Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      House debates resolution to expel Republican George Santos – live updates

      by

      The House has started its resolution debate on expelling New York Republican representative George Santos.Santos has remained defiant and in denial of all charges against him, including wire fraud, arguing that his fellow lawmakers are “bullying” him out of the House.Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      George Santos remained defiant ahead of the House expulsion vote. In a fiery press conference this morning on Capitol Hill, Santos accused the House ethics report which detailed “pervasive” fraud as “slanderous” and “littered in hyperbole, littered in opinion.”
      Anna Kaplan, a former Democratic New York state senator who is challenging George Santos for his House seat, has responded to the upcoming House expulsion vote surrounding Santos, saying: “If George Santos is expelled tomorrow, the special election will be right around the corner. I am battle tested, and I am ready to flip New York’s third congressional district blue. We’ve already raised over $1m. We’re just getting started.”
      New York Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman has released a statement in response to George Santos’s vows to introduce a privileged resolution to expel him today, saying: “No one in Congress, or anywhere in America, takes soon-to-be former congressman George Santos seriously, This is just another meaningless stunt in his long history of cons, antics and outright fraud.”
      A New York appellate court reinstated a gag order on Thursday that prohibited Donald Trump and his lawyers from publicly commenting on court staff in the former president’s civil fraud case. “Petitioners having moved to stay enforcement of the aforesaid gag order and supplemental limited gag order pending hearing and determination of the instant petition. Now, upon reading and filing the papers with respect to the motion, and due deliberation having been had thereon, it is ordered that the motion is denied,” the court stated.
      Donald Trump continues to attack the wife of the New York state judge Arthur Engoron, who imposed a gag order on Trump in the former president’s civil fraud case in New York. In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump has accused Dawn Engoron of posting anti-Trump memes on X, formerly known as Twitter. Dawn has said that the X account is not run by her.
      Donald Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise has condemned the reinstatement of the gag order, telling CBS: “In a country where the first amendment is sacrosanct, President Trump may not even comment on why he thinks he cannot get a fair trial.”
      The Joe Biden administration has announced new action to protect communities from lead exposure. In a statement released on Thursday, the White House revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a proposal to “strengthen its lead and cooper rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years, helping secure safe drinking water for communities across the country.”
      A vote on Santos’s fate will take place tomorrow.Republican leaders delayed the vote, saying that they have other business to get to today. Tomorrow’s vote will be the third time this year that the chamber has considered expelling Santos.The debate has concluded.In a final defense, Santos remained defiant. He did not offer much defense of himself, but said he would not resign.“If tomorrow, when this vote is on the floor, it is in the conscience of all of my colleagues that they believe this is a correct thing to do, so be it. Take the vote. I am at peace,” he said.“I do not believe that the Long Island crew is acting in bad faith, just exceedingly bad judgement,” said the Florida Republican representative Matt Gaetz.“Since the beginning of this Congress, there’s only two ways you get expelled. You get convicted of a crime or you participated in a civil war. Neither of those apply to George Santos and so I rise, not to defend George Santos, whoever he is, but to defend the very precedent that my colleagues are willing to shatter,” he added.“I’ve heard your argument. I feel your passion. I understand your position but you’re about to go too far. Just calm down and step back,” said the Louisiana Republican representative Clay Higgins as he addressed the House.“This is what I advise my colleagues on both sides of the aisle … We’re talking about the removal of a member of Congress. Are the American people to believe the opinions of congressmen is a higher standard than the delivered vote of the American people? Is a report from a committee a higher standard than the two-year election cycle as established by our founding fathers and enshrined in our constitution? Calm down,” said Higgins.The floor has been yielded back to George Santos who is now saying: “We hear a lot about process, we hear a lot about findings … this process has been skewed, how this process is sloppy.”He added that this process “is contradictory to the core”.The findings of the committee were shocking,” said the Republican representative Michael Guest of Mississippi.“We know that the ethics committee authorized 37 subpoenas. They issued 43 requests for information. They interviewed 40 witnesses. They reviewed 172,000 pages of documents and they issued a 56-page investigation report,” he said.“The report … paints a picture of the fraud committed by Santos,” he continued, pulling up a large display of the language used in the report.“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the display read, quoting from the report.“He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contribution to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit,” it added.“I’m not trying to be arrogant or spiteful or disrespectful of the [ethics] committee but I’m curious to know, what is the schedule of the ethics committee?” said Santos, complaining that other findings launched by the ethics committee have taken years.“Why rush this? To deliver a predetermined outcome sought out by some members of our conference? Or some members of this body?” he added.“It is a predetermined necessity for some members in this body to engage in this smear campaign to destroy me. I will not stand by quietly,” he continued.“Every member expelled in history of this institution has been convicted of crimes or confederate turncoats guilty of treason. Neither of those apply to me but here we are,” said George Santos in his House remarks.“On what basis does this body feel that that precedent must be changed for me?” he said.“I have been convicted of no crimes, Mr Speaker. My loyalty to this country … is true and unquestionable,” he added.The House has started its resolution debate on expelling New York Republican representative George Santos.Santos has remained defiant and in denial of all charges against him, including wire fraud, arguing that his fellow lawmakers are “bullying” him out of the House.The Joe Biden administration has announced new action to protect communities from lead exposure.In a statement released on Thursday, the White House revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a proposal to “strengthen its lead and cooper rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years, helping secure safe drinking water for communities across the country.”
      The president’s bipartisan infrastructure law invests over $50bn for the largest upgrade to the nation’s water infrastructure in history, and today’s action builds on these historic levels of funding from president Biden’s Investing in America agenda, a key pillar of Bidenomics, to replace lead service lines across the nation,” the White House said.
      Joe Biden has once again reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to upholding protections surrounding reproductive healthcare.“Congress must codify the protections of Roe v Wade,” he tweeted on Thursday.Donald Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise has condemned the reinstatement of the gag order, telling CBS:“In a country where the first amendment is sacrosanct, President Trump may not even comment on why he thinks he cannot get a fair trial.”Kise, who called today’s decision “a tragic day for the rule of law,” added: “Hard to imagine a more unfair process and hard to believe this is happening in America.” More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      George Santos: a creature of Congress, Citizens United and limitless Republican hypocrisy | Sidney Blumenthal

