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      Many are disillusioned with American democracy. Can Joe Biden win them over? | Francine Prose

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      Many are disillusioned with American democracy. Can Joe Biden win them over?Francine ProseIt’s not enough to excoriate Trump and his supporters. We must seek out and eradicate the roots of the alienation and resentment that so deeply divide us There’s something exhilarating about hearing someone tell the truth, especially now when so many people seem to believe that the difference between facts and falsehood is a matter of political affiliation or personal opinion. Watching Kamala Harris and Joe Biden speak in the Capitol Rotunda on the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection, hearing the president blame the brutal riot directly on Donald Trump and his supporters – it felt almost like exhaling, after holding your breath for too long. Yes, it’s a lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Yes, it’s a lie that the rioters swarming the Capitol building were genuine American patriots. Those are facts that can’t be stressed enough, that need to be said and repeated by the powerful and the widely respected.Historians mark 6 January with urgent warning on threats to US democracyRead moreOver the past few days, I’ve watched deeply moving interviews with the Capitol police officers who lived through the riot. Especially affecting was the PBS conversation with Sandra Garza, whose partner, Brian Sicknick, defended the Capitol against attackers and died the next day of a stroke; in Garza’s view, Donald Trump “needs to be in prison”. When I register my own jarringly adrenalized response to even the briefest film clip of the surging crowd calling out for blood, I know that I cannot begin to imagine what those who survived it – and their loved ones – continue to suffer.So it came as a relief to hear Biden emphasize the gravity and the dangers of political violence, as well as the urgent necessity of defending and upholding the constitution. It seemed vitally important to hear him say that January 6 needs to be remembered; that forgetting the past and moving on (as many Republican senators urge us to do) could conceivably pave the way for a second – and perhaps more catastrophic – assault on our government.Yet – like many listeners, I imagine – I couldn’t help wondering how many people were being convinced, how many minds were being changed by the reasonableness, the maturity and clarity of the president’s address. It’s not just that, as we keep hearing, Americans now inhabit two entirely alternate realities: one in which the Covid vaccine staves off disease, another in which inoculation causes infertility and ALS. Among the obstacles that stand in the way of changing hearts and minds is that our problems, as a nation, are older, deeper and more severe than Donald Trump’s megalomania.So even as it was satisfying to hear Biden hold Trump directly accountable for ramping up his base’s bloodlust, for watching the mayhem on TV and making no attempt to stop it, I kept recalling something I remember people saying in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election: that the malevolent genie that Trump had unleashed from the bottle was unlikely to go back in. Five years later than seems truer than ever: My sense is that Trump could completely retire from public life tomorrow and the support for him and his ideas would remain undiminished. A half-dozen Capitol rioters were elected to office in November, and two dozen more plan to run in upcoming elections.What I wished that Biden had acknowledged was the fact that the raging, disruptive genie had inhabited the bottle long before “the defeated former president” ever popped the cork. I wished Biden had followed up his gratifying excoriation of Trump and his supporters with a commitment to seeking out and eradicating the roots of the alienation, resentment and fury that so deeply divide our country.Why – aside from the lying claims of a stolen election – had the rioters armed and armored themselves and traveled all the way to Washington? It struck me that many of Trump’s supporters may not be entirely anti-democratic so much as acutely (or unconsciously) aware of our democracy’s imperfections: its oligarchic edge. Biden may have reminded us that each of our votes matters equally. But the one thing I may possibly share in common with the thugs who invaded the Capitol is the pained awareness that my voice is not nearly as audible in Washington as the voices of the chief executives of Pfizer, Delta and Target.I thought of how, during the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt toured the country, asking beleaguered Americans about their hardships and needs. How little of that seems to be happening now, when the consensus appears to be that our wounds can be healed remotely, by cajoling recalcitrant lawmakers into passing legislation with potential benefits that have so far eluded many Americans’ understanding.Of all the horrific things that occurred on 6 January, among the most disturbing to me was Trump’s parting speech to the rioters when at long last he advised them to go home. “You’re very special,” he said. “We love you.”Like any cult of personality, Trump’s impassioned support more closely resembles an (admittedly one-sided) affair of the heart than a reasoned political choice. And, in my experience, few lovers have fallen out of love after being informed that the beloved is an egomaniac and a liar.Of course the best known cure for love is to find someone else, but what’s more useful, in the long run, is to understand why one became embroiled in a deceptive and unbalanced relationship, and to find a way of designing and inhabiting a brighter future. What I wished I’d heard in Biden’s speech was a persuasive vision of the more fulfilled and less tormented life that, we can only hope, awaits us in the event that the poisonous romance with violence and hatred sputters out – and is finally over.
