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      Sources in Russian analyst’s Trump dossier fabricated, prosecutors argue

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      Sources in Russian analyst’s Trump dossier fabricated, prosecutors argueIgor Danchenko, who played a vital role in creating the Steele dossier, has been indicted on five counts of lying to the FBI A Russian analyst who played a major role in the creation of a flawed dossier about Donald Trump fabricated one of his own sources and concealed the identity of another when interviewed by the FBI, prosecutors said Tuesday.The allegations were aired during opening statements in the trial of Igor Danchenko, who is indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI.US justice department says Trump didn’t turn over all documents – reportRead moreThe FBI interviewed Danchenko on multiple occasions in 2017 as it tried to corroborate allegations in what became known as the “Steele dossier”.That dossier, by the British spy Christopher Steele – commissioned by Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign – included allegations of contact between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials, as well as allegations that the Russians may have held compromising information over Trump in the form of videos showing him engaged in salacious sexual activity in a Moscow hotel.Specifically, prosecutors say, Danchenko lied when he said he obtained some information in an anonymous phone call from a man he believed to be Sergei Millian, a former head of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce.The prosecutor Michael Keilty told jurors in US district court in Alexandria that Danchenko had never spoken with Millian and that phone records showed he had never received an anonymous phone call at the time Danchenko claimed it occurred.Prosecutors also say Danchenko lied when he said he never “talked” with a man named Charles Dolan about the allegations contained in the dossier. Prosecutors say there is evidence that Danchenko “spoke with Mr Dolan over email” about very specific items that showed up in the dossier.The FBI needed to know that Dolan was an important source for Danchenko, Keilty said, because Dolan is a Democratic operative who has worked on the presidential campaign of every Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter, and thus would have had motivation to fabricate or embellish allegations against Trump.“Those lies mattered,” Keilty said.But Danchenko’s attorney, Danny Onorato, told jurors that his client had been completely truthful with the FBI.He pointed out that Danchenko had never said he was certain that Millian was the source of the anonymous call but that he had good reason to believe it. The government’s case required jurors to become “mind readers” to assess Danchenko’s subjective belief about the source of the phone call, Onorato said.And while phone records might not show a call, Onorato said, the government had no idea whether a call could have been placed with a mobile app rather than a traditional telephone provider. Indeed, Onorato said, it made more sense that such a call would have occurred using an internet app because so many of them conceal the source of the call, and the caller wanted to be anonymous.As for the allegations about his discussions with Dolan, Onorato said, Danchenko had answered the question truthfully because the two had not “talked” – but rather had conducted a written exchange. If the FBI had wanted to know about email exchanges, it should have asked a different question, Onorato said.“The law doesn’t let you rewrite the dictionary,” Onorato said.Keilty, in his opening, acknowledged to jurors that evidence would show the FBI made errors in conducting its investigations, but he said that shouldn’t exonerate Danchenko.“A bank robber doesn’t get a pass just because the security guard was asleep,” Keilty said.The first prosecution witness was the FBI analyst Brian Auten, who testified that information from the Steele dossier had been used to support a surveillance warrant against a Trump campaign official, Carter Page.Under questioning from Durham, Auten testified that the dossier had been used to bolster the surveillance application even though the FBI couldn’t corroborate its allegations.Auten said the FBI had checked with other government agencies to see if they had corroboration but nothing had come back. Auten and other FBI agents had even met with Steele in the United Kingdom in 2016 and offered him as much as $1m if he could supply corroboration for the allegations in the dossier, but none had been provided.Danchenko is the third person to be prosecuted by the special counsel John Durham, who was appointed to investigate the origins of “Crossfire Hurricane” – the designation given to the FBI’s 2016 investigation into Trump’s Russia connections. It is also the first of Durham’s cases that delves deeply into the origins of the dossier, which Trump derided as fake news and a political witch-hunt.TopicsFBIDonald TrumpDemocratsRussiaUS elections 2016US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden open to re-evaluating Saudi relationship after Opec+ cuts, says White House – as it happened

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      President Joe Biden will consider working with Congress to change the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia amid outrage over its support for an oil production cut that was seen as partial to Russia, a White House spokesman said.The comments from John Kirby, spokesman for the Biden administration’s national security council, largely reiterate what the president said last week, when the Opec+ bloc of oil producers, in which Saudi Arabia plays a leading role, announced they would reduce production by 2 million barrels per-day, even as countries struggle with energy prices that have spiked since Russia invaded Ukraine. Asked in an interview with CNN about calls from Democrats in Congress to cut off weapons sales and security assistance to Riyadh over the decision, Kirby said Biden was willing to discuss those proposals with lawmakers.“This is a relationship that we need to continue to re-evaluate, that we need to be willing to revisit. And certainly, in light of the Opec decision, I think that’s where he is,” Kirby said.Here’s more from the CNN interview:White House’s John Kirby says “the timeline is now” for working with Congress to re-evaluate the US-Saudi relationship. “I think [President Biden] is going to be willing to start to have those conversations right away.” pic.twitter.com/y6Hkw2TXXP— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) October 11, 2022
      The United States and Saudi Arabia are at loggerheads, after Riyadh pushed Opec+ to cut its crude output and potentially drive gas prices higher, defying Washington’s pleas for a delay. Today, the White House confirmed that president Joe Biden is willing to re-evaluate his country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, potentially upending a decades-long alliance.Here’s what else happened today:
      Tulsi Gabbard left the Democratic party. The former Hawaii congresswoman unsuccessfully stood for its presidential nomination in 2020, but has become increasingly conservative since departing Congress last year.
      Elon Musk says he did not talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin about how to end the war in Ukraine.
      The supreme court’s conservative majority rejected an appeal from a death row inmate challenging his conviction over some jurors’ opposition to interracial marriage. It also turned down an appeal from racist murderer Dylann Roof, as well as a case concerning so-called “fetal personhood”.
      Ohio’s Senate candidates faced off in a debate last night. The race is unexpectedly close, but the Democratic candidate Tim Ryan believes the party’s leadership has given up on him.
      The supreme court today declined to weigh in on the topic of so-called “fetal personhood” by turning away a challenge to a Rhode Island law codifying abortion rights, Reuters reports.Had it taken the case, the court’s conservative majority – which in June overturned Roe v Wade and allowed states to ban abortion – could have had the chance to decide the point at which fetuses are entitled to constitutional rights. Here’s more from Reuters:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in June’s ruling overturning the abortion rights precedent that in the decision the court took no position on “if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth.”
      Some Republicans at the state level have pursued what are called fetal personhood laws, like one enacted in Georgia affecting fetuses starting at around six weeks of pregnancy, that would grant fetuses before birth a variety of legal rights and protections like those of any person.
      Under such laws, termination of a pregnancy legally could be considered murder.
      Lawyers for the group Catholics for Life and the two Rhode Island women – one named Nichole Leigh Rowley and the other using the pseudonym Jane Doe – argued that the case “presents the opportunity for this court to meet that inevitable question head on” by deciding if fetuses possess due process and equal protection rights conferred by the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
      The Rhode Island Supreme Court relied on the now-reversed Roe precedent in finding that the 14th Amendment did not extend rights to fetuses. The Roe ruling had recognized that the right to personal privacy under the U.S. Constitution protected a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy.The New York Times has published a story with more details about Christina Bobb, the lawyer for Donald Trump who may be in legal trouble for signing a document saying, incorrectly, that all government material requested by the justice department from the former president had been turned over.The news of Bobb’s meeting with the justice department was reported yesterday, and added to the intrigue surrounding the government secrets the FBI found when it searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August, discoveries that contradicted the document Bobb signed months prior.Today’s story in the Times goes deeper into Bobb’s background, and her journey from the Marine Corps to the homeland security department to rightwing media and finally to Trump’s inner circle. Here’s more from their report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The former president was in the midst of an escalating clash with the Justice Department about documents he had taken with him from the White House at the end of his term. The lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, met Ms. Bobb at the president’s residence and private club in Florida and asked her to sign a statement for the department that the Trump legal team had conducted a “diligent search” of Mar-a-Lago and found only a few files that had not been returned to the government.