      by

      It seems churlish for any member of the party of Donald Trump to single out George Santos for punishment as a liar, fraudster and fabulist. The 23 federal charges against the first-term member of Congress pale beside the Republican frontrunner’s 91 felony counts and civil suits over fraud and E Jean Carroll’s defamation claim, based on her allegation of rape. Republicans’ faux horror at the discovery of Santos’s extravagant spending of campaign funds on Botox, casino chips and OnlyFans porn belies their previous blithe tolerance of the red-dressed, gay-pride, Brazilian drag queen in their midst. Santos thrived as the symbol of the cultural contradictions of Republicanism. Did his sophisticated taste for accessories from Hermès and Ferragamo finally do him in with his anti-globalist colleagues?The facts of Santos’s false identity were pried apart gradually, beginning before he was even sworn in. Slowly, his crimes were revealed. Exposé after exposé – yet nothing happened. So long as Santos voted as a reliable Republican (100% Heritage Action rating), he was shielded from ritual rounds of queer bashing, much less expulsion. The narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives required every able-bodied member who could hold up an arm. Santos was straight as a party liner.Only when the stories of Santos’s lifetime of fraud became a rushing torrent did Kevin McCarthy, then speaker, refer the question to the ethics committee. There, it stayed bottled up. Republicans were always reluctant to excise Santos. His fate was entangled in the foul politics of the House.Only after McCarthy was deposed by an ultra-right cabal, and three prospective speakers chosen by a majority went down to defeat before Mike Johnson was elected, was an ethics report released and the expulsion of Santos brought up. It was a case of the first time as farce and the second, third and fourth times as farce, to be followed by the most comical farce of all.The day the Republican chair of the ethics committee introduced a motion to expel poor George, a leak from the forthcoming memoir of Liz Cheney – purged from her leadership post in the Republican conference in 2021, scourged for opposing Trump’s attempted overthrow of the US government, defeated in a vicious primary in 2022 – revealed that Santos was hardly among the most risible prevaricators in the House. McCarthy had explained to Cheney that he went on his humiliating visit to Trump at Mar-a-Lago a mere three weeks after the January 6 insurrection out of pity, because he felt bad that Trump was “depressed”.“He’s not eating,” said McCarthy. This excuse from the supreme sycophant – “My Kevin,” Trump called him – was as likely as Trump not violating the constitution’s emoluments clause to enrich himself. The only plausible reason for Trump not eating would be because there was a double cheeseburger already lodged in his gullet.Then the Washington Post reported that several weeks after McCarthy’s fall, he had a troubling call with Trump, who informed him why he had been the not-so-hidden hand behind his ouster. McCarthy, Trump explained, had not expunged Trump’s two impeachments and endorsed him for 2024. McCarthy’s pilgrimage to Trump in early 2021, which made Trump’s revenge tour possible, had gained him no credit. As speaker, McCarthy had immense control over the spigot of Republican money and the influence that flows from it. If he had decided to ignore Trump’s threats and cut him off, Trump would have been severely disabled. But McCarthy revived the monster, so the monster in turn could strangle him. At long last, too late, McCarthy said to Trump: “Fuck you.”The newly installed speaker, Mike Johnson, declares himself divinely anointed. (Does that make Matt Gaetz the hand of God?) “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority,” he said, in his inaugural speech. Johnson extended his omniscience about the Lord’s blessing to every other member of the House. “He raised up each of you. All of us.” Presumably, the elect included Santos.When it came to a vote to expel Santos, Johnson recoiled. He had “real reservations”. He would not apply the whip. Members could “vote their conscience”. As for himself, he said he was “concerned about a precedent that may be set for that”. In 2022, Johnson sponsored the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, that would ban teaching “concepts like masturbation, pornography, sexual acts, and gender transition”, and prohibit “federal grants to host and promote sexually oriented events like drag queen story hours and burlesque shows”. Now, he would allow members to consider forgiveness for the sinner’s financial crimes, in “good faith”.Johnson might well cite Matthew 7:1: “Judge not, that ye not be judged.” His own financial disclosure forms since he was a state legislator in Louisiana and as a member of the House are extraordinarily sketchy. He claimed he did not have a bank account. But as a legislator he had a contract to bill the state $400,000 to defend a law he sponsored to restrict abortion clinic access. In 2015 his financial disclosure form showed he cleared tens of thousands from religious right organizations: Freedom Guard, a legal operation; Living Waters Publications, a Christian publishing house that offered “biblical evangelism training camps”; Louisiana Right to Life; Louisiana Freedom Forum; and the Providence Classical Academy ($5,000-$24,999), “part-time”.The House ethics committee report on Santos buried within it a document compiled by his own campaign before the election in 2022 that detailed many lies and frauds later exposed. He and his campaign, as well as the National Republican Congressional Committee, were apparently all cognizant of the fraud from the start. Exhibit six of the ethics committee report consists of the 141-page “George Santos Vulnerability Report”, a point-by-point description of fake college degrees, Ponzi schemes, fraudster firms, scams, multiple civil judgments for cheating creditors, evictions and incident after incident of questionable behavior.The “vulnerability report” also chronicled Santos’s evolving story of his grandparents, from Belgian migrants who “fled the devastation of world war II Europe” into “Holocaust refugees”. This was the first falsehood about his background disclosed by the media, by CNN a week after his election. His fabrication of his identity, down to hiding his real given name (“George Devolder”) was an act of brazen and clumsy thievery he got away with to get into office with the aid of complicit campaign handlers.Santos’s conception, in a larger sense, came with the demise of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), commonly known as McCain-Feingold. Trashing that law created a world of dark money campaign contributions where almost anything goes. Santos’s spree was a byproduct of the post-campaign finance reform era. If he had only consulted an attorney to show him where the few remaining fine lines were, he could have gratified much of his urge for grift and glitz while avoiding indictment.Santos’s godparents in this respect were the Kentucky Republican senator Mitch McConnell, who worked for decades to torpedo reform, and the conservative justices of the supreme court, whose ruling sank McCain-Feingold. McConnell sought to forge a political empire built on unregulated corporate cash. He grasped that the keys to his kingdom would be held by the courts. So, as Senate majority leader, he frustrated reform legislation and packed the courts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt took some doing but finally, in 2010, Anthony Kennedy, in his majority opinion in the Citizens United case, struck down the crucial sections of the BCRA. Corporations now had the untrammeled right to spend as much as they wanted in campaigns and certain non-profit organizations did not have to disclose their donors. With a flourish of naive certainty, Kennedy stated: “Ingratiation and access, in any event, are not corruption.” The chief justice, John Roberts, echoed that view in his ruling in the 2022 case, SEC v Cruz, in which he decided that a candidate, here the Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz, could raise money after an election to pay campaign debts. With equally trusting innocence, Roberts wrote: “The government has not shown that [the law] furthers a permissible anticorruption goal, rather than the impermissible objective of simply limiting the amount of money in politics.”The sluice gates of dark money opened. From the multibillion-dollar operation of Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society to enact the conservative agenda through domination of the courts, the legal corruption trickled down. The gutting of the campaign finance law unleashed a frenzied atmosphere in which fraudsters like Santos could feel unrestrained. His wild ride was not directly related to the letter of the Citizens United decision, but to its reckless spirit.Then came Santos’s crash. Nobody offered more cogent analysis of his Republican colleagues’ sudden aversion to him than Santos himself.“I was, as we joke around a lot in my circles, we’re like, ‘Oh my God you were the ‘It Girl.’ Everybody wanted you.’ Until nobody wanted me.”He was stigmatized, as a sinner in a den of sinners. “Within the ranks of the United States Congress there’s felons galore,” he said. His casting out reminded him of a character from the Bible. “There’s people with all sorts of sheisty backgrounds and all of a sudden George Santos is the Mary Magdalene of the United States Congress.” Reviled now as a prostitute, he has faith he will be canonized as a saint. Expulsion means never having to say you’re sorry.Expelling Santos cannot unwind that he was let into the House to witness what happened behind the scenes. His Republican colleagues, he said, are “more worried about getting drunk every night with the next lobbyist that they’re going to screw –and pretend like none of us know what’s going on”. He held a press conference to warn, “If the House wants to start different precedent and expel me, that is going to be the undoing of a lot of members of this body because this will haunt them in their future.”Perhaps George Santos has been divinely sent, a messenger to expose hypocrisy. God is not finished with him yet. We await the tell-all memoir and the Netflix series.
      Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian columnist and author of The Permanent Campaign, published in 1980, and All the Power of the Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1856-1860, the third of a projected five volumes. He is the former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      George Santos makes final effort to resist vote to expel him from US House

