Nikki Haley

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Bernie Sanders: Nikki Haley’s demand for mental tests is ageist and ‘absurd’

      by

      Bernie Sanders: Nikki Haley’s demand for mental tests is ageist and ‘absurd’Senator makes remark to CBS’s Face the Nation after Republican presidential candidate calls for tests for politicians over 75 The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s demand for mental competency tests for politicians older than 75 is “absurd” and ageist, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said.Bernie Sanders: ‘Oligarchs run Russia. But guess what? They run the US as well’Read more“We are fighting racism, we’re fighting sexism, we’re fighting homophobia, I think we should also be fighting ageism,” Sanders, 81, told CBS’s Face the Nation.Sanders has mounted two strong challenges for the Democratic presidential nomination, the first in 2016 when he was 74.Haley, 51, launched her 2024 campaign this week, calling for a “new generation” of leaders but offering few policy specifics except a call for political term limits and mental competency tests.She has aimed that talking point at Joe Biden, the 80-year-old president, but not at Donald Trump, the 76-year-old former president who remains her only declared rival for the Republican nomination.Asked on Fox News Sunday why she was a better choice for the nomination than Trump or anyone yet to declare, the former South Carolina governor said: “Why not me?”“You know, I am a wife of a combat veteran. I’m a mother of two children.”Haley said those children were struggling with the cost of buying a home and with the challenge of “woke education”, while her Indian immigrant parents were “upset by what’s happening at the border”.Claiming she had “never worked in DC”, the former ambassador to the United Nations who was part of Trump’s White House cabinet and met with the president in the Oval Office, said it was “time that we start putting a fire on what’s happening in Congress”.Repeating her call for term limits and “mental competency tests for people over the age of 75”, she said: “And what I do strongly believe is the American people need options. I don’t think you have to be 80 years old to be in Washington DC.”Sanders told CBS: “I think that’s absurd. We are fighting racism, we’re fighting sexism, we’re fighting homophobia, I think we should also be fighting ageism.Bernie Sanders on going viral: ‘There I was with my mittens on the moon, at the Last Supper, on the Titanic’Read more“Trust people, look at people and say, ‘You know, this person is competent, this person is not competent.’ There are a lot of 40-year-olds out there who ain’t particularly competent. Older people, you know, you look at the individual, I don’t think you make a blanket statement.”Sanders also discussed age, and its relevance for serving politicians, in an interview with the Guardian published on Sunday.Speaking to promote his new book, It’s OK to be Angry About Capitalism, he said he expected Biden to run for re-election in 2024, when the president will be 82, and vowed to support that effort.“Age is always a factor,” Sanders said. “But there are a thousand factors. Some people who are 80 or more have more energy than people who are 30.“… There are a lot of elderly people with a whole lot of experience who are very capable of doing great work.”TopicsBernie SandersNikki HaleyUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 213 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      US officials say all debris from suspected Chinese spy balloon has been collected – as it happened