      Francine Prose is a novelist. Her latest book, The Vixen, was published in June
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationDonald TrumpTrump administrationcommentReuse this content More

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      Merrick Garland vows to pursue all those responsible for 6 January attack

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      Merrick Garland vows to pursue all those responsible for 6 January attackAttorney general says justice department has ‘no higher priority’ and promises further actions over ‘assault on our democracy’ The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Wednesday vowed that the justice department would hold accountable all those responsible for the deadly 6 January attack, whether they were physically present at the Capitol or not.Garland’s remarks come as he faces growing calls from lawmakers, legal experts and former elected officials to intensify the department’s investigation into the events of Capitol assault, and in particular to prosecute those who helped orchestrate the failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, including Donald Trump and his associates.More than 1,000 US public figures aided Trump’s effort to overturn electionRead moreIn a solemn speech on the eve of the first anniversary of the assault on the seat of government, Garland said it did not matter whether the perpetrators had been present at the Capitol riot or committed other crimes that wrought chaos on that day.“The justice department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law – whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy,” Garland said in his address, delivered from the justice department’s Great Hall in Washington. “We will follow the facts wherever they lead.”Garland recounted in detail the brutality of the day, contesting a rightwing revisionist narrative that the attack was not violent. Officers had been assaulted with pipes and poles, beaten and shocked with stun guns, he said. One officer had been dragged down the stairs by rioters, while lawmakers and the vice-president fled for their lives.“As a consequence, proceedings in both chambers were disrupted for hours – interfering with a fundamental element of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” he said. “Those involved must be held accountable, and there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice.”Garland did not mention Trump by name, and in keeping with the justice department’s longstanding rule not to comment on ongoing investigations, he did not detail any possible leads the department was pursuing related to the former US president, his family or his allies.But the carefully crafted speech seemed designed to address concerns about the focus of the investigation. Garland said he understood the intense public interest in the case and promised that the actions taken by the department so far “will not be our last”.The department’s work so far, he explained, was laying the foundation for more serious and complicated cases. “In complex cases, initial charges are often less severe than later charged offenses,” he said. “This is purposeful as investigators methodically collect and sift through more evidence.“There cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless,” he added.The investigation into the events of 6 January was one of the “largest, most complex and most resource-intensive investigations” in the nation’s history, Garland said.To date, he said, investigators had issued 5,000 subpoenas and search warrants, seized 2,000 devices, viewed 20,000 hours of video footage, searched 15 terabytes of data and received 300,000 tips from the public. More than 700 people in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia have been charged for their roles in the insurrection, which left 140 law enforcement officers injured. Five officers who defended the Capitol that day have since died.Reading their names aloud, Garland asked for a moment of silence to remember the fallen officers.On Thursday, Democratic leaders in Congress will host a day of remembrance events, beginning with speeches from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the US Capitol.Previewing his speech, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Biden would acknowledge “the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage” of 6 January.“The president is going to speak to the truth of what happened, not the lies that some have spread since, and the peril it posed to the rule of law and our system of democratic governance,” Psaki said, adding that Biden was “clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy and how the former president constantly works to undermine basic American values and rule of law”.Garland’s remarks extended beyond the events of 6 January. He lamented a rise in violence that has touched nearly every aspect of American life. He pointed to attacks on elections officials, airline crews, teachers, journalists, police officers, judges and members of Congress.“These acts and threats of violence are not associated with any one set of partisan or ideological views,” he warned. “But they are permeating so many parts of our national life that they risk becoming normalized and routine if we do not stop them.”The justice department, he promised, would work within the bounds of the first amendment to prosecute all those who made unlawful threats. He also committed the department to using “the enforcement powers we have” to protect voting rights, warning of efforts in some states to audit election results, drive out election officials or allow state lawmakers to overturn the will of voters.