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      US Senate panel close to approving ‘mother of all sanctions’ against Russia

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      US Senate panel close to approving ‘mother of all sanctions’ against RussiaNegotiations for package of sanctions against Putin ‘on the one-yard line’, says Bob Menendez of foreign relations committee

      Opinion: Russia’s phony war is playing out as surreal theatre
      The leaders of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Sunday they were on the verge of approving “the mother of all sanctions” against Vladimir Putin, warning there would be no appeasement as the Russian president contemplates an invasion of Ukraine.UK to bring in measures to allow for tougher sanctions on Russia, says TrussRead more“We cannot have a Munich moment again,” the panel’s Democratic chair, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, told CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the 1938 agreement by which allies ceded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, believing it would stave off war.“Putin will not stop if he believes the west will not respond,” Menendez said. “We saw what he did in 2008 in Georgia, we saw what he did in 2014 in pursuit of Crimea. He will not stop.”Menendez said he believed bipartisan negotiations for severe sanctions were “on the one-yard line”, despite disagreements with Republicans over whether measures should be imposed before or after any Russian invasion. The UK government promised to ramp up sanctions against Putin and his associates.Tensions on the Ukraine border continued to escalate with Reuters reporting the Russian military build-up included supplies of blood in anticipation of casualties. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told Fox News Sunday: “Putin has a lot of options available to him if he wants to further invade Ukraine, and he can execute some of those options imminently. It could happen really, honestly, at any time.”Seeking to show bipartisan resolve, Menendez gave CNN a joint interview with his committee’s ranking Republican, James Risch of Wisconsin.Menendez said: “There is an incredible bipartisan resolve for support of Ukraine, and an incredibly strong bipartisan resolve to have severe consequences for Russia if it invades, and in some cases for what it has already done.“We are building on the legislation that both Senator Risch wrote independently, and I wrote, which I called the mother of all sanctions. It’s to include a variety of elements, massive sanctions against the most significant Russian banks, crippling to their economy, Russia sovereign debt. These are sanctions beyond any that we have ever levied before.”Risch said talks had been a “24 hour-a-day effort for the last several days” in an attempt to reach agreement over sanctions timing and content, and that he was optimistic.“That’s a work in progress,” Risch said, when pressed over discussions about pre-emptive sanctions or measures to be taken in the event of an invasion. “[But] I’m more than cautiously optimistic that when we get back to DC tomorrow that we’re going to be moving forward.”Menendez said he believed western allies did not have to wait to start penalising Putin.“There are some sanctions that could take place up front because of what Russia has already done, cyber attacks on Ukraine, false flag operations, the efforts to undermine the Ukrainian government internally,” he said.“But then the devastating sanctions that ultimately would crush Russia’s economy, and the continuing lethal aid that we are going to send, means Putin has to decide how many body bags of Russian sons are going to return to Russia.“The sanctions we’re talking about would come later on if he invades, some sanctions would come up front for what has been done already, but the lethal aid will travel no matter what.”Risch criticized the stance of several far-right figures, including the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, who have questioned why the US is backing Ukraine and opposing Russia. Carlson said “it makes sense” that Putin “just wants to keep his western border secure” by opposing moves by Ukraine to join Nato.“We side always with countries that are democracies, and certainly there isn’t going to be a truce committed in that regard,” Risch said.“But the people who were saying that we shouldn’t be engaged in this at all are going to be singing a very different tune when they go to fill up their car with gas, if indeed there is an invasion. There are going to be sanctions that are going to be crippling to Russia, it is going to cripple their oil production. And as we all know, Russia is simply a gas station that is thinly disguised masquerading as a country. It is going to have a devastating effect on the economy around the world.”UK ready to commit extra forces to Nato allies as Russia tension mountsRead moreOn NBC’s Meet the Press, Dick Durbin, co-chair of the Senate Ukraine caucus, addressed concerns aired by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday that growing rhetoric over the crisis was causing panic and destabilising his country’s economy.His comments followed a call with Joe Biden that Ukraine officials said “did not go well”.“Any decision about the future of Ukraine will be made by Ukraine,” said Durbin, an Illinois Democrat. “It won’t be made in Moscow or in Washington, in the European Union or in Belarus. It’s their future and their fate and their decision as far as that is concerned.”The caucus co-chair, Republican Rob Portman of Ohio, who is also on the foreign relations committee, told NBC he believed Putin had underestimated the unity of Nato and others.“One thing Vladimir Putin has done successfully is he has strengthened the transatlantic alliance and countries around the world who are looking at this and saying, ‘We cannot let this stand, we cannot let this happen’,” Portman said.“For the first time in nearly 80 years we could have a major and very bloody conflict in Europe unless we stand up together and push back, and so far so good.”TopicsUkraineRussiaUS foreign policyUS national securityUS militaryBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Supreme court: Stephen Breyer ‘did not want to die on bench’, says brother

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      Supreme court: Stephen Breyer ‘did not want to die on bench’, says brotherPressure campaign was fired by fear of repeat of disaster when Republicans replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg

      Biden poised to appoint first Black female justice
