest.As for Bannon, having burned through a Trump pardon, he awaits sentencing for contempt of Congress and will stand trial next year in Manhattan for conspiracy and fraud.In March came One Damn Thing After Another, another installment of Trump alumni performance art, this time by Bill Barr, the ex-attorney general.Barr took aim at Joe Biden for his stance on Russia, saying “demonizing [Vladimir] Putin is not a foreign policy”, nor “the way grown-ups should think”. Looks like the author didn’t have an invasion of Ukraine on his bingo card. In case anyone cares, Barr still loathes progressives, as his book makes abundantly clear. But he did spill his guts to the January 6 committee.May brought the first political blockbuster of the year, This Will Not Pass, in which Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns delivered 473 pages of essential reading. Kevin McCarthy denied having talked smack about Trump and the January 6 insurrection, so Martin appeared on MSNBC with tapes. The House Republican leader lied.Burns and Martin’s subtitle was “Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future”. They closed with an anxious meditation on the state of US democracy, quoting Malcolm Turnbull, a former prime minister of Australia: “You know that great line that you hear all the time, ‘This is not us. This is not America.’ You know what? It is, actually.”Later in May came A Sacred Oath by Mark Esper, Trump’s last defense secretary, and Here’s the Deal by the former White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway, Trump administration memoirs – and personas – as different as day and night.Esper pulled no punches, depicting Trump as unfit for office and a threat to democracy, a prisoner of wrath, impulse and appetite. His memoir was surgically precise in its score-settling, not just fuel for the pyre of Trump alumni revenge porn.Here’s the Deal was just that. Disdain unvarnished, Conway strafed Bannon, Jared Kushner and Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff. Unsurprisingly, she had few kind words for Biden, blaming him for the Ukraine invasion and for Iran threatening nuclear breakout. Trump junked the Iran deal and was Putin’s toady. Then again, Conway is the queen of “alternative facts”.In August came Breaking History, Kushner’s own attempt to spin his triumphs while playing the victim. His book was predictably self-serving and selective, even trying to spin as something understandable his ex-con dad luring his own brother-in-law into a filmed liaison with a prostitute. The Kushners and the Trumps are not your typical families.Breaking History also came with conflicting creation stories. The New York Times reported that Kushner took an online MasterClass from the thriller writer James Patterson, then “batted out” 40,000 words of his own. By contrast, the Guardian learned that Kushner received assistance from Ken Kurson, a former editor of the New York Observer, and two other Trump White House alumni. As luck had it, Trump granted Kurson a pardon for cyberstalking, though Kurson later pleaded guilty after being charged with spying on his wife.‘The first thing he told us was a lie’Labor Day signaled a pre-midterm publication rush. With The Divider, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser offered a beautifully written, utterly dispiriting history of the man who attacked democracy. In electing Trump, the New York Times and New Yorker, husband-and-wife pair wrote, the US empowered a leader who “attacked basic principles of constitutional democracy at home” and “venerated” strongmen abroad. Whether the system winds up in the “morgue” and how much time remains to make sure it doesn’t were the authors’ open questions.The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreThe results of the midterms – Republicans squeaking the House, Democrats holding the Senate, election deniers defeated in key states – offered a glimmer of hope. Truth, however, remains a scarce commodity for Trump.“When we sat down with [him] a year after his defeat,” Baker and Glasser wrote, “the first thing he told us was a lie.”Specifically, Trump claimed the Biden administration had asked him to record a public service announcement promoting Covid vaccinations.Baker and Glasser also depicted Hitler as a Trump role model. To John Kelly, his second chief of staff, a retired Marine Corps general and a father bereaved in the 9/11 wars, Trump complained: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”“Which generals?”“The German generals in World War II.”