“As with violence and threats of violence, the justice department – even the Congress – cannot alone defend the right to vote,” he said. “The responsibility to preserve democracy – and to maintain faith in the legitimacy of its essential processes – lies with every elected official and every American.”TopicsMerrick GarlandUS Capitol attackUS politicsBiden administrationJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      A year after the Capitol attack, what has the US actually learned? | Cas Mudde

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      A year after the Capitol attack, what has the US actually learned?Cas MuddeThe government is finally taking the threat of far-right militia groups seriously. But the larger threat are the Republican legislators who continue to recklessly undermine democracy One year ago, he was frantically barricading the doors to the House gallery to keep out the violent mob. Today, he calls the insurrection a “bold-faced lie” and likens the event to “a normal tourist visit”. The story of Andrew Clyde, who represents part of my – heavily gerrymandered – liberal college town in the House of Representatives, is the story of the Republican party in 2021. It shows a party that had the opportunity to break with the anti-democratic course under Donald Trump, but was too weak in ideology and leadership to do so, thereby presenting a fundamental threat to US democracy in 2022 and beyond.The risk of a coup in the next US election is greater now than it ever was under Trump | Laurence H Tribe Read moreClyde is illustrative of another ongoing development, the slow but steady takeover of the Republican party by new, and often relatively young, Trump supporters. In 2015, when his massive gun store on the outskirts of town was still flying the old flag of Georgia, which includes the Confederate flag, he was a lone, open supporter of then-presidential candidate Trump, with several large pro-Trump and anti-“fake news” signs adorning his gun store. Five years later, Clyde was elected to the House of Representatives as part of a wave of Trump-supporting novices, mostly replacing Republicans who had supported President Trump more strategically than ideologically.With his 180-degree turn about the 6 January insurrection, Clyde is back in line with the majority of the Republican base, as a recent UMass poll shows. After initial shock, and broad condemnation, Republicans have embraced the people who stormed the Capitol last year, primarily referring to the event as a “protest” (80%) and to the insurrectionists as “protesters” (62%), while blaming the Democratic party (30%), the Capitol police (23%), and the inevitable antifa (20%) for what happened. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of Republicans (75%) believe the country should “move on” from 6 January, rather than learn from it. And although most don’t care either way, one-third of Republicans say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who refuses to denounce the insurrection.The increased anti-democratic threat of the Republican party can also be seen in the tidal wave of voting restrictions proposed and passed in 2021. The Brennan Center for Justice counted a stunning 440 bills “with provisions that restrict voting access” introduced across all but one of the 50 US states, the highest number since the Center started tracking them 10 years ago. A total of 34 such laws were passed in 19 different states last year, and 88 bills in nine states are being carried over to the 2022 legislative term. Worryingly, Trump-backed Republicans who claim the 2020 election was stolen are running for secretary of state in various places where Trump unsuccessfully challenged the results.At the same time, the situation of the non-Republican far right is a bit less clear. While some experts warn that the militia movement, in particular, has turned toward more violent extremism, the violent fringes of the far right are also confronted by a much more vigilant state. This is particularly true for groups linked to the 6 January attacks, such as the Oath Keepers, which has faced increasing public and state scrutiny after 21 of its members were alleged to have participated in the attacks. Similarly, Proud Boys leaders are facing trial over the event, and some have agreed to cooperate with authorities in their investigations.After decades of the US government ignoring or downplaying the threat of far-right violence, President Biden has made “domestic violent extremism” a key concern of his new administration, regularly singling out white supremacists as “the most lethal terrorist threat in the homeland”. Partly in response to reports that former military personnel were prominently involved in the 6 January attack, the Pentagon has acknowledged “the threat from domestic extremists, particularly those who espouse white supremacist or white nationalist ideologies,” to the military and the country at large.This is not to say that the state is in control of the violent far right. While more than 700 suspected insurrectionists have