      Ms. Bobb, a 39-year-old lawyer juggling amorphous roles in her new job, was being asked to take a step that neither Mr. Trump nor other members of the legal team were willing to take — so she looked before leaping.
      “Wait a minute — I don’t know you,” Ms. Bobb replied to Mr. Corcoran’s request, according to a person to whom she later recounted the episode. She later complained that she did not have a full grasp of what was going on around her when she signed the document, according to two people who have heard her account.
      Ms. Bobb, who relentlessly promoted falsehoods about the 2020 election as an on-air host for the far-right One America News Network, eventually signed her name. But she insisted on adding a written caveat before giving it to a senior Justice Department official on June 3: “The above statements are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.”Trump lawyer told to certify Mar-a-Lago document search she did not conductRead moreWhether they’re watching TV or reading this blog, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has found that Americans are losing sleep over politics.According to a survey by the academy, 58% of respondents lost sleep due to worries about the political situation, with about a third of Gen Zers saying they always, almost always or often lose sleep over what they read in the news.“Politics can be a charged topic for so many people—even more so when those topics hit close to home. The 24-hour news cycle brings us endless updates on both domestic and international events, conflicts, and opinions. This can weigh heavily on us both physically and emotionally,” said Seema Khosla, chair of the AASM public awareness advisory committee. “It is important to prioritize healthy, sufficient sleep, especially with the midterm elections coming up.”For all the uncertainty over the upcoming midterms, there are a few things that can be said for sure, including this: Madison Cawthorn, a conservative firebrand who has unreservedly embraced Donald Trump, will not be returning to Congress.The North Carolina representative lost his district’s Republican primary earlier this year, after being embroiled in a number of scandals that led the House’s Republican leadership to repudiate him.Is this the last we’ll hear of the 27-year-old lawmaker? The Washington Post has published a profile exploring that question, and taking a look at Cawthorn’s apparently unproductive days in office since he lost his primary:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Madison Cawthorn left his Capitol Hill office on a recent afternoon like a man with a purpose, though what that purpose is, exactly, has been something of an unknown since he lost his congressional primary five months ago.
      “I have to get to a floor speech real quick,” the North Carolina Republican said. Cawthorn, 27, who was partially paralyzed in a car accident in 2014, pivoted in his wheelchair and rolled out to the sidewalk, crossing Independence Avenue and heading toward the Capitol.
      Inside a nearly empty House chamber, Cawthorn read a one-minute speech in which he declared that “America cannot be saved through legislation.”
      “Christ, not Congress, will be what saves this country,” he said in an emphatic baritone.
      Cawthorn left the Capitol building, stopping at the corner of Independence and New Jersey avenues, a tin of Grizzly chewing tobacco on his lap. “I gotta grab my food real quick,” he told The Washington Post before heading to another nearby corner to await a delivery driver.
      As he lingered, a solitary figure in a stream of lunchtime passersby, the congressman spat tobacco juice on the sidewalk.
      What does Madison Cawthorn do, now that his days in Washington are numbered?
      At the Capitol, it seems, he has not made much of a mark. His standing among key Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, tanked after a series of missteps, perhaps the most consequential of which was his assertion in March that an unnamed colleague had invited him to an orgy and that he had seen another partake in a “key bump of cocaine.” Republicans who wanted to attack Democrats by talking about soaring gas prices and “Bidenflation” suddenly found themselves answering questions about whether the Capitol had turned into a swinger’s club.There are several races on the ballot this fall that will have profound consequences for American democracy. In several states, Republican candidates who doubt the election 2020 election results, or in some cases actively worked to overturn them, are running for positions in which they would have tremendous influence over how votes are cast and counted. If these candidates win, there is deep concern they could use their offices to spread baseless information about election fraud and try to prevent the rightful winners of elections from being seated.Here’s a look at some of the key candidates who pose a threat to US democracy:US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead moreFurther evidence has emerged this afternoon that a significant diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the United States is opening.Semafor reports that Washington is backing out of a meeting with the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council on air and missile defenses:SCOOP: A key US-Saudi meeting under review in the White House has been CANCELED, according to the contents of a letter obtained exclusively by Semafor. 1/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      The Text of the Letter Reads:The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Gulf Cooperation Council Secretariat and hereby informs the Gulf Cooperation Council that United States officials will not be able to participate in the planned meetings 2/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      of the United States – Gulf Cooperation Council Working Group on Iran Integrated Air and Missile Defense.The point of contact is [REDACTED]The Embassy of the United States of America avails itself of this opportunity to renew the Gulf Cooperation Council of assurances of 3/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      its highest consideration.The Embassy of the United States of AmericaRiyadhOctober 7Semafor made public that there was White House discussion of ‘possibly canceling’ the US-GCC Working Group on Iran Integrated Air and Missile Defense scheduled for Oct 17 in Riyadh but 4/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      that no decision had been made. I was told by White House and Pentagon officials that this meeting ‘had not’ been canceled and that there was ‘no decision yet.’5/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      BUT THEN we saw the above letter, which shows clearly that the cancellation of the meeting was made 2 DAYS before our inquiry of the WH, Pentagon & State Department. 6/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      Meanwhile, Punchbowl News reports more senators are wondering why Washington should work with Riyadh.“I think we should look carefully at everything we’re sending. Because their inability to cooperate with the West and their willingness to cooperate with Russia is very disturbing,” said Democrat Jack Reed, who chairs the Senate armed services committee.“Why should we [send arms to Saudi Arabia]? If they don’t have any more concern for international security and the stability of the world economy, why should we be helping them?” Angus King, an independent senator who caucuses with Democrats, said. He sits on both the armed services and intelligence committees.Here’s what the White House National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, had to say earlier about reported geopolitical discussions between Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Obviously, he’s not representing the United States government in those conversations.”According to Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, Musk spoke to Putin before tweeting a proposal to end the Ukraine war.According to Musk, though, Bremmer is mistaken. Asked if Bremmer’s report was true, the SpaceX and Tesla founder said: “No, it is not. I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space.”This one may develop.Here, meanwhile, is a recent report from Helen Davidson in Taipei about how people round there view Musk’s recent pronouncements on the delicate diplomatic matter of Taiwan and China…Taiwan politicians dismiss Elon Musk’s ‘ill-informed and belittling’ China comments Read moreHere’s a tweet from Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No2 Democrat in the US Senate, on matters concerning Opec+, oil production cuts and future US relationships and geopolitical priorities:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Nopec Act passed in the judiciary committee with a bipartisan vote in May. Saudi Arabia’s collusion with Putin to fix prices will increase gas prices for Americans at a time when inflation is high. The Senate must take action against price fixing by Opec+ and pass this legislation.What is the Nopec Act, I hear you cry. Fortunately, our friends at Reuters are here to explain, including about how that characteristic congressional acronym came about:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (Nopec) bill … is intended to protect US consumers and businesses from engineered oil spikes. The bipartisan bill would tweak US antitrust law to revoke the sovereign immunity that has protected Opec+ members and their national oil companies from lawsuits. If signed into law, the US attorney general would gain the option to sue the oil cartel or its members, such as Saudi Arabia, in federal court.