      01:03Stephen Breyer, the supreme court justice who announced his retirement this week, “did not want to die on the bench”.White House burns Wicker for criticising Biden supreme court pickRead moreSo his brother, the federal judge Charles Breyer, told the Washington Post at the end of a momentous week in US politics.Democrats, meanwhile, rejected Republican complaints that Joe Biden’s pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the court meant he was prioritising politics over qualifications, or endorsing racially based affirmative action, or that the new justice would be too liberal.The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee hinted at claims some criticism may be racially motivated, saying he hoped Republicans were not “doing it for personal reasons”.Breyer’s decision to step down, at 83, gives Biden the chance to nominate a liberal replacement. The pick will not alter the balance of the court, which conservatives dominate 6-3 after Donald Trump capitalised on ruthless Republican tactics to install three justices in four years.But progressives campaigned to convince Breyer to quit, many citing what happened when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on the court in September 2020. Republicans who held the Senate confirmed her replacement – the hardline Catholic Amy Coney Barrett, nominated after Trump promised to pick a woman – before the November election.Democrats should be able to confirm Biden’s pick without Republican votes but they face losing the Senate in November. With that in mind, the campaign to convince Breyer picked up speed. Breyer spoke about how the court should not be politicised but one activist, Brian Fallon of Demand Justice, told the Post: “You have to view this as a political fight. It’s not a legal fight.”Charles Breyer told the Post his brother “was aware of this campaign. I think what impressed him was not the campaign but the logic of the campaign.“And he thought he should take into account the fact that this was an opportunity for a Democratic president – and he was appointed by a Democratic president [Bill Clinton] – to fill his position with someone who is like-minded. He did not want to die on the bench.”On Sunday, Dick Durbin of Illinois, chair of the Senate judiciary committee, told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I didn’t feel that external pressure was really helpful at all. [Breyer] had to make this decision. It is an important and timely decision in his life as to the right moment. And I didn’t want to push him, and I didn’t.”But a congressman who campaigned for Breyer to retire, Mondaire Jones of New York, told the Post that though “people adore Ruth Bader Ginsburg … the fact is, due to decisions or non-decisions around retirement, made by her, we got Amy Coney Barrett.”The Post said the White House did not pressure Breyer.“None of the justices want to be told when to leave,” Charles Breyer said. “They want to decide themselves. And that, I think, the president and others recognised. It actually worked out.”Republicans have signaled a willingness to make life uncomfortable for Biden’s nominee – as revenge for what happened to Brett Kavanaugh.Trump’s second pick, replacing the retiring Anthony Kennedy, faced accusations of sexual assault. He vehemently denied them. Democrats prominently including Kamala Harris, then a California senator, vehemently attacked him. Harris is now vice-president, presiding over the 50-50 Senate with a vote to confirm Biden’s pick.On Friday, the Republican senator Roger Wicker told Mississippi radio the Kavanaugh confirmation was “one of the most disgraceful, shameful things and completely untruthful things that [Democrats have] ever, ever done”.Wicker also predicted that Biden’s nominee would get no Republican votes. He said so in part because the GOP expects a more progressive choice than Breyer, who Wicker called a “nice, stately liberal”. But Wicker also complained about “affirmative racial discrimination [for] someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota”, at a time when the court seems poised to rule such practices unconstitutional.The White House reminded Wicker of his unquestioning support for Barrett.Speaking to ABC’s This Week, Durbin said Republicans should “recall that it was Ronald Reagan who announced that he was going to appoint a woman to the supreme court, and he did, Sandra Day O’Connor, and it was Donald Trump who announced that he was going to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a woman nominee as well.“African American women, if they have achieved the level of success in the practice of law and jurisprudence, they’ve done it against great odds. They’re extraordinary people … they’re all going to face the same close scrutiny.US supreme court will hear challenge to affirmative action in college admissionRead more“… I just hope that those who are critical of the president’s selection aren’t doing it for personal reasons.”Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican senator, told Fox News Sunday Republicans would probably not support Biden’s pick “because I’ve seen dozens of his nominees to the lower courts and they’ve almost to person been leftwing ideologues”.Cotton also complained about Democrats’ treatment of Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment in a stormy confirmation process, Biden playing a leading role as a senator from Delaware, in 1991.Most expect Democrats to move quickly. Durbin told NBC: “A great deal depends on the nominee. If the person has been before the committee seeking approval for a circuit court, then the committee knows quite a bit about that person.“If there are no new developments for someone who’s been before the committee in the previous year or two, it makes a real difference.”A leading contender, Ketanji Brown Jackson, was confirmed to the DC appeals court last June with Republican support. She replaced Merrick Garland, Biden’s attorney general who was nominated to the supreme court by Barack Obama in 2016 but blocked by Republicans.“I can just say this,” Durbin said. “It’s going to be fair, it’s going to be deliberate and we’re going to be timely about it too. This is a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. We should take it seriously.”TopicsUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US politicsBiden administrationJoe BidenDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Georgia county purges Democrats from election board and cancels Sunday voting

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      Georgia county purges Democrats from election board and cancels Sunday votingThe takeover in Spalding county is part of Republican efforts to dominate elections mechanisms nationwide The judges met, in private, over a two-day period in May, for what might seem like a minor task: to choose the fifth member of an elections board in rural Spalding county, Georgia.But the meetings were by no means routine. There is no record of their vote or their discussions. The interviews with Democratic and Republican applicants were conducted in private, via Zoom calls. And the position was only vacant because of a new law, specific only to Spalding county, recently introduced by the area’s two Republican state lawmakers.In the end, the judges chose a Republican, someone who had never served in a government position related to elections, to be the fifth and deciding vote for the Spalding county board of elections and registration. Almost immediately, that Republican, James Newland, cast that deciding vote to cancel Sunday voting – a historically heavy turnout day for Black, largely Democratic voters.It was just the latest blow to the county’s Democrats, and another loss for a party that is losing control of election boards across the state as Republican laws make GOP takeovers possible. But what happened in Spalding county is also just a fragment of GOP efforts nationwide to take over the apparatus of American elections. Their goal? To secure party control at every level of government – from the White House to state legislatures and election offices, all the way down to the precinct level, by employing thousands of poll watchers to potentially call into question Democratic votes.Across the US, Republican legislatures have introduced more than 200 bills aimed at reducing local control over elections and restrict voting access, according to the States United Democracy Center. All of it is aimed at ensuring that Republicans will have control over voting and elections rules, in support of Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020.And the Peach State is ground zero, thanks to its increasingly central roles – as a swing state, and as the center of bogus disputes over the 2020 election results.The turn of events in Spalding county might have come as a shock to locals – a majority Democratic election board, with three Black women, becoming majority Republican, with two white men and another of Cherokee descent, virtually overnight – but Spalding county is no outlier. In at least five other Georgia counties, local election authorities have been restructured in favor of Republicans. It’s all part of the same story: the nationwide push to place GOP officials in positions of authority over elections.