been arrested, only some 50-plus have been convicted so far, mostly facing fines and probation, after judges rebuffed the DoJ. And media reports found that both the military and law enforcement have struggled to rid themselves of far-right ideas and supporters. But potentially violent far-right individuals and groups are now surveilled much more than they have been since 9/11 – we’re in a moment perhaps more similar to the short period after the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, still the most deadly domestic terrorist attack in US history.In short, a year after the Capitol attack, US democracy is in a different but still fragile place. Most importantly, the extremists are no longer in the White House, encouraging and protecting the far-right mob. In fact, the state is more aware of and vigilant towards the far-right threat than ever before this century. The threat of far-right direct violence is probably less severe than before – not because the movement is weaker, but because the state is stronger.At the same time, the Republican party has become increasingly united and naked in its extremism, which denies both the anti-democratic character of the 6 January attack and the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency, and is passing an unprecedented number of voter restriction bills in preparation for the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential elections. As long as the White House mainly focuses on fighting “domestic violent extremism”, and largely ignores or minimizes the much more lethal threat to US democracy posed by non-violent extremists, the US will continue to move closer and closer to an authoritarian future.
      Cas Mudde is Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, the author of The Far Right Today (2019), and host of the podcast Radikaal. He is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsRepublicansThe far rightJoe BidenBiden administrationTrump administrationcommentReuse this content More

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      Fauci: hospitalization figures a better guide to Omicron than case count

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      Fauci: hospitalization figures a better guide to Omicron than case count But government’s top medical adviser warns public not to be fooled by data suggesting variant lacks severity of earlier variants The US government’s top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, has joined a growing body of experts who say hospitalisation figures form a better guide to the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant than the traditional case-count of new infections.Teens and young adults driving record Covid cases in US, health officials sayRead moreReferring to the Omicron surge in the US as a “tsunami”, Fauci also cautioned the public not to be fooled by preliminary data suggesting the variant lacks the severity of earlier Covid-19 variants, such as Delta.“You have a virus that looks like it might be less severe, at least from data we’ve gathered from South Africa, the UK and even some from preliminary data from here in the US,” he told CNN’s State of the Union.“It’s a very interesting, somewhat complicated issue … so many people are getting infected that the net amount, the total amount of people that will require hospitalisation, might be up. We can’t be complacent in these reports. We’re still going to get a lot of hospitalisations.”On ABC’s This Week, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked if it was time to focus less on just the case count, which has soared close to 500,000 reported new daily infections. A number of experts have questioned if such reports cause unnecessary worry, and suggest deaths and hospitalisation data should better inform mitigation efforts.“The answer is, overall, yes,” Fauci said. “This is particularly relevant if you’re having an infection that is much, much more asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic, particularly in people who are vaccinated and boosted. “The real bottom line that you want to be concerned about is, are we getting protected by the vaccines from severe disease leading to hospitalisation?”The Biden administration has made improving vaccination rates a priority but concedes progress is slower than it would like. Fewer than 25% of US children are vaccinated, pediatric hospital admissions are surging and nationally only 62% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated with barely a third receiving a booster. “I’m still very concerned about the tens of millions of people who are not vaccinated at all because even though many of them are going to get asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic, a fair number of them are going to get severe disease,” Fauci said.Surging infection rates, Fauci told CNN, will likely cause disruption to everyday life, already evidenced in pressure on healthcare in several states and in other areas such as education and public transport. A number of universities and school districts will begin 2022 online and in New York City several subway lines have been suspended through staff shortages.Fauci said those concerns contributed to the decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week to reduce the recommended isolation period for those who have tested positive but are asymptomatic from 10 days to five.