      It is unclear exactly how a federal court could enforce judicial antitrust decisions against a foreign nation. The US could also face criticism for its attempts to manipulate markets by, for example, its planned release of 165 million barrels of oil from the emergency oil reserve between May and November.
      But several attempts to pass NOPEC over more than two decades have long worried Opec+’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, leading Riyadh to lobby hard every time a version of the bill has come up. Previous versions of the bill have also failed amid resistance by oil industry groups, including top US oil lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute (API).
      But anger has risen in Congress about gasoline prices that earlier this year helped fuel inflation to the highest level in decades.For more on this story: Cutting oil output risks global economy, warns US Treasury secretaryRead moreWe have a statement from Joe Biden about the breakthrough between Israel and Lebanon, about which Bethan McKernan reported the following for the Guardian earlier:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Israel and Lebanon have agreed a deal in a dispute over gas fields and the two countries’ maritime border, a groundbreaking diplomatic achievement that could boost natural gas production in the Mediterranean before the European winter.
      Yair Lapid, Israel’s prime minister, said months of US-brokered negotiations had resulted in a “historic agreement” between two nations technically at war since Israel’s creation in 1948. The deal would “strengthen Israel’s security, inject billions into Israel’s economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border”, he added.
      A statement from the office the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, said the latest version of the proposal “satisfies Lebanon, meets its demands, and preserves its rights to its natural resources”.
      The agreement is expected to enable Israeli production of natural gas from the Karish maritime reservoir … while relatively small in terms of global production, bringing Karish online is a welcome development for Israel’s western allies, as the invasion of Ukraine has sent energy prices soaring and left Europe searching for alternatives to Russian oil and gas.Here’s a taste of what Biden has to say, with perhaps the most pointed part bolded up:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I have just spoken with the Prime Minister of Israel, Yair Lapid, and the President of Lebanon, Michel Aoun, who confirmed the readiness of both governments to move forward with this agreement. I want to also thank President Emmanuel Macron of France and his government for their support in these negotiations.
      Energy – particularly in the eastern Mediterranean – should serve as the tool for cooperation, stability, security, and prosperity, not for conflict.Biden also says the deal “promotes the interests of the United States and the American people in a more stable, prosperous, and integrated Middle East region, with reduced risks of new conflicts”.Here’s Bethan’s full report:Israel and Lebanon reach ‘historic’ maritime border and gas fields dealRead moreThe United States and Saudi Arabia are at loggerheads, after Riyadh pushed Opec+ to cut its crude output and potentially drive gas prices higher, defying Washington’s pleas for a delay. Today, the White House confirmed that president Joe Biden is willing to re-evaluate his country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, potentially upending a decades-long alliance.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Tulsi Gabbard has left the Democratic party. The former Hawaii congresswoman unsuccessfully stood for its presidential nomination in 2020, but has become increasingly conservative since departing Congress last year.
      The supreme court’s conservative majority rejected an appeal from a death row inmate challenging his conviction over some jurors’ opposition to interracial marriage. It also turned down an appeal from racist murderer Dylann Roof.
      Ohio’s Senate candidates faced off in a debate last night. The race is unexpectedly close, but the Democratic candidate Tim Ryan believes the party’s leadership has given up on him.
      US officials asked Saudi Arabia to hold off on pushing the Opec+ coalition of crude producers for a cut in their output, but Riyadh refused, The Wall Street Journal reports. The story suggests that relations between Riyadh and Washington are worse than they appear, even after president Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in July to mend relations and potentially convince the country to pump more oil and, in turn, lower gas prices in the United States. The visit was criticized by many of the president’s allies, who wanted him to stick to a campaign promise to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” for its human rights abuses.According to the Journal, Saudi officials viewed the Biden administration’s request to delay the Opec+ production cut by a month as an attempt to salvage their fortunes ahead of the midterm elections, where Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress. Now, the White House is mulling ways to punish Riyadh for its decision, the Journal reports.Here’s more from their story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In one of its first responses, U.S. officials said, the Biden administration is weighing whether to withdraw from participation in Saudi Arabia’s flagship Future Investment Initiative investment forum later this month.
      U.S. officials said the OPEC+ decision was unhelpful as inflation driven by high energy prices threatens global growth and represents an economic weapon against the West for Russian President Vladimir Putin. It threatens to drive up American gasoline prices ahead of the Nov. 8 midterms.
      The one-month delay requested by Washington would have meant a production cut made in the days before the election, too late to have much effect on consumers’ wallets ahead of the vote.
      Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, rejected Saudi contentions that the Biden administration efforts were driven by political calculations.
      “It’s categorically false to connect this to U.S. elections,” she said. “It’s about the impact of this shortsighted decision to the global economy.”
      Adel al Jubeir, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, said the kingdom is committed to ensuring oil-market stability and noted that OPEC+ had increased output through much of the year. He said global economic headwinds justified the decision to cut production.
      He blamed the Washington reaction on “the emotions that have to do with the upcoming elections,” in an interview that aired on Fox News on Sunday. “The idea that Saudi Arabia would do this to harm the U.S. or to be in any way politically involved is not correct at all.”Ed Pilkington reports that some candidates running to manage their state’s elections in the 8 November midterms have openly said they will use their position to ensure Donald Trump returns to power:The head of a US coalition of election deniers standing for secretary of state positions in key battleground states has made the most explicit threat yet that they will use their powers, should they win in November, to subvert democracy and force a return of Donald Trump to the White House.Jim Marchant, who is running in the midterms as the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, has vowed publicly that he and his fellow coalition members will strive to make Trump president again. Speaking at a Make America Great Again rally in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday night, he repeated the lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump.Marchant said he had investigated what he described as the “rigged election” and had discovered “horrifying” irregularities. He provided no details – an official review of the 2020 count in Nevada, which Joe Biden won by 34,000 votes, found no evidence of mass fraud.Nevada secretary of state contender pledges to secure Trump victory in 2024Read moreStudents at the University of Florida are not pleased by the news that Republican senator Ben Sasse has been selected as the new president, and told him so during a visit to the campus yesterday, Martin Pengelly reports:Less than a week after being revealed as the likely next president of the University of Florida (UF), the Republican senator Ben Sasse was met with protests when he appeared on campus in Gainesville on Monday.“Hey-hey, ho-ho, Ben Sasse has got to go,” protesters chanted, seeking to draw attention to the Nebraskan’s views on LGBTQ+ rights.According to the UF student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, after Sasse left a student forum early, leaders of a crowd of around 300 called the senator “homophobic and racist in between yelling from the audience”. One protester called out “Get the fuck”, the crowd responding, “Out of our swamp!”Students protest Ben Sasse’s views on LGBTQ+ rights at University of FloridaRead more More