“The news isn’t really covering it because it’s so local,” said Zachery Fuller, a political organizer and former Democratic candidate for office in Griffin, the county seat. “But when it happens to so many counties it’s the same thing, even though it’s different laws: it’s voter suppression.”At the heart of what happened in Spalding county is that new law, which itself is an example of the tactics Republicans are pursuing across the country to ensure they control elections.Passed in March, HB 769 changed the rules for determining the tie-breaking vote for Spalding ounty’s election board. The five-person board always has two Democrats and two Republicans; previously, Democrats and Republicans would often flip a coin to determine the fifth member. But Republican state representatives David Knight and Karen Mathiak introduced a law requiring that the fifth member be chosen by a majority vote of the county’s superior court judges.Those judges – Chief Judge Fletcher Sams, Scott Ballard and Benjamin Coker – advertised the position in the local press for 30 days. All three judges are white; Sams said he identifies as an independent, while the other judges did not comment on their political affiliations. In the end, the judges chose the inexperienced Newland over at least two Black Democrats, including Vera McIntosh – who had been removed from her position on the board because HB 769 also required board members to live in Spalding county, which she did not – as well as Elbert Solomon, a longtime Democratic operative here.“All they wanted to see was the fact that I was Black – because they couldn’t tell by looking at my résumé,” Solomon said. “I went to white colleges, I was an executive at Procter & Gamble, even my last name wouldn’t tell you that I was Black. That’s all they wanted to know.”“I can’t help what people think but that’s ridiculous,” Sams said, denying that race played any role in the judges’ decision. “I was very impressed with at least one or two Democratic candidates, and they were seriously considered.”Regardless, the new law didn’t come out of nowhere. Ever since election day of 2020, Republicans in Spalding county have used alleged problems with voting to justify their efforts to replace Democratic election officials. On election day 2020, some voters had initially been prevented from casting their ballots on machines equipped with software from Dominion Voting Systems. Marcia Ridley, the county’s former Democratic elections supervisor, said it was a temporary software problem caused by Dominion, but soon the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, was calling for Ridley to step down, citing “serious management issues and poor decision-making”. Knight and Mathiak joined Raffensperger in calling for Ridley’s removal, and less than two weeks later asked the state’s attorney general to investigate her for failing to properly post information about board meetings.It didn’t end there. After the election, local Republicans were up in arms over claims of mishandled ballots. Mathiak and a former Republican elections board member, Betty Bryant – who believes the 2020 election was “robbed” from Trump – both claimed they had heard from a person who had received 12 mail-in ballots. As a crowd gathered outside the board of elections, a Republican on the county commission recorded a video of the protesters, and posted it to Facebook. Later, he posted a picture of a ballot envelope that contained no ballot, apparently in an attempt to suggest electoral fraud. As the mood darkened, concerned for their safety, Glenda Henley, a former Democratic board member, asked police to escort election workers to their cars.Next, the crowds started showing up at previously sleepy elections board meetings. “We had so many people coming, and the audience would disrupt the meeting by shouting or saying ugly things,” Henley said. One particularly loud voice was Roy McClain, a shooting range coach with a lengthy military career who had replaced a previous Republican board member. McClain had ties to Mathiak: he had fundraised for her and appeared alongside her at numerous events.McClain “was always loud, always negative”, according to Henley. “When he came in, it was just turmoil, anything to disrupt the business of elections.” (McClain did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Knight or Mathiak.) Then, in April, just days before the end of the 2021 legislative session, Mathiak and Knight escalated the situation: they introduced HB 769. The bill caught some county officials off-guard, according to emails obtained by American Oversight. Former elections board members told the Guardian they had no prior warning that the bill was coming.But Solomon said the bill’s purpose was obvious. He and others had worked in 2020 to register new county voters, most of them African American – a get-out-the-vote effort that produced results and nearly led to the election of the Democratic candidate Daa’ood Amin as mayor of Griffin.“What happened is we increased registered voters here by 900 people in less than a year,” Solomon said. “We had a mayor’s race here and a Black person almost won – and only lost by 15 votes.”Demographics in Spalding county are changing, according to Solomon and Fuller: what was solidly Republican territory is now becoming more Democratic-leaning.“They see the writing on the wall,” Solomon said. If the new law was intended to increase Republican power, it worked: Newman was swiftly installed on the elections board. In an interview, Newman said he was chosen by the judges because they believed he would be an impartial tie-breaking vote – despite the fact that he is a self-proclaimed Republican – and rejected the notion that race played a role, noting that he is of Cherokee descent.Newland claimed the judges told him that they chose him “because I was the closest they could find, out of the people who applied to the job, to a neutral party.” As for why he voted to cancel Sunday voting, Newland claimed the county couldn’t afford a seventh day of voting.Even less neutral is the man appointed by the local GOP to one of the other two Republican board positions: Ben Johnson, a former election board member who resigned as head of the county Republican party to take the job. Johnson, a fervent proponent of the false belief that the 2020 election was beset with widespread voter fraud, also runs an IT firm, Liberty Technology, that does maintenance for the county’s computer equipment.Fuller calls it a clear conflict of interest for Johnson. “If his company has direct control over the servers for Spalding county and the city of Griffin, he can see all of the data from anyone who uses these public servers,” Fuller said. “[That] could be data collection used against voters to help organize – and that is data that other members of the board wouldn’t have access to.”Asked whether there was a conflict of interest, Mike Windham, the county’s IT manager, said, “Off the top of my head, no, but the optics are a little funny.”Johnson ignored repeated requests for comment, and at an election board meeting in early January responded to the Guardian’s questions by saying, “I don’t talk to fake news.”But Johnson’s beliefs are well documented on his Facebook page. A little more than a year after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Johnson posted about the “hours upon hours of video-taped ballot harvesting in Georgia, the phantoms all over, the dirty voter rolls, the withholding of subpoenaed materials, the list goes on”.In person, Johnson is generally known as an intelligent and capable member of the board of elections, according to current and former colleagues from both parties. But his social media posts show a different side than the calm and polite face he presents to election board meetings.Specifically, Johnson has taken issue with Dominion Voting Systems, which handles election software throughout Georgia and is the frequent target of conspiracy theories about voter fraud. Only last month, Johnson attacked Dominion at a board meeting, making a false claim that a judge in a Georgia lawsuit, brought by a Republican, had ruled that its software in Georgia was “illegal”.