      by

      Ron DeSantis has recently gained a reputation as the GOP’s best hope to keep Donald Trump from the top of the ticket in 2024.The governor reinvigorated the culture wars in Florida, including by taking on Disney World, cracking down on shaky claims of election fraud and going after the state’s higher education institutions for being too “woke”.But that doesn’t mean Republicans won’t have other candidates to choose from. Trump’s former UN ambassador Nikki Haley formally launched her presidential campaign this week, and his ex-vice-president Mike Pence is waiting in the wings, along with a host of others. That all could be good news for the former president; a recent poll showed it would be DeSantis’s support – not Trump’s – that would suffer in a contested primary.Sarah Palin, the one-time candidate for vice-president whose hokey, vapid brand of conservatism is seen as a prototype for Trump’s iconic style, thinks DeSantis should hold off. “He should stay governor for a bit longer. He’s young, you know. He has decades ahead of him where he can be our president,” she said this week. That’s the opposite of the advice she gave herself in 2009, when she resigned as Alaska’s governor before completing her term.We still don’t have all the answers about the recent spate of UFO shootdowns, but the US military announced it had recovered all of the Chinese spy balloon destroyed off South Carolina’s coast. As for the three other mysterious objects American warplanes downed over the US and Canada, there’s a compelling theory that one was a hobbyist’s balloon launched from Illinois. Speaking of the midwestern state, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, will head there next week to address a police union – just the type of thing a state politician with national aspirations would do.Here’s what else happened today:
      The justice department searched the offices of a group connected to Mike Pence, but found no new classified documents.
      Joe Biden spoke out in support of John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator who checked himself into a hospital for treatment of clinical depression.
      Georgia’s Republican secretary of state is claiming vindication after a special grand jury unanimously found there was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.
      Fox News’ biggest names never believed Donald Trump’s election fraud claims but parroted them anyway, newly released court filings show. This story has raised plenty of eyebrows – except for readers of the Wall Street Journal, a publication that shares ownership with the network and has yet to cover it.
      On the new Index of Impunity, the US’s ranking is not particularly enviable.
      With Roe v Wade overturned, the religious right is now pushing legislation in Republican-led states that would crack down on everything from drag queen performances to the sale of romance novels, Hallie Lieberman reports:A wave of proposed legislation pushed by Republicans across the US at the state level is aimed at outlawing aspects of sexuality that could have a huge impact on Americans’ private lives and businesses.Opponents of the laws before legislatures in various states say the planned new legislation could spawn prosecution of breast-pump companies in Texas for nipples on advertising, or a bookstore might be banned from selling romance novels in West Virginia, or South Carolina could imprison standup comics if a risque joke is heard by a young person.The bills are part of a post-Roe nationwide strategy by the religious wing of the Republican party, now that federal abortion rights have fallen. They range from banning all businesses that sell sex-related goods to anti-drag queen bills. Tyler Dees, an Arkansas state senator who wrote an anti-porn bill, said: “I would love to outlaw it all,” referring to porn.The most prevalent bills relate to age verification of sex-related websites. Seventeen states drafted porn age-verification bills, many inspired by Louisiana’s law that went into effect in January. Louisiana’s law requires websites featuring one-third or more pornographic content to check government-issued ID to verify users are 18 or older. Websites that don’t comply face civil penalties. Parents can sue a site if their kids access it. Republicans take aim at risque jokes and romance novels with anti-sex billsRead moreJoe Biden spoke out in support of Senator John Fetterman’s decision to seek hospital treatment for depression:John, Gisele – Jill and I are thinking about your family today.Millions of people struggle with depression every day, often in private.Getting the care you need is brave and important. We’re grateful to you for leading by example. https://t.co/V3rGZSKrM4— President Biden (@POTUS) February 17, 2023
      The White House press secretary also talked about the Democratic lawmaker’s decision in her briefing today:01:23Vice-president Kamala Harris along with a host of Democratic and Republican lawmakers are at the annual Munich security conference, where they heard a speech from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Here’s what he had to say, from the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour:The west needs to hurry up its support for Ukraine as Vladimir Putin will gain a military advantage unless arms deliveries and further sanctions arrive soon, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address to world leaders at a security conference in Munich in the face of mounting fears that Russia is planning a new offensive.“We need to hurry up. We need speed – speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery … speed of decisions to limit Russian potential,” the Ukrainian president said. “There is no alternative to speed because it is speed that life depends on.”He added: “Delay has always been and still is a mistake.”His address came just days before the anniversary on 24 February of Moscow sending its forces into the country and unleashing the biggest war in Europe since the 1940s.Zelenskiy warned that Russia was trying to mount an offensive, mainly in the south, partly by attacking civilian and energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, he said, neighbouring Belarus would make a mistake of historic proportions if it joined in the Russian offensive, and claimed surveys showed 80% of the country did not wish to join the war.Trying to sound an optimistic note and taking up the theme of the conference, “David on the Dnipro”, Zelenskiy said his country had the courage to defeat Goliath with a slingshot. But for this to succeed, he said, the slingshot had to become stronger and faster. “Goliath has already started to lose. Goliath will definitely fall this year,” he said. Zelenskiy urges west to speed up arms support to head off Russia offensiveRead moreDonald Trump tried to call into Fox News as the January 6 insurrection was occurring, but network executives turned him down, fearing he could make the situation worse, CNN reports.The new details come from the documents containing communications between top Fox News personalities and officials that were made public yesterday as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the network:Buried in the Dominion filing: Donald Trump dialed into Lou Dobbs’ show on 1/6 trying to get on air but Fox would not let him. 1/6 committee didn’t know Trump had made this call, according to a source familiar with the panel’s work. pic.twitter.com/vGWl4Lbn5Y— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) February 17, 2023
      The justice department searched the offices of a conservative group connected to former vice-president Mike Pence as part of its investigation into his possession of classified documents, but found no additional items, Politico reports:JUST IN: Pence spokesman says”[DOJ] today completed a thorough and unrestricted search of Advancing American Freedom’s office for several hours and found no new documents with classified markings. One binder with approximately three previously redacted documents was taken.”— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 17, 2023
      A person familiar with the search says the binder is believed to be related to Pence’s 2020 debate prep. Pence had attorneys present throughout the search.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 17, 2023
      The presence of classified documents at Pence’s Indiana home was first revealed last month, and the Republican former vice-president said he would cooperate with government efforts to retrieve any material in his possession. Unlike with the cases involving Joe Biden and Donald Trump – both of whom were discovered to be in possession of secret government material, though in vastly different circumstances – the justice department has not appointed a special counsel to handle the investigation into Pence.Joe Biden’s former executive assistant will sit for an interview with House Republicans investigating the president’s possession of classified documents, CNN reports.Kathy Chung was a staffer who in 2017 helped pack up Biden’s belongings at the end of his eight years as vice-president. Classified material dating to that stint in the White House, and to his time as senator, were among those found in his possession, sparking investigations by the justice department as well as the GOP-led House oversight committee, which will interview Chung.Here’s more from CNN’s report:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Chung was one of the staffers who packed Biden’s belongings and documents at the end of his time as vice president, according to people familiar with the matter.
      Those boxes eventually ended up at the Penn Biden Center and are now at the center of a special counsel investigation into the possible mishandling of classified info. A source close to Chung says she feels partly responsible for the situation.
      Chung’s lawyer, Bill Taylor, told CNN … they have been in discussions with the Oversight Committee over the past week and have agreed to provide the committee with much of what it requested in a letter last month.
      “She is happy to sit for an interview with the committee,” Taylor told CNN.
      The committee made a broad request that asks for materials well beyond the Biden document investigation including all communications with the Biden family dating back to 2009. The panel also demanded all documents and communications “related to then-Vice President Biden’s departure from office in 2017, including communications regarding Penn Biden Center,” the letter notes.