      by

      George Santos appealed to democratic norms on Thursday in a last-ditch effort to resist an expected vote to expel him from the US House of Representatives, describing efforts to remove him as “bullying” and warning that “the undoing of a lot of members of this body” would follow.The embattled Republican congressman, who is facing a third effort to expel him from Congress with a House vote due on Friday, told reporters outside the US Capitol in Washington DC that it was “an unfortunate circumstance to watch Congress waste the American people’s time over and over again on something that is in the power of the people, not the power of Congress”.Following a congressional ethics report that alleged Santos had used campaign funds for personal gain, including spending on Botox, OnlyFans, which is commonly used to procure pornography, and designer brands such as Hermès, Santos said the move to expel him on the basis of an ethics report was a rejection of precedent.The report, he argued, was “littered” with hyperbole and opinion. “No decent cop would bring this to a prosecutor or a DA and say here’s our report, go ahead and charge him.”Santos has already been charged with 23 federal counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements, falsification of records, aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud.Only five members of Congress have previously been expelled. Santos said that lawmakers were “trying to join him to three Confederates and two people convicted in a court of law”.Santos went on to slam Congress as a “house that doesn’t work for the people” and accused some fellow Republican lawmakers as people “with rap sheets who think and feel emboldened enough to call out other people”.On Thursday, New York’s Staten Island representative, Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, told CNN: “The earth is round and George Santos should be expelled.”Republicans have a wafer-thin majority in the House, which will come under further pressure if Santos is expelled and a special election called in his New York district, which takes in a portion of New York City and Long Island.Malliotakis said of GOP control of the House: “Of course I’m concerned, but that should not be taken into account at the moment. The issue is, should this man be in Congress? He should not.” She further told CNN she thought due process, which some Republicans defending Santos’s place in Congress have said has not been sufficiently followed, had been fulfilled by the thorough ethics review in committee.But Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, told the rightwing outlet Newsmax that he was against expulsion, arguing the issue was between Santos and voters in his district. “That’s how our system works,” Jordan said to Newsmax.Earlier, Santos also said he would introduce a privileged motion to expel Jamaal Bowman, the Democratic New York representative, over an incident in which he set off a fire alarm during a vote, which the House ethics committee had opted not to investigate.“No one in Congress, or anywhere in America, takes soon-to-be former Congressman George Santos seriously. This is just another meaningless stunt in his long history of cons, antics, and outright fraud,” Bowman said in response.Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, told Axios on Thursday that a vote to expel Santos would now come on Friday. Santos has said that a vote today was “kind of not cool” since it was his second wedding anniversary.Johnson has said lawmakers should vote with their conscience, adding: “I, personally, have real reservations about doing this. I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set for that.”He continued: “I think [that] is the only appropriate thing we can do. We’ve not whipped the vote, and we wouldn’t. I trust that people will make that decision thoughtfully and in good faith.”Santos has previously described the effort to remove him as a “smear”. In a defiant speech on Tuesday, he hit back: “Are we to now assume that one is no longer innocent until proven guilty and they are, in fact, guilty until proven innocent?”If the move to to expel him is successful, the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, will have to call a special election within 10 days of Santos’s expulsion. More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Change is coming. The question is: what kind of change will it be? | Bernie Sanders