“[R]ight now, the judicial opinion is that the equipment we’re using is illegal, which blows my mind,” Johnson said.That’s not true. The judge has not ruled on the matter; a trial is pending.Then, last month, if all this turmoil weren’t enough, board members were hit with nearly 2,000 emails demanding yet another audit into the 2020 presidential election – despite three previous reviews, conducted by the Republican Raffensperger, which all confirmed the win for Biden. While it remains unknown who prompted more than 1,900 people, all from outside Spalding county, to join the email deluge, some clues can be gleaned from the demands themselves. The emails were form letters and include references to a notorious conspiracy theorist, Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, who was involved with the controversial and unnecessary audit by the Cyber Ninjas firm in Maricopa ounty, Arizona (which again confirmed Biden won there). According to Jim O’Brien, one of the two Democratic board members in Spalding county, the campaign has all the markings of an organized effort.It was a “cyber-attack intended to intimidate and harass”, O’Brien said. “I’d like to know if any local Republican officials knew about this.”Slowly, the sense is dawning in these communities that individual cases like Spalding county’s are not one-offs but are part of a pattern emerging nationwide. Henley, too, is concerned about the way things are going, and who is behind it. After more than six years on the board, she wants to know why the new law that allowed a Republican takeover in Spalding county was passed when it did, and who might be pulling the strings even higher up than the state Republicans who made it happen.“It was a sneak attack,” she said. “I think we were targeted, but I don’t have the evidence of what they were doing. I think it was even higher up. I think it’s more convoluted and embedded.”TopicsUS voting rightsRepublicansGeorgiaRaceUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      White House burns Wicker for criticising Biden supreme court pick

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      White House burns Wicker for criticising Biden supreme court pickRepublican senator says choice will be beneficiary of affirmative action but critics point to support for Trump vow to pick woman

      Leading contenders for Biden’s supreme court pick
      01:03In a barbed intervention on Saturday, the White House said it hoped a Republican senator who complained that Joe Biden’s supreme court pick would be the beneficiary of race-based affirmative action, would give the nominee the same consideration he gave Amy Coney Barrett.Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife?Read moreBarrett was nominated and confirmed shortly before the 2020 election, after Donald Trump pledged to pick a woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The hardline Catholic duly succeeded the liberal lion, establishing a 6-3 conservative majority.Biden has pledged to put the first Black woman on the court as a replacement for Stephen Breyer, the 83-year-old liberal who this week announced his retirement.On Friday, Roger Wicker of Mississippi complained that Biden’s pick would therefore be a beneficiary of race-based affirmative action, which the court seems poised to declare unconstitutional, having said it will consider a challenge concerning college admissions.Wicker told a radio station in his state: “The irony is that the supreme court is at the very time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota.“The majority of the court may be saying writ large that it’s unconstitutional. We’ll see how that irony works out.”On Saturday, a White House spokesperson noted that after Trump promised to pick a woman, Wicker merely said he hoped Barrett would be “an inspiration” to his granddaughters.“We hope Senator Wicker will give President Biden’s nominee the same consideration he gave to then-Judge Barrett,” the spokesperson said.Breyer has protested that the court is not political, but though his retirement will not give Biden a chance to change the ideological balance of the panel, the president will be able to install a younger liberal before Democrats defend control of the Senate.Many have seen rich historic irony in conservative complaints about Biden’s pledge to nominate based on race and gender.The historian Rick Perlstein was among those to point out that Ronald Reagan, the hero of the modern Republican party, chose a justice entirely because she was a woman.Before his victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980, Reagan announced that “one of the first supreme court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can possibly find”.He duly nominated Sandra Day O’Connor, a political moderate and the first woman to sit on the court.“She was totally unqualified on paper,” Perlstein said, on Twitter. “[Zero] con[stitutional] law experience. Reagan lucked out.”Wicker also told SuperTalk Mississippi Radio he feared Biden’s pick would be more progressive than Breyer.“We’re going to go from a nice, stately liberal to someone who’s probably more in the style of Sonia Sotomayor,” the senator said, adding: “I hope it’s at least someone who will at least not misrepresent the facts. I think they will misinterpret the law.”Many observers made Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, and a member of the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, favourite to be Biden’s pick. Jackson replaced Merrick Garland, now attorney general but in 2016, the nominee Republicans refused to give even a hearing when Barack Obama picked him to replace Antonin Scalia.Liberals across America sigh with relief about Justice Breyer’s retirement | Moira DoneganRead moreAn era of bitter partisan warfare ensued. This time, Democrats will court Republican moderates such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah. But Wicker said Biden’s pick would in all likelihood “not get a single Republican vote”.“But we will not treat her like the Democrats did Brett Kavanaugh,” he said, in reference to the bitter fight over Trump’s second nominee, who denied accusations of sexual assault.Democrats need only stick together to succeed. Thanks to a Republican rule change, nominees require only a simple majority. The Senate is split 50-50 but controlled by the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris.Wicker pointed to a wish for at least symbolic vengeance, saying the Kavanaugh fight “was one of the most disgraceful, shameful things and completely untruthful things that [Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee have] ever, ever done”.TopicsUS supreme courtJoe BidenRepublicansUS politicsLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      ‘We have to fight back’: can Joe Biden recover before the midterms?