“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?”According to Baker and Glasser, Kelly used The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a study by 27 mental health professionals, as an owner’s manual.Next, a month before the midterms, Maggie Haberman’s Confidence Man made its debut. A political epic, the book traced Trump’s journey from the streets of Queens to the Upper East Side, from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.Haberman gave Trump and those close to him plenty of voice – and rope. She caught Kushner gleefully asking a White House visitor: “Did you see I cut Bannon’s balls off?” To quote Peter Navarro, another Trump tell-all author, like Bannon now under indictment: “Nepotism and excrement roll downhill.”Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down TrumpRead moreHaberman interviewed Trump three times. He confessed that he is drawn to her like a moth to a flame. “I love being with her,” he said. “She’s like my psychiatrist.” But she saw through him, writing: “The reality is that he treats everyone like they are his psychiatrists.”Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, tried his hand with So Help Me God, a well-written and well-paced memoir that will, however, do little to shake the impression that he is the Rodney Dangerfield of vice-presidents: he gets no respect.Pence delivered a surprising indictment, cataloging Trump’s faults, errors and sins from Charlottesville to Russia and Ukraine. But Pence’s is a precarious balancing act. He upbraided Trump for his failure to condemn “the racists and antisemites in Charlottesville by name”, but also rejected the contention Trump was a bigot. As for Putin, “there was no reason for Trump not to call out Russia’s bad behaviour”, Pence wrote, while calling Trump’s infamous, impeachment-triggering phone call to Volodymyr Zelenskiy “less than perfect”. In the end, So Help Me God was a strained attempt to retain political viability.‘As long as you make the right friends’Not all the notable books of 2022 were about Trump himself. Some examined the people and movements that lie adjacent. We Are Proud Boys by Andy Campbell looked at the violence-addicted street fighters who have become best friends with many of Trump’s past and present supporters, from Ann Coulter to Roger Stone.As Campbell put it, the Proud Boys have “proven that you can make it as a fascist gang of hooligans in this country, as long as you make the right friends”.Andrew Kirtzman’s Giuliani provided a vivid reminder that Trump’s gravitational pull induces destruction. The author covered Rudy Giuliani when he was New York mayor. Rudy wasn’t always a buffoon. The book is masterly and engrossing.Broken News, by Chris Stirewalt, doubled as a critique of the media and a rebuke of Fox News, his former employer, and Trump. The Washington Post, the New York Times, MSNBC and Joe Scarborough fared poorly too. Substantively, Stirewalt contended that much of the news business is about the pursuit of ratings. These days, Fox is battling defamation lawsuits arising from repeatedly airing Trump’s “big lie”.Robert Draper’s Weapons of Mass Delusion dissected the Trumpian nightmare, focusing on the consequences of the world the internet created. Republicans like the far-right Arizona congressman Paul Gosar and his mentee, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, are much more likely to be rewarded than penalized for “outrageous, fact-free behavior”.Gabriel Debenedetti is the national correspondent for New York magazine. His first book, The Long Alliance, brought depth and context to the near-two-decade relationship between the 44th and 46th presidents, emphasizing that the pair’s time in power together was no buddy movie. Barack Obama was the star. Joe Biden played a supporting role – until he too seized the brass ring.‘It’s on the tape’: Bob Woodward on Donald Trump’s ‘criminal behavior’Read moreThe most memorable contribution to this year’s American political literature, however, was not a printed book. The Trump Tapes, subtitled “Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump” is an audio collection that offers a passport to the heart of darkness.In June 2020, Trump confided: “I get people, they come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. Want to know something? Everything is mine.” Wow.Woodward’s tapes convincingly demonstrated that Trump knew in early 2020 that Covid posed a mortal danger to the US, but balked at telling the whole truth.Trump holds the press in contempt but yearns for its approval. He flattered Woodward as “a great historian”. Maggie Haberman knows the feeling.TopicsBooksUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS elections 2020US elections 2024Joe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      The Georgia runoff shows that Democrats have figured out a winning strategy | Andrew Gawthorpe