      Chung’s lawyer says there are limits on what they are willing to provide: “She is not agreeing to produce everything in the letter but would provide documents related to the movement of documents from the White House to the Penn Biden Center.”
      Taylor has proposed several dates for a possible interview, but the final date has not been set.More from Kamala Harris’s NBC interview, on her response to moves by Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, targeting the teaching of African American history.DeSantis, 44, is widely expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination and is the only close challenger to Donald Trump in polling.Harris is the first woman, the first Black American and the first South Asian American to be vice-president.She said: “Any push to censor America’s teachers and tell them what they should be teaching in the best interest of our children … is, I think, wrongheaded.“The people who know our children, are their parents and their teachers … and it should not be some politician saying what should be taught in our classrooms.”Dismissing Washington “chatter” about whether Joe Biden should run for re-election in 2024 and whether her own party thinks she would be a suitable replacement if he does not, Kamala Harris said the president “has said he intends to run for re-election … and I intend to run with him as vice-president of the United States”.Harris was speaking to NBC News at the Munich security conference.Biden has not formally declared a run but all signs suggest that he will. On Thursday, the White House physician pronounced him “fit for duty, and [to] fully execute all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations”.Also on Thursday, however, Politico reported concern among Democrats that at 80, and already the oldest president ever, Biden is too old to run for a second term, by the end of which he would be 86.The site also reported that insiders believe Harris would not be a good presidential candidate herself.Speaking to NBC, Harris said: “I think that it is very important to focus on the needs of the American people and not political chatter out of Washington DC.”She was also asked about Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador now running for the Republican presidential nomination, who has called for a “new generation” of leaders and said politicians over the age of 75 should be subject to mandatory mental health tests.Haley’s only declared opponent for the Republican nomination, former president Donald Trump, is younger than Biden but only by four years. Haley has not said that Trump is too old.Harris, 58, said Haley was using “very coded language”, adding: “What I know from traveling our country is that the American people want leaders who will see what’s going on in their lives and create solution.“In Joe Biden, we have a president who is probably one of the boldest and strongest American presidents we have had in his response to the needs of the American people.”The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told a New Hampshire audience a controversial “don’t say gay” education law signed by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, does not go “far enough”.“Basically what it said was you shouldn’t be able to talk about gender before third grade,” Haley said. “I’m sorry. I don’t think that goes far enough.”DeSantis’s law bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity through third grade, in which children are eight or nine years old. The law has proved hugely controversial, stoking confrontation with progressives but also corporations key to the Florida economy, Disney prominent among them.Some pediatric psychologists say the law could harm the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth already more likely to face bullying and attempt suicide than other children.Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, this week became the second declared major candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024, after Donald Trump.Widely expected to run, DeSantis is the only candidate who challenges Trump in polling. Surveys have shown Haley in third place, with the potential to split the anti-Trump vote and hand the nomination to the former president.New Hampshire will stage the first primary of the Republican race. In Exeter on Thursday, Haley said: “There was all this talk about the Florida bill – the ‘don’t say gay bill’. Basically what it said was you shouldn’t be able to talk about gender before third grade. I’m sorry. I don’t think that goes far enough.“When I was in school you didn’t have sex ed until seventh grade. And even then, your parents had to sign whether you could take the class. That’s a decision for parents to make.”As reported by Fox News, Haley also said Republicans should “focus on new generational leadership” by putting “a badass woman in the White House”.Full story…Nikki Haley says Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ law does not go ‘far enough’Read moreIn California, the Guardian’s Kira Lerner reports lawmakers are considering a proposal that would allow citizens to vote while incarcerated for felonies in state and federal prisons. Advocates for the measure see it as crucial for racial justice, since the state’s prison population is disproportionately non-white:Before having his sentence commuted by Governor Gavin Newsom last year, Thanh Tran served 10 and a half years in prisons and jails across California, a time he described as the “most traumatizing and dehumanizing experience of my life”.Had he been able to vote during that time, he said he would have maintained some hope that his community still cared about him.“The focus of incarceration right now in California is about punishment, but if I had the ability to vote, it would still create that tie to the community,” said Tran, now a policy associate with the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. It would be like the community saying, “Thanh, we still care about you out here,” he said. “We know your sentence will one day end and we want you to return home and be a good neighbor to us.”Could California be the latest state to restore voting rights to felons?Read moreWe still don’t have all the answers about the recent spate of UFO shootdowns, but the US military announced it had recovered all of the Chinese spy balloon destroyed off South Carolina’s coast. As for the three other mysterious objects American warplanes downed over the US and Canada, there’s a compelling theory that one was a hobbyist’s balloon launched from Illinois. Speaking of the midwestern state, Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis will head there next week to address a police union – just the type of thing a state politician with national aspirations would do.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Georgia’s Republican secretary of state is claiming vindication after a special grand jury unanimously found there was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.
      Fox News’s biggest names never believed Donald Trump’s election fraud claims but parroted them anyway, newly released court filings show. This story has raised plenty of eyebrows – except for readers of the Wall Street Journal, a publication that shares ownership with the network and has yet to cover it.
      On the new Index of Impunity, the United States’s ranking is not particularly enviable.
      But what of the unidentified objects the US military shot down in the days after it destroyed the Chinese spy balloon? There’s still no official explanation of what those were, but the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports on the convincing evidence that one may have been a hobbyist’s balloon launched from Illinois:A group of amateur balloon enthusiasts in Illinois might have solved the mystery of one of the unknown flying objects shot down by the US military last week, a saga that had captivated the nation.The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade says one of its hobby craft went “missing in action” over Alaska on 11 February, the same day a US F-22 jet downed an unidentified airborne entity not far away above Canada’s Yukon territory.In a blogpost, the group did not link the two events. But the trajectory of the pico balloon before its last recorded electronic check-in at 12.48am that day suggests a connection – as well as a fiery demise at the hands of a sidewinder missile on the 124th day of its journey, three days before it was set to complete its seventh circumnavigation.If that is what happened, it would mean the US military expended a missile costing $439,000 to fell an innocuous hobby balloon worth about $12.Object downed by US missile may have been amateur hobbyists’ $12 balloonRead moreThe Chinese spy balloon has generated plenty of partisan furor in Washington, but there’s more evidence that Beijing has deployed similar craft for surveillance in the past.The Wall Street Journal reports that during Donald Trump’s administration, a small group of Pentagon officials tracked strange objects that are now thought to have been balloons over US airspace – but their observations never made their way to the White House.Here’s more from the report:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Now it appears some intelligence officials at the Pentagon were aware of the incidents and harbored concerns that they were related to China, believing Beijing was using them to test radar-jamming systems over sensitive U.S. military sites. The data collected about the Trump-era incidents was limited to a basic assessment and therefore wasn’t shared more broadly within the government at the time.
      Pentagon intelligence analysts reached their assessment about the objects in the summer of 2020, the former officials said.
      The assessment “never got to be assertive” in concluding that the objects were linked to Chinese surveillance, said one of the officials familiar with the issue.The Journal’s article notes that Mark Esper, the defense secretary from 2019 to 2020, never heard about these objects, which were smaller and made shorter flights over navy installations in Guam, California and Virginia.Republicans seized on the Chinese’s balloon’s flyover this month to argue the Biden administration wasn’t taking the threat from Beijing seriously, but the White House countered that three objects went undetected over US airspace while Trump was in office, and one earlier in Biden’s presidency. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Nikki Haley says Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ law does not go ‘far enough’