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      ‘We have to fight back’: can Joe Biden recover before the midterms? As the president seeks to reset course, a booming economy and receding pandemic reveal encouraging signsSnow fell lightly as Joe Biden stared into the wooded hollow where, just hours before he arrived in Pittsburgh, a half-century old bridge had collapsed. It was a dramatic illustration of what had brought the president to the City of Bridges: his urgent drive to rebuild crumbling US infrastructure.Silicon Holler: Ro Khanna says big tech can help heal the US heartlandRead moreLast year, Biden signed a $1tn infrastructure bill, an achievement that eluded his most recent predecessors and one he was eager to champion after legislative setbacks.“There are another 3,300 bridges here in Pennsylvania, some of which are just as old and just as in decrepit a condition as that one was,” Biden said later, in a speech at a manufacturing research and development center. Funding in the infrastructure law would help repair the Pittsburgh bridge and “thousands of other bridges across the country”.“We’ve got to move,” he said. “The next time, we don’t need headlines saying that someone was killed.”The visit to Pittsburgh was the beginning of an effort by the White House to change the narrative of Biden’s presidency, as he shifts from an inaugural year mired in legislative battles to elections that will determine control of Congress. The new approach was a recognition of a stalled agenda, an unyielding pandemic, rising inflation and flagging popularity.Yet the week brought a much-needed burst of good news, a reminder that the electoral landscape may look very different come November.The supreme court justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement, giving Biden the opportunity to name his replacement. The commerce department reported that the US economy grew last year at its fastest pace since 1984. US households began receiving free coronavirus tests from the government. And suddenly, after months of gridlock, the administration is optimistic Congress will pass a plan aimed at making the US more competitive against China.Democratic strategists, progressive activists and former party officials welcomed Biden’s use of the bully pulpit, urging him to seize such momentum by touting economic success and drawing sharp contrasts with Republicans.“In the districts, people can’t tell you a thing that’s in Build Back Better but they can tell you to the penny how much a tank of gas is,” said Chuck Rocha, a progressive Democratic strategist. “They can also tell you what their relief check meant to them.”“We just have to not be afraid to beat our chest as Democrats,” he said.‘Toast in the midterms?’Historical patterns suggest Republicans are well-positioned to win the House and possibly the Senate in November. The party that holds the White House typically loses seats during its first midterm elections, the extent of such losses often correlating with a president’s popularity.Biden will use time away from Washington to build support for his legislative priorities while highlighting what his administration has accomplished: a poverty reducing coronavirus stimulus package, the infrastructure law, full vaccination of more than 210 million Americans.Strategists say his travels may remind Americans why they voted for him.Biden began his presidency with high approval ratings and broad public confidence in his ability to confront the pandemic. But the national mood darkened, sending Biden’s popularity spiraling, including among Black, Latino, female and young voters – core segments of his coalition. A survey by Pew Research this week found the president’s approval rating down to 41%, from a high of 59% in April.“We need to get Biden’s approval numbers up or else we’re toast in the midterms,” warned Lanae Erickson, senior vice-president at the moderate think tank Third Way.Disappointment with Biden’s handling of the pandemic is a key factor weighing down such ratings. Now that vaccines have proven effective, including against fast-spreading variants like Omicron, Erickson said voters want to hear the White House strategy for living with the virus.“Right now people are hearing a lot of ‘Stay home, stay safe’ from Democrats. But people are tired of staying home,” she said. “We have to be the party that’s talking about getting people back to work.”Biden’s relatively infrequent travel during his first year in office was partly due to the pandemic. But he was also grounded by negotiations on Capitol Hill. In September, the White House canceled a trip to Chicago so Biden could hammer out a deal on his domestic spending package, only to see such efforts collapse soon after.This month, Biden’s visit to Capitol Hill to pressure Democrats to pass voting rights protections was forestalled by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who declared her opposition to changing the filibuster, thereby dooming the legislation, in a speech just before the president’s arrival.Pittsburgh bridge collapses hours before Biden’s infrastructure speech in cityRead moreBiden appeared to acknowledge that his involvement with negotiations on Capitol Hill hurt his standing with voters, who wanted to see him govern more like a commander-in-chief. Defending his reputation as a bipartisan dealmaker, built over 36 years in the Senate, Biden conceded that the role of president required a different type of engagement.“The public doesn’t want me to be the ‘president-senator,’” he told reporters this month. “They want me to be the president and let senators be senators.”The retirement of Justice Breyer immediately put a spotlight on one of the most consequential responsibilities of any presidency: filling a vacancy on the supreme court. At a press conference this week, Biden said he would draw up a list of candidates based on his promise to nominate a Black woman.Stefanie Brown James, co-founder and executive director of the Collective Pac, which aims to build Black electoral power, said the assurance “felt monumental”, particularly after the disappointments on domestic spending and voting rights.Though the replacement would do little to shift the ideological composition of the court, after three Trump-era appointments created a conservative supermajority, James said appointing a Black woman would “right a historic wrong”.Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina Democratic strategist, said the chance for Biden to add a woman of color could be a “galvanizing” moment for Democrats, a reminder to supporters Biden can still deliver on his promises.“The president won because of our votes, Black voters, the most consequential and loyal voting bloc in the country,” Seawright said. “And so this is going to remind them of the net worth of their vote and why it’s important to keep showing up.”‘Look people in the eye’A natural retail politician with a zeal for campaigning, Biden lamented that he had so few opportunities to “look people in the eye” in his first year as president.On Tuesday, he stepped out of the White House to visit a boutique that opened during the pandemic, purchasing a necklace for his wife and a coffee mug featuring the face of Kamala Harris, his vice-president. The excursion also included a stop for ice-cream, where he posed with employees after greeting US Marines.On Wednesday, Biden bantered with the General Motors chief executive, Mary Barra, about the speed of a new electric vehicle, during a White House roundtable with the heads of major US companies.