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      Tulsi Gabbard quits Democratic party, attacking ‘elitist cabal of warmongers’

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      Tulsi Gabbard quits Democratic party, attacking ‘elitist cabal of warmongers’Former Hawaii congresswoman and 2020 presidential hopeful says party is dominated by those espousing ‘cowardly wokeness’ The former congresswoman and 2020 presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has announced her departure from the Democratic party, calling it an “elitist cabal of warmongers”.US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead moreIn a video announcement posted to Twitter, she said: “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic party that is under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers who are driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism.”In 2012, Gabbard became the first Samoan-American voting member and Hindu elected to Congress, but her views have often sat uncomfortably with the Democratic party. In 2016, the then congresswoman from Hawaii announced she was leaving the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders for president.Her attitudes on foreign policy, meanwhile, have often favored authoritarian figures disavowed by the Democrats. In 2013, Gabbard was criticized for voting against a bipartisan House resolution condemning anti-Muslim violence in the state of Gujarat. The 2002 Gujarat riots left more than 1,000 dead, a majority of whom were Muslim, and were widely attributed to Indian PM Narendra Modi’s stoking of sectarian fires.Gabbard said there was “a lot of misinformation” surrounding the violence and has spoken highly of Modi. She met with him on his visit to the US and even spoke at a fundraising event for his rightwing Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in 2014.In a debate during the 2020 presidential race, Gabbard caught flak from then candidate Kamala Harris for not calling the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, a “war criminal”, after she attacked Harris on her record as a California prosecutor. A US army veteran, Gabbard secretly visited Syria in 2017 and met Assad on what she called a “fact-finding mission”. She expressed skepticism about the atrocities carried out under Assad’s leadership.The late Republican senator John McCain said Gabbard’s trip “kind of legitimizes a guy who butchered 400,000 of his own people”.Gabbard made the claims about the Democratic party during the debut of her new YouTube show The Tulsi Gabbard Show, the first episode of which was uploaded on Tuesday.In August she filled in for the far-right Fox News talkshow host Tucker Carlson.TopicsDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US midterms 2022: the key races

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      ExplainerUS midterms 2022: the key races Control of the Senate could hang on results in a handful of states while votes for governor and secretary of state could affect the conduct of future electionsArizona governor: Katie Hobbs (D) v Kari Lake (R)Hobbs is currently secretary of state in what used to be a Republican stronghold. Lake is a former TV news anchor who relishes sparring with the media and promoting Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Victory for Lake – who has appeared with figures linked to QAnon on the campaign trail – would be a major boost for the former president and ominous for 2024.US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead moreArizona secretary of state: Mark Finchem (R) v Adrian Fontes (D)Secretary of state elections have rarely made headlines in past midterms but this time they could be vital to the future of American democracy. The battle to become Arizona’s top election official pits Fontes, a lawyer and former marine, against Finchem, who falsely claims that voter fraud cost Trump the state in 2020 and who was at the US Capitol on January 6 2021.Arizona Senate: Mark Kelly (D) v Blake Masters (R)Kelly is a retired astronaut who became well known in the state when his wife, then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot and critically injured at an event in Tucson in 2011. Masters, a 36-year-old venture capitalist and associate of mega-donor Peter Thiel, gained the Republican nomination with the help of Trump’s endorsement but has since toned down his language on abortion, gun control and immigration.Florida attorney general: Aramis Ayala (D) v Ashley Moody (R)Ayala is the first Black female state attorney in Florida history. Moody, the incumbent, is a former prosecutor and judge who recently joined 10 other Republican attorneys general in a legal brief that sided with Trump over the justice department regarding the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home. Like her predecessor Pam Bondi, Moody could be a powerful ally for Trump as the state’s top law enforcement official.Georgia governor: Stacey Abrams (D) v Brian Kemp (R)Abrams, a voting rights activist, is bidding to become the first Black female governor in American history. But she lost narrowly to Kemp in 2018 and opinion polls suggest she could suffer the same fate in 2022. Kemp now enjoys the advantages of incumbency and a strong state economy. He also has momentum after brushing aside a primary challenge from Trump-backed challenger David Perdue.Georgia Senate: Herschel Walker (R) v Raphael Warnock (D)Warnock’s victory in a January 2021 runoff was critical in giving Democrats’ control of the Senate. Now the pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist church – where Martin Luther King used to preach – faces Walker, a former football star with huge name recognition but scant experience (he recently suggested that China’s polluted air has replaced American air). Polls show a tight race between the men, both of whom are African American.Ohio Senate: Tim Ryan (D) v JD Vance (R)The quintessential duel for blue-collar voters. Ryan, a Democratic congressman, has run an energetic campaign, presented himself as an earthy moderate and accused Vance of leaving the state for San Francisco to make millions of dollars in Silicon Valley. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, seen as a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding the Trump phenomenon in 2016, used to be a Trump critic but has now gone full Maga.Pennsylvania governor: Doug Mastriano (R) v Josh Shapiro (D)Mastriano, a retired army colonel and far-right state senator, led protests against pandemic restrictions, supported efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat and appearing outside the US Capitol during the January 6 riot. Critics say that, as governor, he could tip a presidential election to Trump in 2024. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, is running on a promise to defend democracy and voting rights.Pennsylvania Senate: John Fetterman (D) v Mehmet Oz (R)One of the most colourful duels on the ballot. Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, is 6ft 8in tall, recovering from a stroke that has affected his speech and hearing, and running aggressive ads that mock Oz for his lack of connections to the state. Oz, a heart surgeon and former host of the daytime TV show The Dr Oz Show, benefited from Trump’s endorsement in the primary but has since backed away from the former president’s claims of a stolen election.Wisconsin Senate: Mandela Barnes (D) v Ron Johnson (R)This is Democrats’ best chance of unseating an incumbent senator: Johnson is the only Republican running for re-election in a state that Biden won in 2020. First elected as a fiscal conservative, he has promoted bogus coronavirus treatments such as mouthwash, dismissed climate change as “bullshit” and sought to play down the January 6 insurrection. Barnes, currently lieutenant governor, is bidding to become the first Black senator in Wisconsin’s history.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsArizonaFloridaGeorgiaexplainersReuse this content More

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      Republicans oppose social spending – will it cost them in the midterms?