      by

      Nikki Haley says Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ law does not go ‘far enough’Republican presidential candidate makes comments in New Hampshire on controversial law signed by governor Ron DeSantis02:41Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told a New Hampshire audience the controversial “don’t say gay” education law signed by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, does not go “far enough”.DeSantis wins new power over Disney World in ‘don’t say gay’ culture warRead more“Basically what it said was you shouldn’t be able to talk about gender before third grade,” Haley said. “I’m sorry. I don’t think that goes far enough.”DeSantis’s law bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity through third grade, in which children are eight or nine years old. The law has proved hugely controversial, stoking confrontation with progressives but also corporations key to the Florida economy, Disney prominent among them.Some pediatric psychologists say the law could harm the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth already more likely to face bullying and attempt suicide than other children.Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, this week became the second declared major candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024, after Donald Trump.Widely expected to run, DeSantis is the only candidate who challenges Trump in polling. Surveys have shown Haley in third place, with the potential to split the anti-Trump vote and hand the nomination to the former president.New Hampshire will stage the first primary of the Republican race. In Exeter on Thursday, Haley said: “There was all this talk about the Florida bill – the ‘don’t Say gay bill’. Basically what it said was you shouldn’t be able to talk about gender before third grade. I’m sorry. I don’t think that goes far enough.“When I was in school you didn’t have sex ed until seventh grade. And even then, your parents had to sign whether you could take the class. That’s a decision for parents to make.”As reported by Fox News, Haley also said Republicans should “focus on new generational leadership” by putting “a badass woman in the White House”.Speaking to Fox News, Haley was asked about DeSantis and the “don’t say gay” law and she doubled down on her comments.She said: “I think Ron’s been a good governor. I just think that third grade’s too young. We should not be talking to kids in elementary school about gender, period.Nikki Haley: video shows Republican candidate saying US states can secedeRead more“And if you are going to talk to kids about it, you need to get the parents’ permission to do that. That is something between a parent and a child. That is not something that schools need to be teaching. Schools need to be teaching reading and math and science. They don’t need to be teaching whether they think you’re a boy or a girl.”Haley also claimed to be focused not on Republican rivals but on “running against Joe Biden”, adding: “I’m not kicking sideways. I’m kicking forward.”Haley, 51, has also attracted attention by controversially proposing mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75.She said: “This is not hard. Just like we go and we turn over our tax returns … why can’t you turn over a mental competency test right when you run for office? Why can’t we have that?”Biden is 80. Trump is 76.TopicsNikki HaleyUS politicsRepublicansRon DeSantisFloridaNew HampshireLGBTQ+ rightsnewsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Nikki Haley calls for ‘new generation’ of leaders in presidential campaign launch

      by

      Nikki Haley calls for ‘new generation’ of leaders in presidential campaign launchHaley, 51, cast herself as an agent of change who could transform a nation inflicted with ‘doubt, division and self-destruction’ Republican Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and a UN ambassador under Donald Trump, formally launched her campaign for president on Wednesday, calling on Americans to reject the “stale ideas and faded names of the past” and to instead put their faith in a “new generation” of political leaders.Appearing publicly for the first time since declaring her candidacy, Haley, 51, cast herself as an agent of generational change who could transform a nation gripped by “doubt, division and self-destruction”.Nikki Haley: video shows Republican candidate saying US states can secedeRead moreSpeaking in Charleston, amid chants of “Nikki”, Haley sketched a vision for a country that was “strong and proud, not weak and woke” as she sought to capitalize on her experience pursuing Trump’s “America first” agenda on the world stage.“America is not past our prime. It’s just that our politicians are past theirs,” Haley said, in one of several references to the age of the nation’s leading politicians. She vowed term limits for members of Congress and “mental competency tests” for politicians over the age of 75, a population that includes both Joe Biden, who is 80, and Trump, who is 76.Haley leaned heavily on her biography as the “proud daughter of Indian immigrants” raised in a small South Carolina town. As a “brown girl growing up in a black and white world,” she forcefully denounced the notion that America was “flawed, rotten and full of hate”.“Take it from me, America is not a racist country,” she said, blaming Biden and vice president Harris for promoting a culture of “self-loathing” that she warned was a “virus more dangerous than any pandemic”.Winning the presidency would also require Americans to do something they’ve never done, she said: “Sending a tough-as nails-woman to the White House.”Even as Haley emphasized her boundary-breaking political career as the first governor of South Carolina who was neither white nor male and the first Indian American member of a presidential cabinet, she attempted to downplay the role of identity politics – a topic Republicans often try to weaponize against Democrats.“This is not about identity politics,” she said. “I don’t believe in that. And I don’t believe in glass ceilings, either.”Before Haley’s launch event, she earned the endorsement of South Carolina congressman Ralph Norman, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus whose candidacy Trump backed in 2022.Speaking in Charleston, Norman hailed the former governor as a defender of “true conservative values” unafraid to take on leaders in both parties.“Nikki and I are Republicans,” he said. “But folks let me tell you something: we are conservatives first.”The invocation was delivered by John Hagee, an evangelical pastor and stalwart ally of Trump who been denounced as homophobic, Islamophobic and antisemitic.Democrats, meanwhile, sought to tie Haley to Trump and his “Maga extremism”. Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, who is from South Carolina, said Haley’s conservative record and allegiance to Trump should alarm voters.“If she says that she wants to do for the nation what she did for South Carolina,” he told reporters on Tuesday, “God bless us all.”But before Haley has a chance at possibly taking on the president, she will have to successfully dethrone Trump, her one-time boss, whose entrenched support poses a threat to any Republican challenger.Haley had initially pledged not to run against Trump if he was a candidate. But she recently let Trump know that she had changed her mind and, in a sign he may benefit from a splintered field, he welcomed her to the race.With her entrance into the race, Haley became the first prominent Republican to challenge the former president, but the field is expected to widen considerably.Florida governor Ron DeSantis is widely expected to run for president, as well as several other former Trump administration officials, including vice-president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo. Former Maryland governor and vocal Trump critic Larry Hogan has also indicated interest while South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has also been mentioned as a possible contender.In the end, Haley may not even be the only Republican politician from South Carolina to run – Senator Tim Scott is also reportedly weighing a White House bid.Attempting to set herself apart, Haley leaned into her experience as UN ambassador on Wednesday, positioning herself as a champion of American strength on the global stage.She was introduced by the mother of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died in 2017 shortly after being freed from captivity in North Korea. In her remarks, Cindy Warmbier, praised Haley’s persistence as UN ambassador to ensure his release. “We need Nikki Haley fighting for all our children the way she fought for Otto,” she said.Haley continued this theme in her speech. “The dictators, murderers and thieves at the UN didn’t know what hit ’em,” she said, vowing to stand with America’s allies from “Israel to Ukraine”.Amid frequent downings of aerial objects in recent weeks, including a suspected Chinese spy balloon that was downed off the South Carolina coast, Haley condemned China and the administration’s approach to challenging the global superpower.“It is unthinkable that Americans would look at the sky and see a Chinese spy balloon looking back at us,” she said, vowing that under her leadership “communist China will end up on the ash heap of history”.Early polling of the notional Republican primary field suggests she has a long way to climb. She draws the support of less than 4% of Republican primary voters, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average, well behind Trump, DeSantis and even Pence.But Haley’s supporters pointed to her record of come-from-behind victories that saw her take down a 30-year-incumbent to win a seat in the South Carolina state legislature and later defy the odds to become governor.“When you underestimate Nikki Haley, you’re making a mistake,” Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the Republican party, told the crowd.In her remarks, Haley embraced the role of underdog. She noted that Republicans had lost the popular vote in seven of the previous eight presidential elections, declaring it time to elect new conservative messengers. “Our cause is right but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans,” she said.And to her rivals, Haley said her message was simple: “May the best woman win.”TopicsNikki HaleyUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Nikki Haley must walk a fine line in bid to be next Republican president