“You’re certainly gonna see stresses on the system, the system being people with any kind of jobs, particularly with critical jobs, to keep society functioning normally. We already know there are reports from fire departments, from police departments in different cities, that sometimes 30% of the people are ill.“The CDC is trying to get a position where people without symptoms who are infected, that you can get them back to work a little bit earlier if they remain without symptoms.”But he rejected criticism that the change was sparked by economic pressure rather than science. “In the second half of a 10-day period, which would normally be a 10-day isolation period, the likelihood of transmissibility is considerably lower,” he said. “For that reason, the CDC made the judgement that it would be relatively low risk to get people out.“You’re right [that] people are concerned about, ‘Why not test people at that time?’ I myself feel that that’s a reasonable thing to do. I believe that the CDC soon will be coming out with more clarification of that since it obviously has generated a number of questions about that five-day period.”The new mayor of New York, Eric Adams, said he thought the city was doing “an amazing job” of reacting to the shifting challenges of the pandemic, including transportation issues and having one-fifth of police out sick.US experts question whether counting Covid cases is still the right approachRead more“We are pivoting based on where the urgency is located. We’re not taking it one-size-fits-all, we’re thinking about it and making the right moves and decisions,” he told ABC.“I was with my police commissioner. We have a 20% sick rate but now we have officers coming back after the five days.“But we can’t live through variants. We spent $11tn on Covid and we don’t have another $11tn, so our lives can’t be based on what’s the new variant. No. We have to figure out, how do we adjust?“I say to those who are not vaccinated, ‘Stop it. It’s time to get vaccinated. It’s time to have the booster shots. You’re endangering yourself and you’re endangering the public and your family as well.’”TopicsBiden administrationAnthony FauciJoe BidenUS politicsOmicron variantCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘For me, it’s about the mission’: why Cori Bush is just getting started in Congress

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      Interview‘For me, it’s about the mission’: why Cori Bush is just getting started in Congress Lauren Gambino in Washington Missouri congresswoman says she was sent to Washington to disrupt the political order that had long stopped working for people like herselfIf the American political status quo was working, Congresswoman Cori Bush might not have slept on the steps of the US Capitol to demand an extension of a coronavirus-era eviction moratorium. She might not have testified about her decision to have an abortion, consigning the details of her experience to the official congressional record. Perhaps she might not have run for Congress at all.But as the St Louis congresswoman sees it, she was sent to Washington to disrupt a political order that had long ago stopped working for people like herself – a nurse, pastor and activist who has worked for minimum wage, once lived out of a car and raised two children as a single mother. And she says she is only just getting started.Squad goals: Ocasio-Cortez warns Biden patience is wearing thinRead more“I ran and I lost and I ran and I lost. I kept running because there was a mission behind it,” Bush said in an interview. “It wasn’t about me wanting to be somebody in Congress – I know some people have those aspirations – but, for me, it was more about the mission. And I have not completed that mission yet.”Halfway through an extraordinary first term, and gearing up for reelection, Bush is one of the most recognizable – and quotable – members of the House. Part of the progressive “Squad”, she believes deeply that her own personal hardships make her a better and more responsive representative. Her personal story is what connects her to her constituants and what sets her apart in Congress.When her colleagues left Washington for their weeks-long summer recess without securing an extension of the federal eviction moratorium, Bush stayed behind. Having experienced the pain of poverty and eviction, she couldn’t fathom leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans vulnerable to homelessness as the coronavirus ravaged the US. In an instant, she decided to stage a sit-in on the steps of the US Capitol.Her protest on the Capitol steps drew widespread national attention and effectively shamed party leaders into finding a solution where they had insisted there was none. Eventually, the White House extended the temporary ban on evictions.The hard-won victory was an important moment for Bush and her team. She said it proved to her constituents in St Louis that she would always put them first, even if it put her at odds with Democrats, party leadership, even the president of the United States.“For us, winning that extension of the eviction moratorium was a huge part of the story of who we said that we would be in Congress, we said we would do the work, do the absolute most, and that was the absolute most we could do.”Now, she continued, “the White House knows that about us, too.”Bush describes herself a “politivist” – part politician, part activist. In her view, the roles are complementary, not oppositional.