“I’m looking for a job, Mary,” quipped the president, a car enthusiast, after Barra told him the vehicle went from “zero to 60 in three seconds”.Next week, Biden will travel to New York to discuss plans for combatting gun crime with Mayor Eric Adams, after the fatal shooting of two police officers. The White House has sought to elevate efforts to combat rising violent crime as Republicans attempt to portray the country as lawless. Centrist Democrats believe Adams, a retired NYPD captain who campaigned on a promise to reduce crime, offers a model for how the party can beat back such attacks.The White House insists the president hasn’t given up on passing Biden’s Build Back Better agenda or voting protections, but is scaling back his involvement – and his ambitions. Activists and progressives are pressing him to ramp up use of his executive authority.Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, a youth voting organization, said canceling student debt was one of the “most basic and critical” steps Biden could take to deliver for young people. She said the issue was a top priority for voters under 35, and would help fulfil a promise to reduce the racial wealth gap.Biden has expressed doubt whether he has the legal authority to enact widespread student loan forgiveness. In December, he extended a moratorium on student loan payments put in place by the Trump administration in the early days of the pandemic.“Young folks overwhelmingly supported the Biden administration and now it’s up to the Biden administration to support young people,” Tzintzún Ramirez said. “We understand they can’t pass every single policy but on student debt they hold the power to make it happen.”‘Best messenger’If Biden’s standing slips further, his visits could become a political headache for Democrats in battleground states.American muckrakers: Peter Schweizer, James O’Keefe and a rightwing full court pressRead moreOn Friday, a leading Democratic contender in the Pennsylvania governor’s race was noticeably absent from Biden’s Pittsburgh event, citing a scheduling conflict. Earlier in the month, Stacey Abrams, the leading Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, also cited a scheduling conflict for her absence at Biden’s Atlanta speech on voting rights, which was boycotted by some civil rights groups. Beto O’Rourke said he was “not interested” in help from the president or any national politician in his bid to become governor of Texas.Ed Rendell, a former governor of Pennsylvania, said Biden was still the “best messenger to motivate our rank-and-file Democrats” in battleground states.But Rendell said the time for bipartisan backslapping had passed. Biden’s message to voters, he said, must be clear: Republicans, not Democrats, are squarely to blame for his stalled agenda.“We have to fight back with the weapons at our disposal,” Rendell said. “We’d rather negotiate peace … but we’re not going to fight with a hand tied behind our back.”TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsUS CongressUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Laugh at Sarah Palin all you want but there’s nothing funny about her role in dividing the US | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Laugh at Sarah Palin all you want but there’s nothing funny about her role in dividing the USArwa MahdawiShe may be in the news for running around New York with Covid, but it’s worth remembering how she spread another sort of virus: rightwing populism Sign up for the Week in Patriarchy, a newsletter on feminism and sexism sent every Saturday.Underestimate Sarah Palin at your perilHelp! I am writing from beleaguered New York City which, on top of dealing with giant rats, a nasty nor’easter, and the surreal “swagger’”of a Bitcoin-obsessed mayor, is also battling a Palinvasion. Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, has spent the past week running around the city eating at multiple fancy restaurants despite the fact that she has tested positive for Covid-19. Palin, who isn’t vaccinated and has said “it’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot,” has now become something of a public health hazard: New Yorkers are being told to go get themselves tested if they’ve been anywhere near her.Palin, it should be said, didn’t just come to New York for the food. She’s in the city because she’s suing the New York Times for defamation. The trial was supposed to start on Monday but because of the whole being-infected-with-a-highly-contagious-virus thing it’s been pushed back until 3 February. When it gets going I’m afraid you’re going be hearing a lot more about Palin. This case, to put it in highly technical legal jargon, is kind of a big deal and has massive implications for press freedom in the US.Some quick background: in 2017 the Times published a piece that incorrectly linked an advert put out by Palin’s political action committee with a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona in which six people died and 14 were wounded – including Gabrielle Giffords, then a Democratic member of Congress. The Times was very much in the wrong here, which it quickly admitted in a correction. That wasn’t enough for Palin, who is seeking damages. (It’s not clear exactly how much, but court papers estimate $421,000 in damage to her reputation.)It’s highly unlikely that Palin will win. Thanks to a 58-year-old landmark decision called New York Times v Sullivan there is a high bar for defamation when it comes to public figures: you have to prove an outlet operated with “actual malice”. However if the case ever ends up in the supreme court there’s a not-insignificant chance that Times v Sullivan could be overruled. Two conservative supreme court judges, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have already made it clear that they are keen to rethink the decision and make it easier to sue the media. This would be a dream come true for people like Donald Trump who, while he was running for president, said he wanted to open up libel laws so he could sue people who wrote nasty stories about him.The media should obviously be held accountable for mistakes in their reporting. However creating an environment in which news outlets are afraid to report on powerful people because they’re worried about being sued is obviously not a good thing for democracy. And Palin doesn’t need to win the actual court case against the Times to score a victory against the media and undermine press freedom. As first amendment attorney Ted Boutrous told CNN: “This lawsuit has always seemed to me to be part of a disturbing trend in recent years of high-profile political figures misusing libel suits as political stunts intended to chill speech on matters of public concern – exactly what the first amendment forbids.”Long story short here is that you should not underestimate the harm Palin is capable of causing. Palin is often treated as a figure of fun by the media; she’s caricatured as a ditzy naif. But that image of her isn’t entirely accurate. You know that famous quote that’s attributed to her? The one where she said she could see Russia from her house? One survey found that almost seven in 10 Americans think