      by

      Nikki Haley must walk a fine line in bid to be next Republican president Former South Carolina governor and daughter of Indian immigrants aims to be standard bearer of party fired by race and gender fights while not alienating Trump supportersAs the Republican governor of South Carolina in 2015, Nikki Haley stood shoulder to shoulder with political leaders from across the state to call for the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. Days before, an avowed white supremacist who posed with the flag in photographs massacred nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston.As her state – and the nation – reeled from the heinous act, Haley argued that the flag embraced by many southerners as a symbol of “noble” traditions was for too many others “a deeply offensive symbol of a brutally oppressive past”.Nikki Haley to seek Republican nomination for 2024 presidential electionRead moreIt was a defining moment for the governor, one that earned her national attention and cemented her status as a Republican rising star. On Tuesday, Haley, 51, officially entered the race for president, becoming the first and so far only major Republican challenger to former president Donald Trump.In an announcement video, Haley sought to capture some of that early optimism about her political future. “It’s time for a new generation of leadership,” she says.The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley was born in the small town of Bamberg, South Carolina, and raised in the Sikh faith. “Not Black, not white, I was different,” says Haley, who later converted to Christianity.From a young age, Haley was involved with her family’s clothing business, and began helping with the book-keeping at age 13. She began her political career in the state legislature as a small-government disciple who would eventually attract the support of the Tea Party movement. In 2010, she made history when she became the first governor of South Carolina who was neither white nor male. Four years later, she won re-election.Making the case for her candidacy, Haley argued that she has excelled in the gauntlet of South Carolina politics. In a Fox News interview earlier this year, she bragged that she had “never lost a race”.Haley is staunchly conservative. As governor, she refused to expand Medicaid and signed into law a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy that did not include exceptions for rape or incest. She also expanded concealed carry laws, despite calls for gun reform in the wake of the Charleston murders.On her campaign website, Haley touts her role in pushing Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal as well as her support for his decision to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.Haley faced backlash and accusations of hypocrisy in 2019, four years after she ordered the Confederate flag to be taken down, for telling the conservative podcast host Glenn Beck that the Confederate battle flag represented “service and sacrifice and heritage” before it was “hijacked” by Dylann Roof, the Charleston gunman. In an op-ed, Haley argued that her views hadn’t changed and blamed the “outrage culture” for stoking the response.The episode underscored the fine line Haley is attempting to walk as she charges into a competition already shaped by cultural fights over race and gender.Though Haley has spoken about the discrimination she and her family faced as an immigrant family in the south, she rejects the notion that systemic racism exists in the US.“Some look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles are bad,” she says, as her announcement video shows imagery of racial justice protesters and news clips about the 1619 project. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”As she navigates the nascent Republican field, Haley is also contending with her past statements about the former president and her chief primary rival.During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Haley strongly opposed Trump’s presidency, backing the Florida senator Marco Rubio instead. Tapped to deliver the Republican response to Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address, she urged Americans to resist the “siren call of the angriest voices”, which many interpreted as an oblique criticism of Trump. (She later insisted that it was not.)Yet Haley quickly overcame what she would describe as her initial “reservations” about Trump and endorsed him as the party’s nominee.In 2017, she joined the Trump administration as ambassador to the United Nations. During her two-year tenure, she championed Trump’s isolationist foreign policy on the world stage. She notably led the effort to withdraw the US from the UN human rights council, calling it a “protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias”.She also announced sanctions on Russia, drawing criticism from White House aides who said she had gotten ahead of the administration. Top economic adviser Larry Kudlow suggested that Haley had “momentary confusion” over the administration’s actions, to which she replied: “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”With All Due Respect became the title of her memoir, released after leaving the administration in 2018. Despite her unexpected departure, Haley is one of the rare officials to depart Trump’s administration on relatively good terms with the president.Since then she has treaded carefully with her former boss, praising Trump’s record while offering some criticism that could help her appeal to more moderate conservative voters. “We should embrace the successes of the Trump presidency and recognize the need to attract more support,” she wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last year.In the wake of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Haley condemned Trump’s actions and said he would be “judged harshly by history”. But then she worked to return to his good graces and opposed his impeachment over his role in the Capitol assault.Haley previously pledged she would not run if Trump was a candidate. But Trump said recently that Haley informed him that she was considering running and he encouraged her to do it.His eagerness may reflect polling that shows Trump’s odds of winning the nomination rise in a splintered field of more Republican candidates. Nearly a year before primary voting begins, most early polls show Haley drawing between 1% and 3%, far behind Trump and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. Though much could change, her standing has prompted some speculation that she may be auditioning for another role, perhaps as a running mate to the Republican nominee.South Carolina has traditionally played an early and decisive role in choosing the parties’ presidential nominees – and this year loyalties among the state’s prominent Republicans are divided.As governor, Haley appointed Tim Scott to replace the retiring South Carolina senator Jim DeMint in 2013. Scott, the Senate’s only current Black Republican, won a special election a year later and is now weighing a presidential bid of his own.The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who praised Haley as a compassionate changemaker in an entry naming her one of Time’s 100 most influential people in 2016, has already thrown his weight behind Trump.But Haley exuded confidence in her announcement video on Tuesday, declaring that she was prepared to take on the US’s foreign adversaries – and perhaps her own political ones as well.“They all think we can be bullied, kicked around,” Haley says in the video. “You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”TopicsNikki HaleyRepublicansUS elections 2024US politicsprofilesReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Nikki Haley: video shows presidential candidate saying states can secede