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      Republicans oppose social spending – will it cost them in the midterms? In Mississippi, poverty is high and water problems blight the state. But Republicans seem adamantly against spending to help their constituentsIn his four decades as mayor of Glendora, a Mississippi Delta town surrounded by creeks, fields and not much else, Johnnie B Thomas has gotten used to bad news.He’s seen the town’s main drag grow desolate as its few businesses closed down, and the sole clinic follow suit. He’s watched storms drop trees on to houses – including his own, mortally wounding his wife. He pleaded for help as the seemingly unstoppable force that was Covid infected and killed his neighbors, a younger brother among them.And time and time again, he’s turned on the taps at home to find that the water was brown and silty, or didn’t flow at all.“Any time there’s storms, pretty much, our lights around here would go out,” Thomas said. “When we have bad weather, we can count on our water system breaking down.” If the power goes off when he’s awake, Thomas will scramble to switch on a generator so the town’s water pressure doesn’t slow to a trickle. If he’s not, the mayor or one of the city’s four employees will have to go door-to-door, warning Glendora’s population of 154 to avoid drinking the water without boiling it first.Two hours south, the nearly 150,000 residents of Mississippi’s largest city and capital Jackson were given a similar warning in late July, when tests found its water wasn’t safe to drink. A month later, the taps stopped running entirely – but unlike in Glendora, the response was immediate. A state of emergency was declared and the national guard and volunteer groups deployed to hand out water to residents. By the middle of last month, water pressure had been restored and the boil water notice lifted.A network of leaky pipes fed by a treatment plant that has repeatedly broken down, Jackson’s water system is far from fixed, and it’s not clear who will pay to repair it for good. Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the country, and in Jackson, a quarter of residents live below the poverty line in neighborhoods where burned-out husks of houses and businesses are a common sight and some potholes have grown so deep traffic cones are stuffed in them to ward off drivers.Jackson’s Democratic mayor Chokwe, Antar Lumumba, estimates a cost of $1bn to solve its water issues, yet the city hasn’t had much luck getting help from the GOP-led state government, and only a tepid response from its majority Republican congressional delegation.As midterm elections loom in November, the Biden administration has touted its $1.2tn infrastructure agenda as a way of creating jobs and fixing exactly the sorts of problems that bedevil places like Glendora and Jackson. Yet Republicans – even as they ask for votes at the coming polls – have largely stood in opposition to those measures, despite the fact it is often their own constituents that could benefit.In few places are the stark contrasts between dire need and Republican intransigence as visible as Mississippi, one of the reddest states in the US.During his time as state treasurer, Tate Reeves, now the Republican governor, declined to authorize a $6m low-interest bond to pay for water repairs in Jackson after it was beset by a streak of pipe breaks, the Jackson Free Press reported.Other efforts to finance the city’s infrastructure needs have died in the Republican-controlled legislature, even though parts of the city lost water pressure for weeks last year. Lawmakers did, however, approve the state’s largest-ever tax cut this year, which will mostly benefit Mississippi’s highest earners.Reeves and Lumumba made cordial appearances together during Jackson’s most-recent water outage, but the governor changed his tone a day after the boil water notice was lifted, saying it was, “as always, a great day to not be in Jackson. I feel like I should take off my emergency management director hat and leave it in the car, and take off my public works director hat and leave it in the car.”Reeves’s office did not respond to a request for comment.In Washington, the Democratic-led Congress has spent big on infrastructure, with the approval of a massive plan to fund renovations to roads, bridges, drinking water systems and other projects nationwide last year. But only one of Mississippi’s Republican senators, Roger Wicker, and the lone Democrat in its House delegation, Bennie Thompson, voted for the bill.Wicker and the state’s other Republican in the Senate, Cindy Hyde-Smith, last month voted for a short-term federal funding measure that allocated $20m specifically for Jackson’s water needs. But their three fellow Republican members in the House said no to that bill, too, including Michael Guest, whose district includes part of Jackson but said the funds “did not address the situation on a long-term basis”.And while Guest has asked for money to repair a Jackson water treatment plant as part of this year’s congressional appropriation’s process, he has not included two other projects the city asked him to seek funding for, one of which would have replaced pumps at the treatment plant blamed for this summer’s water outage.Guest’s communications director, Rob Pillow, said lawmakers could only make 15 requests in total, “and the congressman chose to include the top-priority water infrastructure request from the city of Jackson out of the dozens of submissions received from cities and stakeholders across the district”.The NAACP civil rights group sees another motivation for Jackson’s problems: racial discrimination. Last month, it filed a formal complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency alleging that Mississippi was diverting money meant for the upkeep of Jackson’s drinking water systems to white communities.While Jackson is majority Black, many of its suburbs adjacent to the city limits – where the water was running and clean during the summer weeks when Jackson’s was not – are predominantly white. So is the state government: an African American has not been elected to a statewide office in Mississippi since the late 19th century.Among the NAACP’s claims was that Jackson had only three times in the past 25 years received a drinking water state revolving loan, one of Mississippi’s main ways of paying for infrastructure upgrades. A utility serving mostly white rural areas of an adjoining county had been awarded the funds nine times over the same period, the NAACP said.Stephanie Showalter-Otts, director of the University of Mississippi’s National Sea Grant Law Center, said there is much more money available for the drinking water state revolving loans than is being given out, even though there is probably no shortage of uses for it.A large, rural state with a spread-out population, Mississippi has more than a thousand water systems, and Showalter-Otts said some serve only a few hundred people and struggle to meet their needs. Hundreds of boil water notices were issued in the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years, the American Society of Civil Engineers found, and in the Mississippi Delta, Showalter-Otts said a study by her team found detectable levels of lead in more than two-thirds of water samples taken from homes.The state’s revolving loan fund has ended recent fiscal years with tens of millions of dollars left over, and Showalter-Otts wonders if those funds don’t represent missed opportunities for local governments dealing with spotty water systems.“The federal government is providing resources to the state to distribute to address drinking water issues in the state and that money is left on the table every year,” she said.Showalter-Otts cautioned that some municipalities may not be able to afford to repay a loan, or have the manpower to apply for one successfully. “There’s not a lot of information out there about how to apply, or guides for how to apply. Mississippi just doesn’t have those kind of resources. It feels like it’s not a priority of the state to help communities apply for those funds.”Glendora’s Mayor Thomas can sympathize. The town’s water problems have gone on for years, with little attention or success in getting help.The mayor’s solution is to build a water tower, like so many rural communities in Mississippi have done. But Thomas, in office since 1982 in a town where census data estimates more than 91% of the population lives in poverty, has never been successful in winning a grant from the state for its construction, which he estimates would cost $600,000 – nor can the town afford to borrow from the revolving loan fund.As for its residents, many say they have had too many encounters with dry taps or brown water that stains their bath tubs and clogs water filters, and rely on bottled water exclusively, even though nearest store selling it is about an hour’s round-trip drive.“Don’t nobody drink this water. People buy water,” William Willingham, 64 and unemployed, said as he sat outside one of many shuttered businesses on Glendora’s commercial strip.Located just off a rural highway, the lonely drag begins with a sign commemorating the killing of African-American fuel station attendant Clinton Melton, and ends with a museum dedicated to the lynching of Emmett Till, which residents say partially took place in the town.Beyond just keeping the taps running for days when the power goes out, a tower could help lower insurance rates for the municipality, and also alleviate the constant financial burden buying bottled water places on Glendora’s residents.Thomas’s vision for Glendora extends beyond its water system. In 2005, he turned the site of a former cotton gin into the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center, which is dedicated to the town’s place in the teenager’s murder by two white men who thought he had flirted with one of their wives. Thomas believes a disused bridge on the edge of Glendora was where Till’s body was tossed into a tributary of the Tallahatchie river – and the cotton gin fan found tied around his neck came from the building where the museum now sits.His father, Henry Lee Loggins, was even named as being made to accompany Till’s killers, but denied involvement until his death in 2009.There’s a long-running campaign to convince the federal government to create a national park where Till was killed. Thomas hopes Glendora would act as a gateway for that park, the visitors it brings, and the tour guides it would employ.“That’s what I see through the museum and the community,” Thomas said. “There’s several things to happen here, as a result of a museum, could happen, to create a sustainable community.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022MississippiRepublicansDemocratsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Kevin McCarthy claimed Trump had no idea his supporters carried out Capitol attack – as it happened

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      In the days after the January 6 insurrection, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy was ready to dump Donald Trump. “I’ve had it with this guy,” he said, and pondered whether to ask him to resign, the New York Times reported.It didn’t take long for McCarthy’s anger to subside. By the end of the month, he was with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, taking a picture together that made clear the now-former president was back on good terms with his party. While some Republicans never lost sight of the serious threat the January 6 insurrection posed to American democracy, many have since taken to downplaying the deadly attack on the Capitol, as today’s CNN report about McCarthy’s meeting with officers who fought the rioters makes clear.Perhaps it was worth it for McCarthy and his party. They are favored to pick up the few seats necessary in the upcoming midterms to win a majority in Congress’s lower chamber, putting McCarthy on track to be elected speaker.If the GOP wins the House in the upcoming midterms, they will investigate Hunter Biden and attempt to turn a blind eye towards the January 6 insurrection, according to an interview with a top lawmaker and the memoir of a police officer wounded in the insurrection. But that hasn’t happened yet, and today brought news that a key witness before the January 6 committee is cooperating with a probe into election meddling in Georgia, while a lawmaker on the panel signaled its Thursday hearing may include more details of the Secret Service’s actions around the attack.Here’s what else happened today:
      Joe Biden condemned Russia’s missile strikes across a swath of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, and said the country has Washington’s support. Later, he spoke with the country’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy about Kyiv’s need for more air defenses.