she actually said that. She didn’t. Tina Fey did in a Saturday Night Live skit. What Palin actually said was that you can actually see Russia from an island in Alaska: this is perfectly accurate.I’m not trying to defend Palin’s honour here or make her out to be some kind of rocket scientist or master political strategist. What I’m saying is that she’s not the simplistic caricature she is often portrayed to be. And while she may be in the news for running around New York with Covid, it’s worth remembering the enormous part she has played in spreading another sort of virus in America: rightwing populism. As Barack Obama has noted there is a “straight line” from Palin being announced as the vice-presidential nominee in 2008 to Trumpism. Laugh at Palin all you want but there’s nothing funny about the role she has played in shaping the divided and angry United States that exists today.A 37-year-old Polish woman died after being refused an abortionThis distressing story is a reminder of how safe abortions help save lives. Outlawing abortion isn’t ‘pro-life’, it’s simply anti-women. The death of Agnieszka T has ignited protests across Poland against the draconian abortion restrictions that were introduced a year ago.The untold story of Susy Thunder, ‘the great lost female hacker of the 1980s’A fascinating story about a woman who pioneered techniques still widely used by hackers today. The fact you’ve probably never heard of her, and she’s now able to live a quiet life collecting coins, is testament to how good she was at her craft. She was never caught. Gotta hope the success of this profile on her doesn’t suddenly blow her life up.New study: giving cash to poor mothers increases brain activity in babiesWho would have thought that ensuring babies have enough to eat might be good for them? Can’t wait for the pro-life crowd to get behind this!House committee in Florida passes ‘Don’t Say Gay’ billYes, that’s what it’s really called. Florida wants to ban teachers from talking about things like sexuality and gender identity in school classrooms. A report from the Trevor Project found that LGBTQ+ youth who learned about LGBTQ+ people or issues in school had 23% lower odds of reporting a suicide attempt in the last year.Tennessee school board bans Pulitzer prize-winning Holocaust novelThings in American schools are very normal and not terrifying at all.Italian job advert demands you send in a swimsuit photo“We ask that you send a full photo in a bathing suit or similar,” the advert for the €500-a-month receptionist job read. Other requirements for the role? Be a woman under 30. The Italian labour ministry is now investigating.The week in praytriarchyIt would appear that nothing is sacred anymore. According to Buzzfeed, venture capitalists are flocking to invest in Christian worship apps so they can get their hands on the user data. Remember: god is always watching … and so are data brokers.
      Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order
      TopicsSarah PalinThe Week in PatriarchyUS politicsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      American muckrakers: Peter Schweizer, James O’Keefe and a rightwing full court press

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      American muckrakers: Peter Schweizer, James O’Keefe and a rightwing full court pressThe author of Clinton Cash takes aim at the Bidens, the founder of Project Veritas stakes a claim for legitimacy. The results are murky – but offer a map for political battles to come The official investigation of Hunter Biden’s dealings in China and elsewhere rests in the hands of David Weiss, a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in Delaware, and the US justice department under Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland. Politically speaking, we now have Red-Handed by Peter Schweizer, who would very much like to help us digest the business past of the 46th president’s troublesome son.Clinton Cash: errors dog Bill and Hillary exposé – but is there any ‘there’ there?Read moreSchweizer’s works include Clinton Cash, a compendium of opposition research that helped shape the presidential election in 2016. These days, he is president of the Government Accountability Institute, a think tank funded by the Mercer family, part of the rightwing ecosystem.Rebekah Mercer chairs the GAI board, a position previously held by Steve Bannon, whom Donald Trump pardoned of fraud charges but who is now under indictment for contempt of Congress. Mercer is also a founding investor in Parler, a rightwing alternative to Twitter and communications vehicle for Trump’s faithful in the run-up to the 6 January insurrection.The Mercers are mainstays of Breitbart News and once funded James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas – of which, more later. Via Cambridge Analytica, the Mercers helped hijack Brexit. Not surprisingly, Nigel Farage counts the Mercers as allies.If Republicans recapture the House in November, as expected, most see investigations of Hunter Biden and his father an inevitable sequel. Schweizer has published a roadmap, from sources including Secret Service travel logs, materials from former business associates and that infamous laptop.Schweizer argues that the rich and powerful have grown too cozy with China, at the expense of their own country. His central contention is that the Biden family garnered approximately $31m from individuals with direct ties to Chinese intelligence.Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing. In 2020, Politifact said Schweizer’s claims about Joe Biden did “not add up to a picture” of his “being corrupt or pursuing policies contrary to the national interest”.Schweizer, however, fires shots across the political spectrum. John Boehner, a Republican speaker of the House, and Henry Kissinger, secretary of state to two Republican presidents, are in his sights. So are the Bushes. Chuck Schumer, Mark Warner, Chris Coons and Joe Manchin, all Democratic senators, are praised.Schweizer lambasts Silicon Valley for enabling China’s rise and turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. Elon Musk and Bill Gates are criticized, Wall Street (prominently Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Black Rock), the National Basketball Association and academe too. Yale University receives particular attention.Not surprisingly, Schweizer does not consider links to China enjoyed by Trump and his most ardent followers. He ignores, for example, tax records that show Trump International Hotels Management paid more than $188,000 in China while pursuing licensing deals between 2013 and 2015, and maintained a bank account there.Likewise, Schweizer looks away from Ted Cruz. The Texas senator’s wife is a banker at Goldman. The Cruzes hold direct investments of between $15,000 and $50,000 in the Goldman Sachs China Equity Fund Class P, a mutual fund with positions in Alibaba and Tencent – companies firmly in Schweizer’s sights.Then again, the Mercers are Cruz donors. In 2016, Cruz’s presidential campaign was a Cambridge Analytica client.Schweizer calls for a US lobbying ban on companies linked to the Chinese military and Chinese intelligence, and their exclusion from US stock exchanges. He also demands the press pursue big tech involvement with China.As models for how to resist the Chinese, he holds out Peter Thiel and his company Palantir. Thiel, a rightwing megadonor, gained notoriety when he wrote in 2009 that women and minorities had mucked up democratic capitalism. A Palantir employee planted the concept of data harvesting with Cambridge Analytica.The scandal that wasn’t: Republicans deflated as nation shrugs at Hunter Biden revelationsRead moreAs for China’s territorial ambitions? In another book, Trump was quoted by the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin. If the Chinese were to invade Taiwan, he told a senator, “there isn’t a fucking thing we can do”.It seems unlikely the US could be capable of decoupling its economy from China while avoiding clashes. China’s opacity with regard to Covid does not instill confidence. Schweizer’s book does at least deliver food for thought.