      by

      Nikki Haley: video shows presidential candidate saying states can secedeClip released on day of Republican’s announcement that she will challenge Donald Trump for nomination03:32Shortly after Nikki Haley announced her campaign for president on Tuesday, footage was released showing the Republican former South Carolina governor saying states have the right to secede from the union.Nikki Haley to seek Republican nomination for 2024 presidential electionRead more“I think that they do,” Haley said in the footage, which Patriot Takes, an anonymously run social media account and fundraising Pac which claims to “monitor and expos[e] rightwing extremism and other threats to democracy”, said came from 2010 and featured an unnamed neo-Confederate group.“I mean, the constitution says that.”Haley also said she did not think South Carolina should secede.Haley’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor and political scientist at Georgia State University, said on Twitter: “No, Nikki Haley, the constitution does not provide a right for secession. See, Texas v White (1869). See also, the civil war.”In December 1860, South Carolina was the first of 11 southern states to secede over the issue of slavery, prompting civil war. Four bloody years of fighting led to the defeat of those Confederate states.Four years later, Texas v White, a supreme court case, held that states entering the union became part of “an indissoluble relation … as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original states. There [is] no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the states”.In 2010, presidential candidate Nikki Haley told a pro-Confederate group that states have a right to secede.Interviewer: “Do you believe the states of the United States have the right to secede from the Union?”Haley: “I think that they do. I mean, the Constitution says that.” pic.twitter.com/QwJNdhZpDV— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) February 14, 2023
      Haley, who is Indian American, ran for governor in South Carolina in 2010 and won a second term in 2014. She came to national prominence in 2015, in the aftermath of a racist mass murder in Charleston, when she ordered a Confederate flag removed from statehouse grounds. The same year, however, she said a statehouse celebration of the anniversary of secession should be allowed to proceed.Four years later, she provoked controversy when she said the Confederate battle flag had represented “service and sacrifice and heritage” before it was “hijacked” by Dylann Roof, the racist gunman who killed nine people at a historic Black church in 2015.Haley opposed Donald Trump’s run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but after he won the White House she resigned as governor to become his United Nations ambassador. She resigned from that post in 2018.Haley originally said she would not challenge Trump for the nomination if he ran in 2024. He did and she changed her mind, announcing her 2024 campaign on Tuesday, ahead of a Wednesday launch in Charleston.Haley does not score highly in polling but one recent survey showed potential for Haley to split the anti-Trump vote and thereby hand the nomination to the former president.Patriot Takes said the footage released on Tuesday had been recorded in 2010, 150 years after the South Carolina secession, in the year Haley first ran for governor.Asked if she would support South Carolina seceding again, Haley said she did not think that would become a possibility, then discussed healthcare policy – a rightwing rallying point in 2010, around the time of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.“I believe that … faith is being lost in Congress,” Haley said in the footage. “And as that happens, they’re gonna look at our governors for good conservative policy.“I’m not just going to say no to Washington, I’m going to make sure we have solutions as to how we can keep them out and keep the states in control. When we do that, not only will it be me as the governor, I think it will be several states and governors that go and take our states back and keep Washington out of the way.“So I’m one of those that’s an optimist by nature that doesn’t think it’s going to get to [secession] because I will fight as long as I need to to prove why DC needs to stay out of it.”Her questioner said he was “positive too … positive it’s going to come to” secession.TopicsUS elections 2024Nikki HaleyRepublicansUS politicsSouth CarolinaAmerican civil warnewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Nikki Haley: who is the Republican taking on Trump in 2024? – video profile

      by

      The child of Indian immigrants, Nikki Haley began her political career in South Carolina. She worked her way up to governor, before being appointed US ambassador to the UN by then president Donald Trump. She was known as a combative diplomat, who sometimes aggressively advocated for the US in the global forum. Here is a look at her career so far, as she announces her bid for the US presidency.  More

    • 200 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican 2024 race heats up as Trump rival Nikki Haley announces run – as it happened