      Republican senator Tommy Tuberville resorted to racism at a rally for Donald Trump.
      In a column for the Guardian, Senator Bernie Sanders warned Democrats of the perils of campaigning on abortion rights alone.
      The White House has now released its version of president Joe Biden’s phone call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy.The readout largely matches Zelenskiy’s tweet from earlier this afternoon:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., spoke today with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. He expressed his condemnation of Russia’s missile strikes across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, and conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks. President Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems. He also underscored his ongoing engagement with allies and partners to continue imposing costs on Russia, holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance.Last week, Nebraska’s Republican senator Ben Sasse announced he would leave Congress to take over as president of the University of Florida.As documented by The Tampa Bay Times, he did not get a particularly warm reception from some students today during his visit to the campus in Gainesville:Outside Sen. Ben Sasse’s moderated forum to meet with students, hundreds have gathered protesting Sasse as the sole finalist in UF’s presidential search, citing his previous public statements on same-sex marriage and the search sealed from the public among reasons. pic.twitter.com/Uay2bQIbEf— Divya Kumar (@divyadivyadivya) October 10, 2022
      In a previous session with faculty, Sasse’s first question was regarding how he would ensure LGBTQ+ members felt protected. Sasse said he believed in the “immeasurable worth and universal dignity of every single person.”— Divya Kumar (@divyadivyadivya) October 10, 2022
      Protesters are now in the room Sasse’s forum with students was held and a forum with staff is scheduled for 3:30. pic.twitter.com/NFh998ZrHP— Divya Kumar (@divyadivyadivya) October 10, 2022
      Ben Sasse, Republican who voted to convict Trump, to depart CongressRead moreSome of the biggest revelations from the January 6 committee’s public hearings came from the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide who witnessed and overheard shocking behavior by Donald Trump and others in his administration.CNN reports she is now cooperating with the special grand jury empaneled by a county prosecutor in Georgia to investigate the effort by Trump’s allies to interfere with the state’s backing of Joe Biden in the 2020 election.Here’s more from CNN:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The former top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows could offer Georgia prosecutors insights about what she witnessed in the West Wing, as well as steps her former boss took specifically when it came to Georgia.
      Prosecutors have called for Meadows to testify before the special grand jury, but they are still working to secure his testimony. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for late October.
      Meadows was among the participants on the January 2021 call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, and Meadows also made a surprise visit to a Cobb County location in December 2020, where officials were conducting an absentee ballot signature audit.
      Hutchinson has also been cooperating with the Justice Department, which also faces a pre-election quiet period, in its criminal investigation into efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
      An attorney for Hutchinson did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he has spoken with Joe Biden after the Russian missile attacks on his country.The topics of conversation included Ukraine’s need for air defenses and today’s United Nations general assembly vote on a resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions:Productive conversation with @POTUS. Air defense is currently the number 1 priority in our defense cooperation. We also need US leadership with the G7’s tough stance and with support for our UN GA resolution.— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 10, 2022
      The White House hasn’t yet provided their own readout of the call.The same day that Moscow barraged Ukraine with missiles, Russian-speaking hackers have taken down the websites of several US airports, Gloria Oladipo reports, but flight operations do not appear to have been impacted:Websites for more than a dozen US airports were temporarily brought offline by cyberattacks on Monday morning, with Russian-speaking hackers claiming responsibility for the disruption.About 14 public-facing websites for a number of sizable airports, including LaGuardia airport in New York City, were targeted and inaccessible to the public. Most have since been brought back online.A senior official told ABC News that the attacks did not affect air traffic control, internal airport communication or other key operations. But the official said that the interruption caused an “inconvenience” for travelers attempting to access information.Cyberattacks force over a dozen US airport websites offline Read moreThe January 6 committee’s hearing on Thursday will probably center on evidence collected over the summer, including the Secret Service’s actions around the insurrection, a lawmaker on the panel said over the weekend.In a Sunday interview with MSNBC, Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat serving on the committee, also downplayed the importance of its interview with Ginni Thomas, the wife of conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas who has lobbied state lawmakers nationwide to support efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “I don’t think she was a major player in this personally,” Lofgren said.The committee hasn’t held a public hearing since late July, and Lofgren said the upcoming session will likely focus on evidence collected by investigators during the break. “I think it will shed some light on the events of the day and the events leading up to it, the connections between the extremists and the Republicans,” she said.You can watch the interview here. The January 6 committee will hold its next hearing beginning at 1pm eastern time on Thursday.Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about what Christina Bobb, a lawyer for Donald Trump involved in the Mar-a-Lago secrets case, told the justice department:Donald Trump’s lawyer Christina Bobb was instructed to certify to the justice department that all sensitive government documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort subpoenaed by a grand jury had been returned, though she had not herself conducted the search for the records.The certification of subpoena compliance appears to be at the center of a criminal investigation into obstruction of justice surrounding the former US president after the assurance was proved to be untrue when the FBI’s search of the property turned up more than 100 more documents marked classified.The saga around the Mar-a-Lago documents has become increasingly mired in the courts as Trump has repeatedly claimed the FBI search and resultant investigation is politically motivated. Meanwhile, the justice department and Democrats have portrayed the taking of the documents as a potentially serious national security breach.Trump lawyer told to certify Mar-a-Lago document search she did not conductRead moreThe Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Christina Bobb, a lawyer for Donald Trump, spoke to the justice department as it investigates the government secrets discovered at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August.Confirming NBC that Trump lawyer Christina Bobb spoke to the Justice Dept on Friday — @GuardianUS story with a different take coming shortly— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 10, 2022
      Bobb was one of two attorneys who are considered as potential witnesses or targets in the case, after the justice department alleged the Bobb and Evan Corcoran had lied about complying with a grand jury subpoena.The Guardian will soon have more on this developing story.Two Trump lawyers could be witnesses or targets in FBI investigationRead moreTop White House adviser Jake Sullivan is set to talk about the Biden administration’s national security strategy in a speech Wednesday at Georgetown University:NEW: Top Biden advisor @JakeSullivan46 will discuss the administration’s first National Security Strategy in a speech this Wed at @georgetownsfs, followed by a moderated conversation w/ @OSullivanMeghan. Follow us and co-host @CNASdc for live coverage! pic.twitter.com/YnOWyP64wL— Georgetown SFS (@georgetownsfs) October 10, 2022
      American presidents periodically release the document spelling out their security concerns and how they intend to deal with them. Biden released an interim strategy last year, but was late getting the full report out because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, The New York Times reports:Biden’s National Security Strategy is overdue. WH officials decided to rewrite a draft after Russia invaded Ukraine. They brought in @thomaswright08 to oversee that. A main idea will be bolstering “democratic resilience” in the US & abroad. Earlier story: https://t.co/6szm9K5cPh https://t.co/Lhm7C2Vu6U— Edward Wong (@ewong) October 10, 2022
      The GOP lawmakers poised to take over the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections will investigate Hunter Biden and downplay January 6, according to recent interviews and the memoir of a police officer wounded in the insurrection. While it’s a quiet day in Washington – where federal offices are shut for Columbus Day – candidates nationwide are scrambling to make their pitch to voters before the 8 November polls.Here’s what has happened today so far:
      In a column for the Guardian, Senator Bernie Sanders warned Democrats of the perils of campaigning on abortion rights alone.