‘Free speech for me …’If Red-Handed is an amalgam of more than 1,100 footnotes, facts, arguments and innuendos, American Muckraker by James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, is a 288-page exercise in self-reverence.“The American Muckraker understands that the path to truth involves suffering and sacrifice,” O’Keefe writes. OK. Elsewhere, he compares his plight to that of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Alabama in the late 1950s, as it worked for “equality”. Really. He also repeatedly refers to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian dissident.What does O’Keefe do for a living? Mostly, he makes sting videos targeting Democrats and progressives. Targets have included Planned Parenthood and a teachers’ union.Practically speaking, American Muckraker is O’Keefe’s attempt to bolster his claim of being a journalist while re-defining what the media actually is in an era of cold civil war. On that note, he recounts a conversation with Brian Karem after the Playboy White House reporter had a dust-up with a Trump loyalist, Sebastian Gorka.“I’m on the same team as you,” said O’Keefe. “I respect you guys.”Really? Project Veritas counts the Donald J Trump Foundation among past donors and Erik Prince, former head of the Blackwater private security company and brother of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was involved in its sting operations against Trump adversaries. O’Keefe makes clear he is not keen on a shedding a light on those who fund his work.He does have a genuine grievance. In early November 2021, the FBI raided his apartment, handcuffed him in his underwear and seized two phones. He was not arrested.Reportedly, the feds swooped in connection with the disappearance and unauthorized publication of a diary kept by Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter. Project Veritas never wrote anything on the topic and handed the document over. The justice department had placed the first amendment and O’Keefe’s civil liberties in its crosshairs, notwithstanding a court-ordered warrant.But that is only part of the story. In 2020, O’Keefe sued the New York Times for libel in connection with its coverage of videos concerning alleged voter fraud in Minnesota. A New York judge refused to dismiss the suit and O’Keefe has obtained an injunction that bars the paper from publishing documents written by a Project Veritas lawyer.O’Keefe’s mantra might be: “Free speech for me – but not for thee.”Despite the efforts of Richard Nixon in the case of the Pentagon Papers, prior restraint remains anathema to a free press – as Donald Trump’s late brother, Robert, learned when he failed to block publication of a niece’s tell-all.Nonetheless, Trump allies are urging the supreme court to reconsider protections afforded to the media under US libel law. Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have indicated they are willing. The fact that the decision in question was rendered by a unanimous court a half-century ago means little. American Muckraker is a book for such troubled times.
      Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win is published in the US by Harper. American Muckraker: Rethinking Journalism for the 21st Century is published by Post Hill Press
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksUS politicsJoe BidenHunter BidenRepublicansChinareviewsReuse this content More

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      Butt of the joke: Bette Midler fires back at West Virginia governor Jim Justice

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      Butt of the joke: Bette Midler fires back at West Virginia governor Jim JusticeActor and activist says ‘dog’s ass would make a better governor’ after State of the State speech stunt goes viral Bette Midler had harsh words for the governor of West Virginia after he showed his dog’s backside at the end of his State of the State speech, in a bizarre rejoinder to the actor, singer and activist.Billionaire Republican backer donates to Manchin after he killed key Biden billRead moreResponding on Thursday to a tweet in which Midler called West Virginia “poor, illiterate and strung out”, the Republican Jim Justice said she could kiss his dog’s “hiney”.On Friday, Midler retweeted a picture of the stunt with the caption: “Here we can see a dog’s asshole. Right next to it is the butt of Jim Justice’s dog.”Midler also tweeted: “Here are the state rankings of all the areas and agencies for which the so-called ‘governor’ of West Virginia, Jim Justice, is responsible. Judging from these rankings, I’d say his dog’s ass would make a better governor than him!”The graphic, from US News and World Report, showed West Virginia scoring poorly in healthcare, education, economy and other categories and 47th overall among the 50 US states. The state tends to score poorly in such rankings.Justice, 70, a coalmining magnate who was elected as a Democrat, is an eccentric figure who often uses his English bulldog, Babydog, as a political prop. His State of the State speech, at the capitol in Charleston, was delayed after he contracted Covid-19.Midler angered the governor with comments in December that were prompted by her own anger towards the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin.Manchin, a Democrat, that month sank Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan. This month, he stood in the way of Senate reform to facilitate the passage of voting rights protections.“What Joe Manchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible,” Midler tweeted.“He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.”She later apologised to “the good people” of West Virginia.On Thursday, Justice chose to end an address in which he said too many people “doubted” West Virginians and “told every bad joke in the world about us” by lifting up his pet and flashing its bottom to the cameras and crowd.“Babydog tells Bette Midler and all those out there: Kiss her hiney,” he said as the crowd applauded. Attendees included lawmakers, state supreme court justices and agency heads. Members of a high school girl’s basketball team Justice coaches were present in the gallery.Shawn Fluharty, a Democratic state delegate, said: “The governor brought his Babydog and pony show to the State of the State and pulled this stunt as some bold statement.“It was nothing short of embarrassing and beneath the office. Jim Justice habitually lowers the bar of our state. They don’t laugh with us, but at us.”TopicsBette MidlerWest VirginiaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More