      by

      Welcome to the 2024 Republican primary field, Nikki Haley! 03:30Here’s who else you will probably be up against in your quest for the White House:First of all, there’s Donald Trump. Not only has he already declared his run, but poll after poll indicate he’s the frontrunner among potential GOP contenders. Consider him the final boss of this election’s Republican primary – but as any video gamer knows, your last adversary isn’t always the most difficult to overcome. The former president, after all, has no shortage of liabilities.There’s also Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is so widely expected to run that Trump has already started attacking him. He’ll campaign on taking his divisive culture wars legislation national, while touting the southern state as an economic success story.Republican senator Tim Scott is expected to soon announce his own bid for the White House, bringing the number of South Carolinians in the GOP’s field to two. And don’t forget about Mike Pence. The former vice-president may have fallen out with Trump, but he’s betting the Republican rank and file will give him a second chance.Who else? Speculation is endless, but other good bets are Trump’s former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, senator Ted Cruz and perhaps Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin.The ranks of challengers to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024 are growing, with his former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley announcing her candidacy today and other Republicans like former vice-president Mike Pence, senator Tim Scott and Florida governor Ron DeSantis expected to throw their hats in the ring in the weeks or months to come. Meanwhile, a somber Washington is marking five years since the deaths of 17 adults and children in the Parkland, Florida mass shooting, with Democrats reiterating their calls for more stringent gun control.Here’s what else happened today:
      Senator Dianne Feinstein said she will not stand for re-election in 2024. The 89-year-old Democrat is the oldest sitting lawmaker in Congress, and several candidates have already emerged for her seat.
      Pence plans to challenge a subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith with an unusual legal strategy that, if successful, could shield him from having to cooperate with the investigation into Trump’s campaign to undo the 2020 election.
      Senators received a classified briefing on the UFOs shot down over North American airspace, but no big revelations emerged.
      George Santos insisted (again) that he won’t be going anywhere.
      Trump will have to pay $110,000 for defying a subpoena from the New York attorney general, after a judge turned down his challenge to the penalty.
      Meanwhile, national security council spokesperson John Kirby has said the objects downed over North America could be “benign” after all, the Guardian’s Julia Carrie Wong reports:Three unidentified objects shot down by US fighter jets since Friday may turn out to be balloons connected to “benign” commercial or research efforts, a White House official said on Tuesday.The US has not found any evidence to connect the objects to China’s balloon surveillance program nor to any other country’s spy program, national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters.“We haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of the [People’s Republic of China’s] spying program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” he said.Instead, a “leading explanation” may be that the objects were operated privately for commercial or research purposes, Kirby said, though no one has stepped forward to claim ownership.The unidentified object shot down by a US fighter jet over northern Canada on Saturday was a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it”, according to a Pentagon memo to US lawmakers obtained by CNN.Three objects shot down by US jets may be ‘benign’ balloons, White House saysRead moreEarlier today, senators received a classified briefing on the three UFOs and the Chinese spy balloon shot down recently over North America.According to Punchbowl News, there were no big revelations from the briefing, at least none that the lawmakers would share publicly. The military still isn’t sure what the three objects destroyed by America jets since Friday were doing, other than that it’s possible they were meant for surveillance, and were destroyed because of their potential threat to civilian air traffic.“Nothing is clear at this point — other than that they exist,” said Democratic senator Bob Menendez.As for the downed Chinese spy balloon, the military has already gleaned “very valuable information” from parts recovered so far, Republican senator Thom Tillis said, though he did not reveal what exactly they learned.Republicans are rubbing their hands together with glee at the news that Dianna Feinstein will step down.“Sen. Dianne Feinstein is retiring. She is the second Senate Democrat to retire this year. Who will be next? Joe Manchin? Jon Tester? Bob Casey? Tammy Baldwin?” the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote in an email shortly after the California lawmaker’s announcement.Democrats are expected to have a tough time maintaining their two-seat Senate majority in the 2024 elections, where lawmakers like Manchin, Tester and Sherrod Brown, all of whom represent red states, will be up for re-election. There’s also a chance the GOP could flip a seat in a swing state, such as Casey’s in Pennsylvania, or Baldwin’s in Wisconsin.But the GOP should know better than to think Feinstein’s retirement has anything to do with all that. At 89 years old, Feinstein is the older person in Congress and the subject of reports of declining health. It’s hard to see her campaigning for another term, even in deep-blue California.The Lincoln Project – a group formed by anti-Trump conservatives in the run-up to the 2020 election and which has maintained a high profile – is out with a statement about Nikki Haley’s run for president.Haley, the statement says, is “a candidate with more ambition than principles. Her once promising career checked the right boxes and seemed to show her willingness to stand on principle. But then Donald Trump came along and exposed the GOP as ideologues willing to break our democratic institutions.“Like all the other power hungry and ambitious politicians who make up the modern GOP, she fell in line.”The release also quotes from a New York Times op ed by the former Republican operative (and author of It Was All a Lie) Stuart Stevens, a senior Lincoln Project adviser: “No political figure better illustrates the tragic collapse of the modern Republican party than Nikki Haley.“There was a time not very long ago when she was everything the party thought it needed to win” – a reference to Haley’s youth (she became a governor at 38 and is still only 51) and background, as a successful Indian American conservative.“Trump has a pattern of breaking opponents who challenge him in a primary. Ms Haley enters the race already broken. Had she remained the Nikki Haley who warned her party about Mr Trump in 2016, she would have been perfectly positioned to run in 2024 as its savior. But as Ms Haley knows all too well, Republicans aren’t looking to be saved.”Here’s an interview with Rick Wilson, a Lincoln Project co-founder, about the Republican primary and the danger Trump still poses:‘They will bend the knee’: Lincoln project cofounder cautions against dismissing TrumpRead moreDianne Feinstein, California’s Democratic senator who is the longest serving female lawmaker in the chamber’s history, has announced she will not seek re-election in 2024:I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends. Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives.— Senator Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) February 14, 2023
      Feinstein’s decision had been widely expected, and several Democrats kicked off campaigns to succeed her even before the senator’s announcement. These include Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, both progressive House lawmakers. Barbara Lee is reportedly also planning to toss her hat in the ring for the seat representing the Democratic bastion.At 89, Feinstein is the oldest sitting in Congress, and was first elected in 1992.Lauren Gambino sends in the thoughts of Chairman Harrison – Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, who spoke to reporters earlier about Nikki Haley’s announced presidential run:“There’s a lot of questions about Nikki Haley and about what she really stands for,” said Harrison, who led the South Carolina Democratic party when Haley was governor of the southern state, after Haley pointed to her conservative record on abortion and gun rights and her refusal to expand Medicaid in her state.“If she says that she wants to do for the nation what she did for South Carolina,” Harrison said, “God bless us all.”Speaking of George Santos, as Chris was earlier, our columnist Arwa Mahdawi wonders whether, of all the scandals dogging the New York Republican, it might be the one about dogs that finally brings him to heel. She writes:There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there is George Santos’s CV. In the short time that he has been in the public eye, the 34-year-old has been accused of fabricating almost every facet of his life.During his election campaign, Santos claimed to be a “proud American Jew” whose grandparents “survived the Holocaust”. After being challenged, Santos clarified that he was raised Catholic and argued that he had always said he was “Jew-ish”.His education and work history appear to be fabrications. He has said his mother was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11, yet records show she was in Brazil. He has said that he “lost four employees” in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida, but the New York Times has not been able to verify these claims. He has claimed to have been a college volleyball star (unlikely) and a producer on Spider-Man (untrue). No one is even sure what Santos’s real name is.I could go on and on with the lies, but I need to get to the scandals. There is the scandal about his former life as a drag queen in Brazil, which he originally denied, then appeared to admit. (To be clear: the only outrageous thing about his alleged drag-queen past is that he is now