      by

      The Georgia runoff shows that Democrats have figured out a winning strategyAndrew GawthorpeThe midterms have been an endorsement of Biden’s formula: appeal to the middle by hammering at Republicans’ extremism For the third time in a row, Democrats have won a Senate election in Georgia. Raphael Warnock’s victory makes it clear that the party’s gains in the state in 2020 were not an anomaly. Although far from being a so-called blue state, Georgia is positioned well to remain competitive in 2024 and beyond. But in order for that to happen – and to build on their victories elsewhere – Democrats have to make the right choices.Taken as a whole, the midterms have provided a ringing endorsement of the approach to politics favored by President Joe Biden. From the first moment it looked like he would enter the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden was maligned and mocked for suggesting that the path to a Democratic victory lay through gains with independent and suburban voters. Critics argued that the country was so deeply polarized that swing voters no longer existed, and that appeals for bipartisanship would fall on deaf ears. In their view, the only viable strategy was to mobilize the Democratic base with leftwing appeals, even at the cost of losing voters in the center.Georgia’s runoff was a resounding rebuke of Trumpism. Will Republicans hear it? | Lloyd GreenRead moreOver two election cycles, however, Joe Biden has proven to have a much firmer grasp on American politics than some of his critics. His victory in 2020 was driven by flipping suburban and independent voters, as well as staunching Democratic losses among the non-college-educated white voters who make up Trump’s base. And even though commentators worried that this coalition was “precariously thin” and lacked durability, a broadly similar coalition came together in key midterm races to produce one of the best results for an incumbent president in modern American politics.Warnock’s victory in Georgia is just one of many examples. To be clear, Warnock is a formidable individual and campaigner in his own right and should take primary credit for his own victory. But he and many other candidates nationwide benefited from the way that Biden has shaped the Democratic party’s brand in more moderate directions and worked to rack up an impressive checklist of bipartisan legislative accomplishments.These moves have been met with hostility or indifference on the party’s left, but they give permission to disaffected Republican and independent voters to cross the aisle. This permission was gratefully received in Georgia, where Warnock’s opponent was the Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker, and a Democratic victory followed.As they look forward to 2024, Democrats should stick with Biden’s approach. One of the president’s key insights into today’s politics is that the flagrant extremism of the Republican party creates the space for precisely this sort of centrist approach to work. In 2020, naysayers charged that Biden hadn’t really created a durable new coalition, but merely capitalized on opposition to Trump. But with Trump still defining the Republican party, it will remain important for Democrats to continue to give right-leaning voters an excuse to defect.Even choosing an alternative presidential candidate would not soothe Republican woes or invalidate Biden’s approach. Any such candidate will have to win a primary in a Maga-fied party, which means saying and doing things that a substantial portion of the general electorate finds abhorrent.Nor is the party’s extremism just some new feature of the Trump era. Take its stance on abortion. Trump has tended to shy away from making abortion a central issue in his politics, and any replacement is more likely to represent the hardline restrictionism that is mainstream in the Republican party but anathema to the public. Dumping Trump would be extraordinarily hard for the party – and actually changing tack on abortion, rather than quietly deciding to publicly talk about it less, close to impossible.Trump’s march back to power has faltered. Now comes the real challenge for the global left | Martin KettleRead moreFor their part, the main question Democrats face is whether or not Biden continues to be the best person to put at the top of their ticket. This highlights a paradox, which is that Bidenism is more popular than Biden himself. Despite the key role that independents have played in Biden’s victories, three-quarters of them do not want Biden to run again in 2024, and the group as a whole views Biden only somewhat more favorably than Trump. This is a red flag for many Democrats, who worry that questions about Biden’s age and verbal gaffes could drag them down in 2024.But concerns about Biden as a candidate should not lead to concerns about Bidenism – if anything, the case for the latter is only strengthened by the weaknesses of the former. Biden’s coalition is not held together by a charismatic individual who will eventually pass from the scene, but by the structural forces shaping American politics today. It represents a path available to Democrats for as long as they continue to face a radicalized Republican party – something they are likely to do for a long time yet.Nor should the hidden strengths of the president himself be dismissed. Biden has long been dismissed by people who imagine themselves to be more politically sophisticated. Over the past few years, he has left their predictions in the dust again and again. Most crucially of all, he is the only Democrat who has beaten Trump in a one-on-one contest, the sort which allows him to highlight the contrast between Bidenism and the radicalized opposition most convincingly.As 2024 approaches, Biden’s message to doubters in his party should be simple: I’ve done it before. Now watch me do it again.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University and host of the podcast America Explained
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDemocratsJoe BidenBiden administrationcommentReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US immigration laws should be enforced with discretion. That’s common sense | Robert Reich