      by

      We are living in the most difficult moment in modern history. If you feel anxious and overwhelmed about what’s going on, you’re not alone. The extraordinarily challenges we face are very real, but we can never let them become excuses for checking out of the political struggles that address these crises and will define our future.Our nation and, indeed our planet, are at a critical juncture. It is imperative that we recognize what we are up against, and what we must do to move our politics toward justice and human decency. And we can start by acknowledging that the American people have been through a lot, and that their confidence in politics and in government has been shaken.The Covid pandemic, the worst public health crisis in 100 years, took over a million lives in our country, and millions more became ill. The pandemic created the most painful economic downturn since the Great Depression, disrupted the education of our young people, increased isolation, anxiety and mental illness.The climate crisis is ravaging the planet. The last eight years have been the hottest on record and floods, droughts, forest fires and extreme weather disturbances have brought death and destruction to almost every part of the globe. Scientists tell us that unless there is a major reduction in carbon emissions over the next several decades, the planet will become increasingly uninhabitable.Amid unprecedented income and wealth inequality, with three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society, a handful of oligarchs control the economic and political life of our nation for their own greedy ends.With a dysfunctional government, and growing economic anxiety for millions of Americans, 60% of whom live paycheck to paycheck, faith that our flawed democracy can respond to the needs of working families is ebbing, and more and more Americans believe that authoritarianism might be the best way forward.Artificial intelligence is exploding. There are deep concerns not only that this new technology will displace millions of workers but about the real possibility that human beings could actually lose control over the future of society.The US healthcare system is broken beyond repair. Despite spending twice as much per capita as any other country, 85 million are uninsured or underinsured, our life expectancy is declining and we have nowhere enough doctors, nurses, dentists or mental health practitioners.Our educational system is in crisis. Childcare is too often unaffordable and unavailable, many of our public schools are unable to attract the quality teachers they need, and 45 million Americans struggle with student debt. In 1990, the US led the world in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds who had college degrees. Today, in a competitive global economy, we are in 15th place.And, oh yes, Donald Trump, who is becoming more rightwing and extremist every day, is leading many of the presidential polls. In a recent speech, using language that echoes Adolf Hitler, Trump stated: “We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” He also had strong praise for Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán. In an interview, Trump said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”, promising in another speech that he would round up undocumented people on a vast scale, detain them in sprawling camps, and deport millions of people per year.Frighteningly, the growth of rightwing extremism is not just growing in the United States.As the Washington Post reports, “far-right parties have taken power in Italy, extended their rule in Hungary, earned a coalition role in Finland, become de facto government partners in Sweden, entered parliament in Greece and made striking gains in regional elections in Austria and Germany”. Within the past few weeks, a far-right candidate was elected president of Argentina and a rightwing extremist party won the most seats in the election in Holland.That’s the bad news. The very bad news. But there’s also good news.The good news is that all across the country workers and their unions are fighting back against corporate greed. We are seeing more union organizing and successful strikes than we have seen in decades. Whether it’s the Teamsters at UPS, the UAW at the big three automakers, the Screen Actors Guild (Sag) at the large media production companies, Starbucks workers, graduate students on college campuses, or nurses and doctors at hospitals, working people are making it clear that they are sick and tired of being ripped off and exploited. They are no longer sitting back and allowing large corporations to make record breaking profits while they fall further and further behind. They will no longer accept CEOs making nearly 350 times more than the average worker.The good news is that more and more Americans are making the connections between the reality of their lives and the corrupt and destructive nature of our uber-capitalist system which prizes greed and profiteering above any other human value.Whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, Americans want change – real change.They are disgusted by a political system which allows the wealthiest people in this country, through their Super Pacs, to buy elections. They want structural campaign finance reform based on the principle of one person, one vote.They are outraged by billionaires paying a lower effective tax rate than they do because of massive tax loopholes. They want real tax reform which demands that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.They are frightened for the future of this planet when they see oil companies make record-breaking profits as the carbon emissions they produce destroy the planet.They are offended to see ten giant pharmaceutical companies making over $110bn in profits last year, while they cannot afford the outrageous price of prescription drugs they need to stay alive.They are shocked as they see Wall Street investment firms buy up affordable housing, gentrify neighborhoods, while they are unable afford to afford the outrageous rents being charged by their unaccountable Wall Street landlords.They are humiliated by having to stay on the phone for an hour, arguing with an airline company machine about a plane reservation, while the industry makes huge profits.The American people today are angry. They are anxious about their present reality and worried about the future that awaits their kids. They know that the status quo is not working and that, in many respects, the system in breaking down.Change is coming. The question is: what kind of change will it be? Will it be a Trumpian, authoritarian type change that exploits that anger and turns it against minorities and immigrants, blaming them for the crises we are experiencing? Or will it be a change that revitalizes American democracy, unites and empowers working people of all backgrounds and has the courage to take on a corrupt ruling class whose greed is causing irreparable destruction in our country and around the world?There is no question but that the challenges we face today are enormous – economic, political and environmental. There is no easy path forward when we take on the oligarchs and the most powerful entities in the world.But, in the midst of all that, here is the simple truth. If we stand together in our common humanity – Black, white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, gay and straight, people of all religions, there are enormous opportunities in front of us to create a better life for all. We can guarantee healthcare to every man, woman and child as a human right. We can create millions of good paying jobs transforming our energy system. We can create the best educational system in the world. We can use artificial intelligence to shorten our work-week and improve our lives. We can create a society free of bigotry.But here is the other simple truth. None of that happens if we are not prepared to stand up and fight together against the forces that work so hard to divide and conquer us. This is a moment in history that cannot be ignored. This is a struggle that cannot be sat out. The future of the planet is at stake, democracy is at stake, human decency is at stake.Let’s go forward together and win.
      Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Henry Kissinger, US foreign policy giant, dies aged 100 – video obituary