      Joe Biden condemned Russia’s missile strikes across a swath of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, and said the country has Washington’s support.
      Republican senator Tommy Tuberville resorted to racism at a rally for Donald Trump.
      President Joe Biden has condemned Russia’s missile strikes on a number of Ukrainian cities today, including the capital Kyiv, and said they reinforce America’s commitment to help the country fend off Moscow’s invasion.Here’s the full statement from the White House:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The United States strongly condemns Russia’s missile strikes today across Ukraine, including in Kyiv. These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose. They once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people. We offer our condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were senselessly killed today, as well as our best wishes for the recovery of those who were wounded. These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes. Alongside our allies and partners, we will continue to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, hold Putin and Russia accountable for its atrocities and war crimes, and provide the support necessary for Ukrainian forces to defend their country and their freedom. We again call on Russia to end this unprovoked aggression immediately and remove its troops from Ukraine.The Guardian has a separate live blog with the latest on the global reaction to today’s attacks:Russia-Ukraine war live: UN chief condemns ‘unacceptable escalation’ by Russia after deadly wave of missile strikes across UkraineRead moreAnother of Donald Trump’s allies is on trial in New York over charges he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates in order to access its vast investment pool, J Oliver Conroy reports:“Trump is the man,” Thomas “Tom” Barrack, a wealthy investor friend of Donald Trump’s, wrote to someone in a foreign government, in 2016, as Trump’s likelihood of being named the Republican nominee for president began to become a certainty. Barrack added, cryptically, that someone called “HH” should be ready to travel.The meaning of those words, and the intent behind them, are at the center of the latest court case to roil Trump’s circle. Prosecutors have said that the “HH” in Barrack’s email referred to His Highness Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the current leader of the United Arab Emirates, and that Barrack was trying to secretly and illegally trade his access to Trump’s ear for the graces of the Emirati government and its vast pool of investment money.‘Trump is the man’: trial paints a White House plagued by foreign influenceRead more More

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      Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake | Bernie Sanders

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      Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistakeBernie SandersAmerica has long faced structural economic crises. Democrats must win on the economy and present a pro-worker agenda As someone who has a lifetime 100% pro-choice voting record, and is outraged by the supreme court’s horrific decision to overturn Roe v Wade, there is no question but that Democrats must continue to focus on the right of women to control their own bodies. This is a fight that most Americans want us to wage and, given the Republicans’ extremist position on the issue, makes them genuinely vulnerable.Can Latino voters help Democrats hold Arizona in crucial Senate race?Read moreBut, as we enter the final weeks of the 2022 midterm elections, I am alarmed to hear the advice that many Democratic candidates are getting from establishment consultants and directors of well-funded Super Pacs that the closing argument of Democrats should focus only on abortion. Cut the 30-second abortion ads and coast to victory.I disagree. In my view, while the abortion issue must remain on the front burner, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy and allow Republican lies and distortions to go unanswered.This country has, for decades, faced structural economic crises that have caused the decline of the American middle class. Now is the time for Democrats to take the fight to the reactionary Republican party and expose their anti-worker views on the most important issues facing ordinary Americans. That is both the right thing to do from a policy perspective and good politics.We have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the modern history of this country, with three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of our nation. Is there one Republican prepared to raise taxes on billionaires, or do they want to make a bad situation worse by extending Trump’s tax breaks for the rich and repealing the estate tax?Today, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and millions work for starvation wages. Is there one Republican in Congress who is prepared to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour?The United States pays, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Is there one Republican prepared to allow Medicare to immediately begin negotiating prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry and cut the cost of medicine by half?We have a dysfunctional healthcare system which, despite being the most expensive in the world, allows 85 million Americans to be uninsured or underinsured. Is there one Republican who believes that healthcare is a human right and supports universal coverage?We remain the only major country on earth not to guarantee time off for moms who have babies or need to take care of sick children.Is there one Republican who supports at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave?The list goes on: childcare, housing, home health care, college affordability. On every one of these enormously important issues the Republican party has virtually nothing to say to address the desperate needs of low and moderate income Americans. And what they do propose will most often make a bad situation worse.Nevertheless, in poll after poll Republicans are more trusted than Democrats to handle the economy – the issue of most importance to people. I believe that if Democrats do not fight back on economic issues and present a strong pro-worker agenda, they could well be in the minority in both the House and the Senate next year.And it’s not only the long-term structural crises that Democrats must address. It is the outrageous level of corporate greed that we now see every day that is fueling the inflation hurting so many people.While the price of gas has soared over the last year, the five big oil companies made $59bn in profits during the 2nd quarter of this year alone, and are spending $88bn on stock buybacks and dividends to benefit their wealthy shareholders.While global food prices soared by over 33% last year and are expected to go up another 23% this year, billionaires in the global food and agri-business industry became $382bn richer during the pandemic.While we continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, 3 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in America – Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and AbbVie – increased their profits by 90% last year to $54bn.While 46% of Americans either skipped or delayed the healthcare they need because they could not afford it, the six largest health insurance companies in America last year made over $60bn in profits.What do Republicans have to say about corporations that are charging Americans outrageously high prices, while enjoying record breaking profits? They talk a lot about inflation. But what are they going to do about it? Does one of them have the courage to consider a windfall, profits tax? Absolutely not.You can’t win elections unless you have the support of the working class of this country. But you’re not going to have that support unless you make it clear that you’re prepared to take on powerful special interests – and fight for the millions of Americans who are struggling economically. Whether it is extending the $300 a month child tax credit that expired in December that slashed the child poverty rate by over 40%, or increasing social security benefits, or expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision or making childcare affordable, the Democrats must stand with the working class of this country and expose the Republicans for the phonies that they are.None of what I am suggesting here is “radical”. It is, in fact, extremely popular. It is what the American people want. If we close this critical midterm campaign with a clear, unified vision to meet the needs of working families, to take on corporate greed, and protect a woman’s right to choose, we will begin to rebuild the trust between Democrats in Washington and the working families of this country.And we’ll win the election.
      Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont
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      Can Latino voters help Democrats hold Arizona in crucial Senate race?