“Oftentimes people expect you, because you hear it in your communities, that when you go to Congress, you’re going to change. That is the expectation,” she said. “I think that we’ve already been able to show that St Louis is first…. St Louis is the heart of every single thing that we do.”Bush rose to prominence as a Black Lives Matter organizer in Ferguson, Missouri, where the movement was born after the 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr was shot and killed by a white police officer. The daughter of a local alderman, Bush said it wasn’t until the protests that she considered running for public office.‘It was just unconscionable’: Cori Bush on her fight to extend the eviction moratoriumRead moreIn 2020, Bush became the first Black woman to represent the state of Missouri when she was elected to Congress after two unsuccessful campaigns – first for Senate in 2016 and again in 2018 for Congress. To win, she unseated the Democratic incumbent, William Lacy Clay. Clay had held the seat for 20 years, having succeeded his father, William Clay Sr, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, who was first elected in 1968.She was sworn in three days before the Capitol was attacked by a pro-Trump mob.“We were still moving into our office when the insurrection happened,” she said. “We didn’t have a panic button yet.”“So that was our introduction to Congress,” she continued. “Since we started off in such an unexpected place, a horrible place, for us, it was just like, ‘OK, dig in.’”While locked in their office, Bush and her staff drafted a resolution to “investigate and expel” any member of Congress who attempted to overturn the election results and “incited a white supremacist attack”.The resolution reflected the increasing hostility between members of Congress. At times, Bush has said she feels targeted by her own colleagues.Shortly after the attack, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, ordered the relocation of Bush’s office, after she asked to be moved away from congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene out of concern for her staff’s safety.Earlier this month, Bush joined House progressives in pressuring the party’s leaders to strip congresswoman Lauren Boebert of her committee assignments over her Islamophobic comments targeting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim. At a press conference, she unloaded on Boebert, calling her a “lying, Islamophobic, race-baiting, violence-inciting, white supremacist sentiment-spreading, Christmas tree gun-toting elected official” who is a “danger” to her country and her colleagues.Like her colleagues in the “squad”, Bush has been unafraid to challenge Democratic leaders, even the president.“I am who I am,” she said. “I don’t take off my activist hat to be able to legislate in Congress. And so that has been the guiding force this entire time.”During a tense standoff over Biden’s agenda earlier this year, Bush charged Democratic leaders with breaking their promise to progressives by decoupling two pieces of Biden’s agenda – a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping social policy package. In a word, she captured progressives’ sense of betrayal: “Bamboozled.” TV network chyrons snapped to reflect the comment and soon Bush was on TV arguing their case. House leaders delayed the vote.A month later, Bush was one of just six House Democrats to vote against the infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law last month. Not because she opposed the legislation, which would spend billions upgrading Missouri’s bridges and highways, but because she feared that passing the bill without the larger social policy that was a priority for progressives would sap them of their leverage.Bush now fears she was correct. After a months-long effort to appease conservative Democratic senators, Joe Manchin announced that he could not support the $2.2tn social safety net bill, dooming its chances in the evenly divided chamber.Bush, who previously denounced Manchin’s opposition to the package as “anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant”, laid the blame squarely on party leadership.“Honestly, I’m frustrated with every Democrat who agreed to tie the fate of our most vulnerable communities to the corporatist ego of one Senator. No one should have backed out of our initial strategy that would have kept Build Back Better alive,” she tweeted. Tagging the president, she said: “You need to fix this.Still, the activist in Bush is not done fighting for the measure, which passed the House in November. “We cannot spend the next year saying, ‘the House did its part, and now it’s the Senate’s turn,’” she said recently. “We need the Senate to actually get this done.”Bush is also working to elevate issues of racial justice that she said the party does not do enough to prioritize.Efforts to pass police reform collapsed earlier this year, and voting rights legislation remains stalled in the Senate. The supreme court will soon decide the future of abortion access.Bush said her Capitol protest was inspired by the moment, but she does not rule out future action.“If I feel led to move in that way, based upon whatever is happening, it is never off the table for me,” she said.Some lawmakers are critical of her legislative style. They call it divisive at worst and naive at best. The suggestion is that she will eventually have to learn to compromise and play by the rules.But in light of Manchin’s opposition, Bush is even more certain of her approach.“If that were the gold star, we would be a lot further in this country,” she said. “There’s more than one way to get things done.”TopicsCori BushUS politicsDemocratsBiden administrationinterviewsReuse this content More