      by

      Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state under Richard Nixon, became one of the most prominent and controversial figures of US foreign policy in the 20th century. He remained influential until the end of his life, in large part thanks to his founding of his geopolitical consulting firm and the authorship of several books on international affairs More

    • 225 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden hails job creation and mocks Lauren Boebert for dismissing investment as ‘massive failure’ – US politics live

      by

      Joe Biden just took the stage in Pueblo, Colorado, where he’s speaking about how his administration has helped businesses like CS Wind, a turbine manufacturer, shift jobs back to the United States.“People seeing this on television may not be certain they used to make all their wind towers abroad,” the president said. “Then they decided to make them here in America as well. Today the CS Wing factory in Colorado is the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the entire world … has over 170 employees. As I said for a long time when I think climate, I mean this sincerely, I think jobs, jobs.”Hello, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a lively day – and week so far – for news and there will be more action on Thursday as the House is due to vote on whether to expel New York Republican congressman George Santos. Do join us again then but, for now, this blog is closing. The Guardian’s global live blog on the war between Israel and Hamas continues, meanwhile, and you can follow it here.How the day went:
      Joe Biden attacked rightwing Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert as one of the “leaders of this extreme Maga movement”, upon visiting her district in Colorado to promote a factory there building equipment for offshore wind energy plants.
      The president spoke in Pueblo about how his administration has helped businesses like CS Wind, a turbine manufacturer, shift jobs back to the United States.
      Marjorie Taylor Greene, a leader of the far-right GOP bloc in the House, proposed once again that Congress should impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, homeland security secretary, for his handling of the US-Mexico border and migration.
      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said the chamber will vote on whether to expel George Santos on Thursday, and he is leaving it up to lawmakers to decide whether the New York congressman should be removed from office for embellishing his résumé and allegedly breaking federal law.
      George Santos struck a defiant tone after House Democrats introduced a motion on Tuesday to expel him from Congress, insisting in a speech that he would not resign and saying to reporters “I don’t care” about the campaign against him.
      Joe Biden said that raising $440bn over 10 years through his billionaire’s tax policy would strengthen programs such as social security and Medicare.“Just by paying 25% instead of 8%. Imagine what we could do if we made billionaires pay their taxes like everyone else,” he said, during his speech in Colorado moments ago.“We could strengthen the social security and Medicare systems, instead of cutting them like … Trump and Boebert want to do,” he said.He said the extra revenue would help with government subsidies for childcare and senior care costs.“This is not about help for poor folks, this is about smart economics,” he said. And such assistance allowed more carers to go out to work, generating economic growth, he said.The president closed out his speech without any further digs at his Republican thorns, and has now departed the stage.Joe Biden is touting his billionaire’s minimum tax policy and decrying that rightwing congresswoman Lauren Boebert, whose district he’s visiting in Colorado, and her ilk only want to cut taxes for the richest.He said that prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, there were 750 billionaires in the US and “now there are 1,000” and typically, the president said, they pay income tax at 8%.“Raise your hands if you pay more than 8%” Biden told the crowd, as a sea of hands were raised.“That’s less than firefighters and teachers pay,” he said.Biden said he wants a 25% tax for billionaires, projecting that would raise $440bn in revenue for the US over a decade.He also complained about giant corporations paying no taxes on huge profits. “If anyone thinks the tax code is fair, raise your hand,” he said.As he promoted the Inflation Reduction Act and other policies he said are helping communities across the country, Joe Biden singled out for criticsm Lauren Boebert, the rightwing congresswoman who represents the district containing Pueblo, Colorado, where he’s speaking.“The historic investments we’re celebrating today is in Congresswoman Boebert’s district,” the president said.“She’s one of the leaders of this extreme Maga movement. She, along with every single Republican colleague, voted against the law that made these investments in jobs possible. That’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact. And then she voted to repeal key parts of this loan. And she called this law, ‘a massive failure’. You all know you’re part of a massive failure?”He then took credit for companies in Colorado hiring thanks to his administration, and asked the audience: “None of that sounds like a massive failure to me. How about you?”Joe Biden just took the stage in Pueblo, Colorado, where he’s speaking about how his administration has helped businesses like CS Wind, a turbine manufacturer, shift jobs back to the United States.“People seeing this on television may not be certain they used to make all their wind towers abroad,” the president said. “Then they decided to make them here in America as well. Today the CS Wing factory in Colorado is the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the entire world … has over 170 employees. As I said for a long time when I think climate, I mean this sincerely, I think jobs, jobs.”Speaking of international engagements, US prosecutors have accused an agent of India’s government of directing an attempted assassination of a Sikh activist on US soil. A similar accusation by Canada has led to a diplomatic spat with New Delhi, and the indictment from US prosecutors could complicate the Biden administration’s resolve to work with Narendra Modi’s government to build alliances against China. The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Leyland Cecco are on the story:US prosecutors have accused an agent of the Indian government of directing the attempted assassination of an American citizen on US soil, according to a superseding indictment released by the Department of Justice, which revealed new details about India’s alleged targeting of Sikh activists around the world.The indictment made public on Wednesday also provided new evidence that the Indian agent – who is not named – ordered the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist who was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia in June.The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced in September that there were “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government had carried out the assassination of Nijjar. The allegations were denied by India, which called the claim “absurd” and politically motivated.The US indictment now appears to confirm, however, evidence of a global plot allegedly orchestrated in India to silence and kill vocal critics of the Indian government who support the creation of an independent Sikh state.Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the target of the alleged assassination plot, told the Guardian that the indictment revealed a “blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism” – adding that the attempt on his life had only galvanized his efforts to pursue a symbolic referendum on an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan.“If death is the cost for running the Khalistan referendum, I am willing to pay that price,” he said in a statement. “First by assassinating Nijjar in Canada and then attempting to assassinate me on US soil, India under [prime minister Narendra Modi] has extended to the foreign soils its policy of violently crushing the Sikhs movement for right to self-determination.”The White House has meanwhile confirmed that Kamala Harris will travel to Dubai on 1 and 2 December to represent the United States at the Cop28 conference on fighting climate change.“Throughout her engagements, the vice-president will underscore the Biden-Harris Administration’s success in delivering on the most ambitious climate agenda in history, both at home and abroad. The vice-president will be joined by dozens of senior US officials representing more than 20 US departments and agencies,” Harris’s press secretary Kirsten Allen said in a statement.Biden was expected to go, but canceled his travel plans earlier this week:The man who nearly booted Lauren Boebert from office last year – and could succeed next year – is Adam Frisch, a Democrat and former council member in resort town Aspen. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly spoke to him last October about why he thinks voters in his western Colorado district are ready for change:Adam Frisch is in his second congressional campaign, crossing and re-crossing Colorado’s third US House district, a space bigger than Pennsylvania. Thirteen months out from election day, time is one thing he does not lack. But Frisch has a unique way of counting it anyway: before and after Beetlejuice.“Before Beetlejuice,” the Democrat says, of polling in his Republican-leaning district, “we were up by two points, Trump was up five.”After Beetlejuice, the thinking goes, Frisch’s position may well improve further.Frisch, 56 and a former banker who now lives in Aspen, is the Democratic candidate to challenge Lauren Boebert next year. Boebert, a former restaurant owner and proud grandmother at 36, is the far-right Republican who won the seat in 2020 and has proven relentlessly controversial since – so much so that last year, even in a conservative district, she survived Frisch’s first challenge by the skin of her teeth.Boebert won after a recount, by just 546 votes, then went back to Washington DC to stoke the usual fires.But last month a bigger blaze flared up, when the congresswoman was shown to have behaved outrageously during a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver.On security footage, Boebert sang and danced, took selfies, vaped and even appeared to grope her date as he fondled her in return. Both were ejected. For once, Boebert voiced something close to contrition. But to Frisch, the episode was just further proof that Boebert is there to be beaten.“We’re resonating with a lot of people,” he said, by phone, during another day of meeting and greeting.“In February of 22, when I first launched, there were two themes I started to work on. The Republicans laughed at me, the Democrats laughed at me, the media and the donor class laughed. But the themes are the people want the circus to stop, and they want someone to focus on the district.“And every day since then, [Boebert] has just been one of the national leaders of the circus. And obviously, it’s just gotten worse and worse … it’s just a mess and people are sick and tired.”Joe Biden arrived in Colorado yesterday, and spoke at a campaign reception where he made a point to criticize Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican whose district he is visiting today.The president’s itinerary will bring him to a wind turbine factory and see him tout his administration’s renewable energy investments, but its also a direct confrontation to Boebert, who barely won re-election in her district last year despite its Republican tilt, and is expected to face a tough race next year.“With the progress we’ve made, we haven’t gotten a whole lot of help from the other side. Tomorrow, we’re going to be in … Congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s district … one of the leaders of the extreme right, the Maga movement,” Biden told guests at the fundraiser.He continued:
      We’re going to a wind energy company that plans to invest an additional $200m to expand the facility in Colorado, double its production, add 850 new jobs – good-paying jobs, the governor will tell you. But the congresswoman, along with every single one of her Republican colleagues, voted against the law I signed that made these investments possible. And then she vowed to repeal it. And she voted to repeal it, and she called it a massive failure. It’s in her district. She called it a massive failure.
      And she went on and voted against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. She called it garbage. It’s building bridges, roads, Internet, et cetera. And she called it a scam. I find it pretty unbelievable.
      Joe Biden will promote his economic and clean energy policies this afternoon in Colorado, while taking on rightwing Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert, a close ally of former president Donald Trump, Reuters reports.Biden, who blamed Trump at a fundraising event in Denver on Tuesday for taking away US women’s right to an abortion, will visit a wind tower manufacturer in Pueblo, part of Boebert’s congressional district.Biden has presided over a stronger-than-expected US economy and big federal investments in infrastructure and clean energy, but the clean energy industry is now struggling with high costs.Facing weak opinion polls, Biden has turned in his re-election campaign to more directly taking on Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, as unfit for the presidency and a threat to American democracy.Boebert, whom the White House calls a “self-described Maga Republican”, referencing Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, is expected to become a default target for those attacks today.Boebert faces a tough re-election battle herself against Democrat Adam Frisch, who has out-raised her in donations.During his visit, Biden will speak about clean energy investments and “highlight how self-described Maga Republicans like Representative Lauren Boebert are threatening those investments, jobs, and opportunities,” the White House said.Biden set a goal of deploying 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind along US coastlines this decade to fight climate change.That may be unattainable due to soaring costs and supply chain delays, Reuters reported in September.Former president Donald Trump’s lawyers have suggested their strategy in his election interference case in Washington involves distancing him from the horde of US Capitol rioters, whom he has embraced on the campaign trail, the Associated Press reports.Special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation team has signaled it will make the case Trump is responsible for the chaos that unfolded on January 6, 2021, and point to the Republican ex-president’s continued support of the rioters, in order to help establish his criminal intent.The competing arguments highlight the extent to which the insurrection will inevitably form the backdrop in a landmark trial set to begin March 4 in a courthouse just blocks from the Capitol.Trump’s defense attorneys failed in an effort to strike references to that day’s violence from the indictment but have made clear their strategy involves distancing the former president from the horde of rioters, whom they describe as “independent actors at the Capitol”.While Trump’s glorification of January 6 defendants, who have been arrested and charged by the hundreds, may boost him politically as he vies to retake the White House in 2024, his lawyers’ approach lays bare a concern that arguments linking him to the rioters could harm him in front of a jury.Much may depend as well on the evidence permitted by federal judge Tanya Chutkan.It’s impeachment season among House Republicans. Their leadership is pressing forward with their campaign to impeach Joe Biden for alleged corruption, while rightwing lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene has proposed a resolution to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, though the chamber turned down a similar attempt just a few weeks ago. The clock is also ticking down for George Santos, the New York congressman and admitted fabulist. House speaker Mike Johnson said the chamber will vote tomorrow on expelling him, and reports indicate the support is there to kick him out of office.Here’s what else is going on today:
      House Democrats say the GOP is doing Donald Trump’s bidding with its impeachment inquiry into Biden.
      Mourners gathered in Plains, Georgia for the funeral of former first Rosalynn Carter. Her husband Jimmy Carter was in attendance.
      Mike Pence’s son played a role in convincing his father to stand up to Trump on January 6, according to a report.
      In Georgia, mourners are attending the funeral of former first lady Rosalynn Carter, including her husband Jimmy Carter:Joe and Jill Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Melania Trump and Michelle Obama were among the dignitaries who traveled to Atlanta yesterday for a tribute to Carter, a noted advocate for mental health and the eradication of diseases worldwide:On the House floor, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a leader of the far-right GOP bloc, again proposed impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of security at the southern border and the inflow of migrants into the United States:Republicans have made Mayorkas into the public face of what they call the “Biden Border Crisis”, and earlier this year were mulling impeaching the secretary. However, impeachments of cabinet secretaries are exceedingly rare – the last time one happened was 1876 – and party leaders appear to be focusing instead on their slow-moving impeachment inquiry of Biden for alleged and thus far unproved corruption.Last month, a small group of Republicans joined with Democrats to halt an earlier attempt by Greene to impeach Mayorkas, who would likely be acquitted in the Democratic-controlled Senate anyway. Tom McClintock, one of the eight GOP lawmakers who opposed the attempt, said he did so because it could backfire on the party:
      If Greene is successful in redefining impeachment, then the next time Democrats have the majority, we can expect this new definition to be turned against the conservatives on the Supreme Court and any future Republican administration. And there will be nobody to stop them, because Republicans will have signed off on this new and unconstitutional abuse of power.
      One of the reasons Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election failed was because of the resistance of Mike Pence, his vice-president who recently abandoned his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. As the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports, Pence’s son played a role in convincing his father to say no to Trump:Mike Pence reportedly decided to skip the congressional certification process for Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, because to preside over it as required by the constitution would be “too hurtful” to his “friend”, Donald Trump. He was then shamed into standing up to Trump by his son, a US marine.“Dad, you took the same oath I took,” the then vice-president’s son Michael Pence said, according to ABC News, adding that it was “an oath to support and defend the constitution”.Ultimately, Pence did supervise certification, even as it was delayed by the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Trump incited the attack by telling supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” in his cause – the lie that Biden’s win was the result of electoral fraud.Some chanted for Pence to be hanged. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, more than a thousand arrests made and hundreds of convictions secured.Throughout the investigation of January 6 by a House committee, Pence was praised for standing up to Trump and fulfilling his constitutional duty. He later released a memoir, So Help Me God, about his time as Trump’s No 2.But according to ABC, which on Tuesday cited sources familiar with Pence’s testimony to the special counsel Jack Smith, investigating Trump’s election subversion, Pence offered details not included in his book, including how he had to be prodded into doing his duty.Before he was House speaker, Mike Johnson was the architect of a brief signed by dozens of Republican lawmakers that supported Donald Trump’s failed attempt to convince the courts to disrupt Joe Biden’s election win. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports that in her new book, Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman who lost her seat last year in large part due to opposing the former president, accuses Johnson of duping his allies about the effort:In a new book, the anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney accuses the US House speaker, Mike Johnson, of dishonesty over both the authorship of a supreme court brief in support of Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and the document’s contents, saying Johnson duped his party with a “bait and switch”.“As I read the amicus brief – which was poorly written – it became clear Mike was being less than honest,” Cheney writes. “He was playing bait and switch, assuring members that the brief made no claims about specific allegations of [electoral] fraud when, in fact, it was full of such claims.”Cheney also says Johnson was neither the author of the brief nor a “constitutional law expert”, as he was “telling colleagues he was”. Pro-Trump lawyers actually wrote the document, Cheney writes.As Trump’s attempts to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden progressed towards the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, Cheney was a House Republican leader. Turning against Trump, she sat on the House January 6 committee and was ostracised by her party, losing her Wyoming seat last year. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      George Santos to face expulsion vote on Thursday, House speaker says