      by

      US immigration laws should be enforced with discretion. That’s common senseRobert ReichBiden ordered officials to focus on deporting immigrants convicted of felonies, rather than undocumented people en masse. I applaud that decision Texas has sued the Biden administration over its order to immigration agents to prioritize undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies rather than deport all undocumented immigrants.Texas argues that federal immigration law requires the government to deport every undocumented immigrant. The Biden administration says it doesn’t have the resources to deport the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, so it must develop priorities.The Crypto Crash: all Ponzi schemes topple eventually | Robert ReichRead moreThe controversy reminds me of something that happened 30 years ago.Child labor laws bar 14-year-olds from working past 7pm on school nights. Weeks before I became the US secretary of labor, in 1992, a vigilant labor department investigator discovered that the Savannah Cardinals, a Class A farm team of the Atlanta Braves, had hired 14-year-old Tommy McCoy to be their batboy. On balmy evenings extending beyond sunset, Tommy selected each player’s favorite bat and proudly delivered it to him in the batter’s box. Next morning, Tommy went to school.The investigator threatened the team with a stiff fine. The team did what it had to do: it fired little Tommy.Tommy liked being a batboy. His parents were proud of their son. The team was fond of him. The fans loved him. As long as anyone could remember, every kid in Savannah had coveted the job. Tommy did well in school.But now little Tommy was out of a job.Well, you can imagine the furor. It seemed as if the whole city of Savannah was up in arms. The Cardinals were staging a “Save Tommy’s Job Night” rally, featuring balloons, buttons, placards and a petition signed by the fans demanding that Tommy be rehired.ABC News was doing a story on the controversy, which is how I first heard about it. ABC wanted me to do an on-camera interview that evening, explaining why Tommy couldn’t be a batboy.What was I to do? ABC couldn’t wait to show America the stupidity of the government (and its new secretary of labor).The labor department’s chief inspectors, sitting around a large round table in my office, didn’t want me to back down. After all, they said, the law was clear: Children under 14 could not work past 7pm on school nights. Besides, child labor was a serious problem. Children were getting injured working long hours.“If you back down, it will look like you’re caving in to public opinion,” one of the chief inspectors told me.“But,” I asked, “isn’t it the public whom we’re here to serve?”“The Savannah team broke the law and it was our responsibility to enforce the law.”“But who says the law has to be enforced this way?” I asked. “Don’t we have some discretion over how we enforce the law? We have only a limited number of inspectors. Shouldn’t we have priorities? I can understand hitting a building contractor who’s hiring kids to put on roofing, but why are we going after batboys and girls?”They warned me that if I didn’t support the department’s investigators, the staff would become demoralized.“Good! If they become demoralized and stop enforcing the law nonsensically, so much the better,” I said.They warned that if I backed down, the labor department would lose credibility.“We’ll lose even more credibility if we stick with this outrageous decision,” I said.They said there was nothing we could do. The law was the law.“Nonsense,” I said. “We can change the regulation to make an exception for kids at sporting events.”But that would invite all sorts of abuses, they argued. Vendors would exploit young kids on school nights to sell peanuts and popcorn, stadiums would hire young children to clean the locker rooms, parking lots would use children to collect money.“OK,” I said, “so we draw the exemption tighter, and limit it to batboys and batgirls.”I was getting nowhere. In minutes I’d have to appear on World News Tonight and defend the indefensible.Then it hit me, like a fastball slamming into my thick head: I was secretary of labor. I could decide this by myself.“I’ve heard enough,” I said, standing.I turned to my assistant, “We’re going to tell the Savannah team they can keep Tommy. We’ll change the regulation to allow batboys and girls. Put out a press release right now. Call the producers for World News Tonight and tell them I’ve decided to let Tommy keep his batboy job. Tell them our investigator was way off base!”“But World News Tonight is already on the air!” my assistant said.“Call them now!”I turned on the TV in the corner of my office. Peter Jennings was reading the news from his monitor. Within moments he said:The United States Department of Labor has decided that a 14-year-old named Tommy McCoy cannot serve as batboy for the Atlanta Braves farm team in Savannah, Georgia. The decision has provoked outrage from the fans. Here’s more from …As he turned it over to ABC’s Atlanta correspondent, Jennings appeared to be smirking.I was dead, politically.I looked around the table at the inspectors. Did they understand that in 7m living rooms across America people were now saying to each other “How dumb can government get?”After two excruciating minutes during which ABC’s Atlanta correspondent detailed the story of little Tommy, it was back to Jennings:But this tale has a happy ending.My heart skipped a beat.The labor department reports that Tommy will get his job back. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has decided that the department was – quote – off-base in invoking child labor regulations under these circumstances.I was still alive, politically.But the inspectors sitting around my table were dismayed.I tried to explain to them exactly what the Biden administration is now trying to explain to the courts and to Republicans in Congress.Laws cannot be enforced without setting priorities for enforcement. Inevitably – intentionally or unintentionally – the people in charge of enforcing laws determine which cases merit their attention and resources.So enforcers must use common sense. Prioritize targeting employers who are hiring young children and putting them in dangerous jobs over, say, a farm team hiring a kid as a batboy.Prioritize undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies over, say, a Dreamer who was brought to America as an infant and has been hardworking and law-abiding for her whole life.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS immigrationBiden administrationJoe BidenMigrationcommentReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Why 51 is better than 50 in the Senate: Politics Weekly America podcast

      by

      More ways to listen

      Apple Podcasts

      Google Podcasts

      Spotify

      RSS Feed

      Download

      Share on Facebook

      Share on Twitter

      Share via Email

      Raphael Warnock was re-elected to represent Georgia in the US Senate for the next six years. Jonathan Freedland speaks to Molly Reynolds of the Brookings Institution about the significance for Democrats of having an absolute majority in the upper chamber of Congress, rather than a 50/50 split

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: CNN, WALB 10, MSNBC Listen to Football Weekly and Pop Culture with Chanté Joseph Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More