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      US Capitol attack committee agrees to defer request for some records

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      US Capitol attack committee agrees to defer request for some recordsPanel bends to wishes of the Biden White House over concerns of national security and executive privilege

      Robert Reich: 6 January shows we must answer neofascism
      The House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol has agreed to defer its request for hundreds of pages of records from the Trump administration, bending to the wishes of the Biden White House.Capitol panel to investigate Trump call to Willard hotel in hours before attackRead moreThe deferral is in response to concerns that releasing all the Trump documents sought could compromise national security and executive privilege.Joe Biden has repeatedly rejected Donald Trump’s efforts to cite executive privilege to block the release of all documents surrounding that day. But the White House is still working with the committee to shield some documents.The former president is appealing to the supreme court to stop the National Archives and Records Administration co-operating with the committee.The agreement to keep some Trump-era records shielded is contained in a 16 December letter from the White House counsel’s office. It mostly concerns records that do not involve the events of 6 January but were covered by the request for documents from the Trump White House.Dozen of pages created on 6 January don’t pertain to the assault on the Capitol. Other documents involve the national security council. Biden officials were worried that if those pages were turned over it would set a troublesome precedent. Other documents are highly classified and the White House asked Congress to work with the agencies that created them to discuss their release.“The documents for which the select committee has agreed to withdraw or defer its request do not appear to bear on the White House’s preparations for or response to the events of 6 January, or on efforts to overturn the election or otherwise obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” White House deputy counsel Jonathan Su wrote in one of two letters obtained by the Associated Press.Su wrote that withholding the documents “should not compromise [the committee’s] ability to complete its critical investigation expeditiously”.The National Archives has been transmitting tranches of documents to the White House and to lawyers for Trump, who has raised broad objections and specific concerns.The National Archives has said records Trump wants to block include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts, handwritten notes “concerning the events of 6 January” from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and “a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity”.Biden has rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege over those documents, including in a letter sent on 23 December regarding about 20 pages.“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified,” White House counsel Dana Remus reiterated.Trump claims 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia – but the real number is fourRead moreA federal appeals court ruled this month against Trump, and he has filed an appeal to the supreme court, which has yet to decide whether to take up the case.Judge Patricia Millett, writing for the federal court, said Congress had a “uniquely vital interest” in studying the events of 6 January and Biden had made a “carefully reasoned” determination that the documents were in the public interest.Trump also failed to show any harm that would occur from the release, Millett wrote.“On the record before us, former president Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the political branches over these documents,” Millett said.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesBiden administrationDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Fauci says Omicron surge will continue and Americans must not be complacent

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      Fauci says Omicron surge will continue and Americans must not be complacent
      Biden medical adviser: US has to ‘do better’ on access to testing
      Fauci welcomes Donald Trump’s support for Covid vaccines
      Guilt and frustration of breakthrough Covid