active in a party that demonises and wants to criminalise drag queens as part of a broader anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.) There is the $365,000 in campaign funds he can’t account for.And then there are the multiple dog-related scandals.Last week, Politico reported allegations that Santos spent 2017 cruising around Pennsylvania’s Amish Country buying puppies from dog breeders with cheques that bounced.A few days after allegedly writing $15,125 in bad cheques to breeders, Santos held an adoption event at a pet store in New York. It’s not clear if he made money from this, but adoption fees can range from $300 to $400. Santos was charged with theft by deception, but those charges were dropped when he claimed his chequebook had been stolen.The other dog-related scandal? The congressman is accused of promising to raise funds for a homeless man’s dying dog in 2016, then taking off with the money.Will George Santos’s dog scandals finally bring him down? | Arwa MahdawiRead moreJoe Biden has released a statement on the shooting at Michigan State, in which three students were killed and five wounded last night. Here it is:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Jill [Biden] and I are praying for the three students killed and the five students fighting for their lives after last night’s shooting at Michigan State University. Our hearts are with these young victims and their families, the broader East Lansing and Lansing communities, and all Americans across the country grieving as the result of gun violence.Last night, I spoke to Governor [Gretchen] Whitmer and directed the deployment of all necessary federal law enforcement to support local and state response efforts. I assured her that we would continue to provide the resources and support needed in the weeks ahead.Too many American communities have been devastated by gun violence. I have taken action to combat this epidemic in America, including a historic number of executive actions and the first significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years, but we must do more.The fact that this shooting took place the night before this country marks five years since the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, should cause every American to exclaim “enough” and demand that Congress take action.As I said in my State of the Union address last week, Congress must do something and enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, closing loopholes in our background check system, requiring safe storage of guns, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets. Action is what we owe to those grieving today in Michigan and across America.Here’s our report on the Michigan shooting.And here’s Richard Luscombe on the response from Whitmer:‘We can’t keep living like this’: Michigan governor denounces campus shootingRead moreFollowing Letitia James’s tweet, here’s the New York attorney general’s formal response to the appeals court ruling which said Donald Trump must pay a $110,000 fine for refusing to comply with subpoenas in a fraud investigation of his company and financial affairs:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Once again, the courts have ruled that Donald Trump is not above the law.
      For years, he tried to stall and thwart our lawful investigation into his financial dealings, but today’s decision sends a clear message that there are consequences for abusing the legal system.
      We will not be bullied or dissuaded from pursuing justice.”James, a Democrat, began her investigation while Trump was president. Trump and three of his adult children – Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric – were all deposed. Last month, footage showed Trump took the fifth amendment more than 400 times.Trump was fined in state court in April last year. He appealed. A judge capped the fine at $110,000. In September, James unveiled a wide-ranging civil lawsuit against the four Trumps, alleging false filings in order to enrich themselves and secure loans.The lawsuit seeks to bar all four Trumps from executive roles in New York, and to stop the Trump Organization acquiring commercial real estate or receiving loans from state-based entities for five years.Trump denies wrongdoing. In November he sued James, claiming a “relentless, pernicious, public, and unapologetic crusade” which would cause “great harm” to his company, brand and reputation.It was reported that Trump’s lawyers sought to stop him filing the suit. Trump withdrew two suits against James in January, shortly after he and a lawyer were fined $1m for a “frivolous” suit against Hillary Clinton.New York’s attorney general Letitia James announced that a court has ordered Donald Trump to pay $110,000 for defying a subpoena from her office:Today, the court again ruled in our favor and upheld an order that Donald Trump was in contempt of court and must pay my office $110,000. There are consequences for abusing the legal system. https://t.co/ZKbzLduSkJ— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) February 14, 2023
      Last year, James successfully petitioned a judge to charge the former president $10,000 for each day he refuses to comply with a subpoena she sent him for documents related to her investigation of his business practices. We’ll see if Trump pays up this time.The ranks of challengers to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024 are growing, with his former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley announcing her candidacy today and other Republicans like Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis expected to throw their hats in the ring in the weeks or months to come. Meanwhile, a somber Washington is marking five years since the deaths of 17 adults and children in the Parkland, Florida mass shooting, with Democrats reiterating their calls for more stringent gun control.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Pence plans to challenge a subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith with an unusual legal strategy that, if successful, could shield him from having to cooperate with the investigation into Trump’s campaign to undo the 2020 election.
      Senators received a classified briefing on the UFOs shot down over North American airspace, but no big revelations have emerged from it yet.
      George Santos insisted (again) that he won’t be going anywhere.
      Florida governor Ron DeSantis remains coy about his widely expected run for president.Here’s his quip when asked about his plans today:Reporter: “Nikki Haley announced her presidential run today. Do you plan on following suit?”Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), laughing: “Wouldn’t you like to know?” pic.twitter.com/K0pB4DlNpo— The Recount (@therecount) February 14, 2023
      In less serious political news, Republican House lawmaker and admitted fabulist George Santos was back on Twitter to reiterate that has isn’t going anywhere:Let me be very clear, I’m not leaving, I’m not hiding and I am NOT backing down.I will continue to work for #NY03 and no amount of Twitter trolling will stop me.I’m looking forward to getting what needs to be done, DONE!— George Santos (@Santos4Congress) February 14, 2023
      Many people, including some fellow Republicans, would like him to resign.Joe Biden has called again for banning assault weapons as he marks five years since the Parkland high school shooting:Five years ago, a gunman committed an act of horror at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.Today, we mourn the 17 loved ones lost. And pray for the countless loved ones left behind.For the lives lost and the lives we can save, we must ban assault weapons. pic.twitter.com/CRR4g6oLXK— President Biden (@POTUS) February 14, 2023
      Assault weapons were banned in the United States from 1994 to 2004, but Republicans have rejected reimposing the restrictions.Democratic lawmakers in Congress are marking the five-year anniversary of a gunman killing 17 children and adults at a high school in Parkland, Florida with calls for new gun control measures.“My heart aches for the 17 lives stolen five years ago – and for the devastated families, friends, and classmates left to pick up the pieces,” the House Democratic whip Katherine Clark said in a statement. “Summoning strength out of agony, Parkland students and parents have helped lead our nation’s march toward a future free from the scourge of gun violence. They have advanced that fight in the streets and in the halls of power – rallying Americans to action with extraordinary courage.”She connected the attack to yesterday’s shooting at Michigan State University, saying, “As Americans were just reminded by the horrendous shooting in East Lansing, Michigan, there is much more work to do. We are only in the second month of 2023, and our country has already faced the horror of 67 mass shootings. Students, teachers, parents – everyone lives in fear awaiting the next tragedy. And while gun violence terrorizes communities across America, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don assault rifle lapel pins in the halls of Congress, displaying their allegiance to weapons of war over American lives.”Maxwell Frost, a young Democratic gun control activist who was recently elected to the House from Florida, tweeted that he visited the site of the shooting:Today marks 5 years since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland. Last night, MSU also faced the pain of gun violence, a pain that is all too common across this country. My heart today is with Parkland & MSU as they continue & begin this lifelong journey of healing. pic.twitter.com/JtgBcRQvfQ— Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@RepMaxwellFrost) February 14, 2023
      Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis called for a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims:Today, I ask all Floridians to pause for a moment of silence at 10:17am to honor the 17 innocent lives lost at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. We will continue to honor their memory in word and in deed and extend our sympathies to the Parkland community.— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 14, 2023
      DeSantis’s Republican allies in Florida’s legislature are pushing to allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit in the state. The governor has said he will sign the bill when it passes. More