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      Can Latino voters help Democrats hold Arizona in crucial Senate race? The economy with high inflation is a major issue for voters, but Latinos are not a monolithic bloc and shifted slightly right in 2020, a factor that could decide the race this timeIn her back pocket Ana Diaz carries a smooth grey pebble she calls her “knock knocker”. She uses it to get a loud rap on the front doors of the South Phoenix neighborhood where she is canvassing for the Democrats ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections.It’s 110F (43C) in the early afternoon sun and Diaz is aiming to knock on 80 doors in this largely Latino neighborhood and speak to at least 20 people, encouraging them to vote. Diaz, a Los Angeles-based bartender and Unite Here union member, is a familiar face to many in this working-class area. In her T-shirt that reads WORKER POWER she has been knocking on these doors since 2018.Voters are all talking about the economy. Diaz too worries about inflation, her grocery bill is so high she thinks she may have to stop buying beef. But, for her, the Democrats and good union jobs are the answer. “When we get together, we can make them change,” she said.“Donald Trump called us ‘the crazies.’ Well we kicked him out,” she said as we walked the block, chugging water and looking for shade. Not many people were in. Diaz and her colleagues will be back. “We’re not going to stop,” she said.Joe Biden narrowly won Arizona in the 2020 election, beating Trump with 49.4% of the vote to Trump’s 49.1%. As in neighboring Nevada, campaigners like Diaz who got out the Latino vote were crucial to that victory. It’s going to take every vote this time too for the Democrats to hold the state – where a crucial Senate seat is up for grabs and with it control of Congress.But Democrats enter election season with two major handicaps: the incumbent party historically loses seats in the midterms and the economy – the top issue for voters – is a mess.For the first time since 1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in a landslide, inflation is a major electoral issue. For decades the specter of inflation had seemed vanquished – hovering around 2% in the US. Now the shadow of soaring prices hangs over everything. In Phoenix the inflation rate hit an annual rate of 13% in August, a record for any US city in data going back 20 years. The national average is 8.3%.chartHistory tells us that the economy is usually the deciding factor in US elections. But whose economy? If there is one word that economists are using to describe the current state of the US economy, it is “weird”. Inflation is at a 40-year high and yet unemployment is at a 50-year low. There were more than 10m job openings in July in the US, over one and half jobs for every person currently looking for work. Interest rates are rising sharply, the once white-hot housing market looks like it could fall, loan rates are rising, and yet consumers are still spending.Phoenix maps all the contradictory signals the economy is sending. The city’s long economic boom continues. About 200 new residents have moved there every day in recent years, attracted by a lower cost of living and by businesses moving for less regulation and lower taxes. It’s not enough. The construction industry alone needs to add 265,000 qualified workers. Healthcare, financial services, all are struggling to fill vacancies.That pressure cooker environment has led to soaring rents in the city – up 46% over the year – but still lower than many other US cities. The situation is particularly hard for lower wage workers and long-term residents now competing with more moneyed migrants from nearby California and elsewhere. For many, wages are failing to keep up with the cost of living crisis as inflation pushes up the price of everything from gas and food to construction costs.“As cross currents buffet the Arizona economy, it looks different depending on the lens used to view it,” University of Arizona professor George Hammond wrote in his latest report on the state of the state. Hammond is expecting slower growth in 2022 and 2023, which could help with costs but also cost people their jobs. Over the long term, he expects Arizona’s economy will still outpace the rest of the country.Diaz believes the Democrats are best placed to navigate these strange seas. “People are like ‘I really don’t care who gets in.’ But you should. Your streets need cleaning, you have no lights, your alleys are full of trash, we have a problem with homelessness. If we don’t choose the right people to snake these changes, it’s not going to happen,” she says.In Scottsdale, Phoenix’s affluent neighbor that is rapidly being absorbed by Phoenix’s sprawl, others have different views. “Biden is a nut,” says Jim Baumann, 60, shopping in Whole Food in his orange Harley Davidson T-shirt. “He screwed this up.” The retiree’s grocery bill now averages $300 to $350 a month he says, up from $200 before inflation bit. “I didn’t like Trump’s mouth but he was better than Biden.”Like so many other issues in the US, views on the economy are fractured, filtered by political and personal views and not always in line with today’s party doctrine.Immigration is a major issue for Republicans, and one that has big economic consequences in the area. Kari Lake, the Trump-backed candidate for governor, has said the Central American migrants now entering the US “could be terrorists, they could be murderers and they are most likely hardcore criminals”. Blake Masters, running for Senate, has accused Democrats of being pro-immigration to “change the demographics of our country”. Privately some local, Republican-leaning, business leaders are embarrassed by the rhetoric and see immigration reform as essential to solving their worker shortages. At the same time Latino voters are not a monolithic bloc and shifted slightly right in 2020, a factor that could decide the race this time.Then there is abortion. Few decisions have greater economic consequences than the decision whether or not to have a child. In recent elections Republicans have paid the price for the supreme court’s decision to end the constitutional protection of abortion even in deep red states like Kansas. Last month an Arizona judge revived a highly restrictive law, that dates back to 1864, banning almost all abortions. Polls show the majority of Arizonans (Republicans and independents included) are in favor of keeping abortion legal in the state in most cases.All this complexity is exacerbated by the weirding of the economy. “Strange would be an understatement,” said Greg Ayres, president of Corbins and chief operating officer of Nox Group, construction companies that specialise in water and waste management, data centers and work for the semi conductor industry.Prices have soared for the construction industry, talent is in short supply, wages are rising and pandemic-related supply chain issues are still rippling through and causing delays. “Everything is so volatile,” he said. “Almost every project is over budget.” And yet business is good. His biggest immediate issue is finding enough people for all the projects he has on the go.The company employs 750 people at present, up from 650 before the pandemic. He wouldd like to be at 1,000 within the year. “But it’s really competitive,” Ayres said.To attract workers Corbin has upped its training programs, benefits and wages. Across the street from his office is a cavernous gym, recreation and health center with a full-time trainer on staff, added to attract and retain talent. Salaries are rising too. With overtime, Ayres said, a mid-twenties journeyman could make over $104,000 a year. The company will train up as many competent workers as it can get its hands on, he says.It’s the same story across the Valley of the Sun, said Todd Sanders, president of business lobby group the Greater Phoenix Chamber in 2009. “It’s almost like we are defying the laws of physics,” he said. The area is suffering from high inflation like the rest of the county but companies are still moving there in large numbers, he said. “By and large we are seeing an economy that is still very strong. It’s an interesting time.”For some low-wage workers buffeted by these economic riptides “interesting” doesn’t even begin to describe it.People know Jarvis Johnson in Phoenix. He went viral for his high-octane audition on reality show So You Think You Can Dance and again for his dedication to Black Friday bargain shopping. His friends describe him as a “ball of energy” and an “eternal optimist”. But when I caught up with him between jobs he seemed tired. It’s not surprising.Johnson, 32, has been working three jobs in order to support his wife and his three young children. His day starts at 3.30am at a Covid testing center, at 11am he starts his shift at a senior living center. Often he isn’t home before at 8pm. He also puts in shifts at a local gas station and is hoping to increase his hours there now that the Covid work is tapering off.All of the jobs pay better than Arizona’s minimum wage of $12,80 an hour. The testing job paid $25 an hour during the worst of the pandemic and at one point Johnson was working there 40 hours a week. But even then, his wages were barely keeping up with the cost of living.Two years ago when he moved into his apartment, he was paying $960 a month in rent. Now it’s close to $1,500. Gas prices have fallen in Arizona, as they have across the US, but are still about $4.90 a gallon, up from just over $3 a year ago. The couple have two cars and it costs $160 to fill them. Food is more expensive. His wife could go to work but daycare costs would wipe out her wages. “It’s crazy. Everything has got more expensive,” he said.“It’s hard. It’s hard right now. I’m just trying to keep my head up and not let my kids see I’m struggling,” he said. “I have to work my butt off to make it. I’m getting by but it’s still not enough.”Biden has promised a fairer, more equitable economy. His administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act which will increase taxes on the US’s largest companies and cut prescription drug prices. He’s also pouring money into solar energy and silicon chip production – both of which will benefit Arizonans. But will it be enough to persuade voters he really has a plan to steer them through this strange economic landscape?Johnson says he will vote Democrat but he doesn’t believe either party has the solution. “They can’t do nothing for me, these employers, they need to pay their people,” he says. “People are struggling.”He wants to start his own business, a hot dog food truck. “I think I’d make more money working for myself, to be honest,” he said. At the moment he has about $1,000 saved but it’s not enough and he’s worried that an incident, a broken car or worse, could wipe out his savings. “Anything can happen,” he said.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022ArizonaUS politicsUS economyInflationEconomicsJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More