      by

      The Republican speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, said the chamber would vote on whether to expel George Santos on Thursday, leaving it up to lawmakers to decide whether the New Yorker should be removed from office for embellishing his résumé and allegedly breaking federal law.“What we’ve said as the leadership team is we’re going to allow people to vote their conscience,” Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.“I think it’s the only appropriate thing we can do. We’ve not whipped the vote and we wouldn’t. I trust that people will make that decision thoughtfully and in good faith.“I personally have real reservations about doing this, I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set for that. So, everybody’s working through that and we’ll see how they vote tomorrow.”On Tuesday, Santos said he would not resign in order to avoid becoming only the sixth representative ever expelled from the House.“If I resign, I make it easy for this place,” Santos, 35, told reporters. “This place is run on hypocrisy. I’m done playing a part for the circus. If they want me to leave Congress, they’re going to have to take that tough vote.”But that tough vote was already drawing near.Earlier, two Democrats, Robert Garcia of California and Dan Goldman of New York, initiated proceedings to require an expulsion vote within two legislative days. Later, two Republicans, Anthony D’Esposito of New York and Michael Guest of Mississippi, did the same.“We want to make sure that happens this week,” Garcia said. “I think whatever it takes to get that vote this week is what we’re doing. He has no place in Congress.”The list of previous expellees includes three men who fought for the Confederacy in the civil war and two convicted of crimes. The last man forced out, James A Traficant of Ohio, a congressman with a famous “piled-high pompadour” toupée who was convicted of fraud, bribery, obstruction of justice and racketeering, was expelled in 2002.On Thursday, a two-thirds majority will be required to add Santos to the list of shame.Santos was elected last year but quickly saw his résumé torn to pieces by investigative reporting and past actions subjected to legal scrutiny. He admitted embellishing that résumé – which included bizarre claims about his academic and professional history – but denied wrongdoing. Among more picaresque episodes, he denied having been a drag performer in Brazil – a denial now undermined by reporters including the author of a new biography.Santos has pleaded not guilty to 23 federal fraud charges but has not yet stood trial. As indicated by Johnson on Wednesday, many in Congress, including senior Democrats, have cited the lack of a conviction when opposing previous attempts to expel Santos, saying to do so without the verdict of a court would set a dangerous precedent.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat in the closely divided Senate, is under indictment for alleged corruption. He denies wrongdoing.In Santos’s case, his own party generated a previous attempt to expel him. But it took a damning House ethics committee report, issued this month and detailing the use of campaign funds for expenses including Botox treatment and luxury purchases, to change the political equation.Johnson must govern with a narrow and unruly majority. A Santos exit would eat into that margin but Johnson this week attempted to persuade Santos to quit before he could be thrown out.Santos has said he will not run again but his refusal to quit prompted an unnamed Republican to tell Axios he thought Santos wanted the “notoriety” of becoming the sixth person ever forcibly expelled.If Santos is removed, his New York district, which covers parts of Long Island and Queens, will have a special election within 90 days. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Pence’s son reportedly convinced him to stand up to Trump over January 6

      by

      Mike Pence reportedly decided to skip the congressional certification process for Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, because to preside over it as required by the constitution would be “too hurtful” to his “friend”, Donald Trump. He was then shamed into standing up to Trump by his son, a US marine.“Dad, you took the same oath I took,” the then vice-president’s son Michael Pence said, according to ABC News, adding that it was “an oath to support and defend the constitution”.Ultimately, Pence did supervise certification, even as it was delayed by the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Trump incited the attack by telling supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” in his cause – the lie that Biden’s win was the result of electoral fraud.Some chanted for Pence to be hanged. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, more than a thousand arrests made and hundreds of convictions secured.Throughout the investigation of January 6 by a House committee, Pence was praised for standing up to Trump and fulfilling his constitutional duty. He later released a memoir, So Help Me God, about his time as Trump’s No 2.But according to ABC, which on Tuesday cited sources familiar with Pence’s testimony to the special counsel Jack Smith, investigating Trump’s election subversion, Pence offered details not included in his book, including how he had to be prodded into doing his duty.“Not feeling like I should attend electoral count,” Pence reportedly wrote in contemporaneous notes in late December 2020, as Trump pressured him to help overturn Biden’s win.“Too many questions, too many doubts, too hurtful to my friend. Therefore I’m not going to participate in certification of election.”ABC reported that Pence told investigators, “Then, sitting across the table from his son, a [US] marine, while on vacation in Colorado, his son said to him, ‘Dad, you took the same oath I took’ – it was ‘an oath to support and defend the constitution’.“That’s when Pence decided he would be at the Capitol on 6 January after all.”Trump now faces four federal criminal counts regarding election subversion. He also faces 13 counts relating to election subversion in Georgia, 40 from Smith regarding his retention of classified information, and 34 in New York regarding hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. He also faces civil threats, including a defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”.Nonetheless, Trump is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination next year.Pence also described to investigators an Oval Office meeting on 21 December 2020, “as the campaign’s legal challenges across the country were failing but Trump was continuing to claim the election was stolen and had begun urging supporters to gather in Washington DC for a ‘big protest’ on 6 January”, per ABC.Trump reportedly asked what he should do. Pence, according to ABC, said he “should simply accept the result … should take a bow”, should “travel the country to thank supporters … and then run again if you want”.“And I’ll never forget, he pointed at me … as if to say, ‘That’s worth thinking about.’ And he walked” away.Nearly three years on, Trump has not walked away. But Pence has. Last month, long before the first vote of a primary in which he and others grappled with how to oppose Trump without alienating his supporters, Pence dropped out of the Republican race. More