      Cases of Covid-19 will continue to surge worldwide due to the Omicron variant, the US chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday, warning Americans not to get complacent amid reports that the variant is less harmful than others.Hundreds more US flights canceled for third day amid surging Covid casesRead more“If you have many, many, many more people with a less level of severity,” Fauci told ABC’s This Week, “that might kind of neutralise the positive effect of having less severity.“We’re particularly worried about those who are in that unvaccinated class … those are the most vulnerable ones when you have a virus that is extraordinarily effective in getting to people.”Fauci also welcomed Donald Trump’s endorsement of Covid-19 vaccines and boosters, saying: “We’ll take anything we can get about getting people vaccinated.”But Trump prompted rebarbative anger among supporters and amid a huge case surge, with knock-on effects feared for the economy and schools, Fauci also admitted the US had “to do better” on providing access to testing.Speaking to Axios, Fauci said it was “conceivable that sooner or later everybody will have been infected and/or vaccinated or boosted”.“When you get to that point,” he said, “unless you have a very bizarre variant come in that evades all protection – which would be unusual – then I think you could get to that point where you have this at a steady level.”But he also suggested fourth shots might yet be needed. On ABC, he was asked why “we still don’t have affordable tests widely available to anybody who needs it”.“If you look at the beginning of the [Biden] administration,” Fauci said, “… there were essentially no rapid point-of-care home tests available. Now, there are over nine of them and more coming. Production has been rapidly upscaled.“… But the situation where you have such a high demand, a conflation of events, Omicron stirring people to get appropriately concerned and wanting to get tested as well as [a] run on tests during the holiday season – we’ve obviously got to do better.“I think things will improve greatly as we get into January, but that doesn’t help us today and tomorrow. So you’re right, [access to testing] is of concern.”Another leading public health expert said he did not think the case for possible fourth vaccine shots needed to be made right now.“If we need it I think our health system is prepared,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told Fox News Sunday. “But let’s actually talk about whether we need it or not. And at this moment, based on the data I’ve seen, I’m pretty skeptical that we’re gonna need a fourth shot.“Part of the question is that we have to ask ourselves what are we trying to do? Are we trying to block every single infection? Maybe that’s our goal. If that’s our goal then yes, maybe we need a fourth shot. Or are we just trying to prevent serious illness and death? Which, of course, I think should be our primary goal.“So I’m pretty unconvinced at this moment that we need a fourth shot … let’s get a lot more data before we even really start seriously thinking about it.”Jha also said school closures – feared by many parents – should not be increasing.“We know how to keep schools open,” he said, “we know how to keep them safe. This really shouldn’t even be on the table. I’m disappointed to see this happening.“We know that for kids being in school is the right thing for them, for their mental health, for their education. And we have all sorts of tools to keep schools open so I don’t really understand why school districts are [closing schools].“… There could be times when you have such severe short staffing shortages that it may be hard to keep schools going. That really should be the only context I think at this point.”More than 816,000 have died from Covid in the US but resistance to vaccinations and other public health measures remains strongest in states and counties which voted for Trump. On ABC, Fauci was asked if he thought the former president’s supporters would listen to his support for vaccines.“Well, I certainly hope so,” he said. “We’ll take anything we can get about getting people vaccinated.”But Fauci also said he was “dismayed” when Trump followers in Dallas booed him for supporting vaccines.“I was stunned by that,” he said. “I mean, given the fact of how popular he is with that group, that they would boo him … tells me how recalcitrant they are about being told what they should do.“I think that his continuing to say that people should get vaccinated and articulating that to them, in my mind is a good thing. I hope he keeps it up.”Trump also backed vaccines in an interview with the conservative commentator Candace Owens, saying: “The vaccines work … the ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine … and if you take the vaccine, you’re protected.”Omicron: bleak New Year or beginning of the end for the pandemic?Read moreOn Instagram, Owens said Trump was backing vaccines because he was “old” and “came from a time before TV, before internet, before being able to conduct … independent research”.Last week, after Biden recognised his predecessor’s efforts to develop vaccines, Trump said he was “appreciative” . Biden also commended Trump for receiving a booster, saying it “may be one of the few things he and I agree on”.On Sunday, Vice-President Kamala Harris was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation if the unvaccinated were to blame for the Omicron surge.“I don’t think this is a moment to talk about fault,” Harris said.But she added: “It is clear that everyone has the ability to make a choice to save their lives and to prevent hospitalisation if they get vaccinated and if they get the booster. And so I urge people to do that.”TopicsCoronavirusAnthony FauciBiden administrationJoe BidenDonald TrumpOmicron variantUS politicsnewsReuse this content More