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      Joe Biden says his administration has ‘outperformed’ in bruising first year

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      Joe Biden says his administration has ‘outperformed’ in bruising first yearPresident touts coronavirus relief aid and infrastructure law but acknowledges pandemic is unfinished job
      ‘I don’t believe the polls’: Biden gives testy press conference02:04Joe Biden on Wednesday conceded that the unshakable threat of the Covid-19 pandemic had left many Americans demoralized, but insisted that his administration had “outperformed” expectations despite the myriad crises facing the nation during his first year in office.Speaking to reporters in the East Room of the White House for his first news conference in months, the US president said he was confident Democrats could pass “big chunks” of his sprawling domestic policy bill currently stalled in the Senate before the 2022 midterm elections.Biden pledged media reset after Trump – so why so few press conferences?Read more“It’s been a year of challenges but it’s also been a year of enormous progress,” Biden said, outlining the administration’s early successes: passing coronavirus relief aid that slashed child poverty rates and a bipartisan infrastructure law that will shower funding for major public works projects on every state in the nation.Biden was also realistic about the difficult road ahead, as the extremely contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus overwhelms hospitals, inflation rises and his agenda languishes before a Congress controlled by Democrats.“After almost two years of physical, emotional and psychological impact of this pandemic, for many of us, it’s been too much to bear,” he said. “Some people may call what’s happening now ‘the new normal’. I call it a job not yet finished. It will get better.”Grading his efforts to combat the pandemic, Biden insisted the US was better positioned now than when he took office, while acknowledging mistakes, such as not ordering more tests earlier. He vowed the US would not go back to the earliest days of the pandemic when lockdowns and school closures were widespread. “I didn’t overpromise,” he said. “I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen.”Wednesday’s press conference was his 10th since taking office, far fewer than his most recent predecessors. Only a limited number of journalists were credentialed for the press conference, and all were required to wear masks, a reminder of the virus’s continuing threat.In a revealing split screen, Biden’s press conference took place as Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat and key holdout on much of Biden’s agenda, took to the floor of the Senate to denounce his party’s efforts to amend the filibuster rule to pass voting rights protections. Biden defended his pursuit of what appeared to be a hopeless effort to pass the bills, which are all but certain to fail without full Democratic support in the evenly-divided Senate.Biden said he was still hopeful that the Congress would find a path forward on voting rights legislation, and as such wasn’t prepared to divulge possible executive actions he might take on the issue. The bills, Biden argued, were urgently needed to counter voter suppression and subversion efforts being carried out in Republican-led states. Lacerating speeches by the president on the need for these protections failed to move Republicans.In the coming months, Biden said he would travel to states and districts across the country to promote his agenda and sell his administration’s accomplishments, trying to correct what he described as a communication failure on his part. Citing the coronavirus and his work in Washington, he lamented not being able to leave Washington more frequently during his first year to “do the things I’ve often been able to do pretty well – connect with people”.He believed key pieces of his Build Back Better agenda could pass the Senate, including popular plans to combat climate change and create a universal pre-kindergarten program.Plans to extend a monthly child tax benefit expanded temporarily as part of the $1.9tn pandemic relief package may not be included in a scaled-back version of the bill, he indicated. The payments, which expired in December, helped keep millions of children out of poverty during the pandemic.To the chagrin of many Democrats, Biden, a veteran of the US Senate, said he failed to anticipate that there would be “such a stalwart effort” by Congressional Republicans to obstruct his agenda.“One thing I haven’t been able to do so far is get my Republican friends to get in the game at making things better in this country,” Biden said. He assailed the Republican party for its deference to Donald Trump, wondering how “one man out of office could intimidate an entire party?”Previewing a line of attack he will use against the party in the midterms, he accused Republicans of lacking a policy core or a set of guiding principles. “What are Republicans for? What are they for? Name me one thing they’re for.”Biden bristled at the notion that his agenda was radical in any way. “I’m not asking for castles in the sky,” he insisted. “I’m asking for practical things the American people have been asking for for a long time.”At ease behind the lectern, Biden parried with reporters for nearly two hours. At one point, he checked his watch, smiled and agreed to take questions for 20 more minutes.The range of questions he fielded – on the pandemic, rising inflation, Russian aggression, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, a daunting electoral landscape, his falling approval ratings – underscored the extent of the challenges that lie ahead for the administration as it aims to recalibrate after a string of setbacks.Addressing the brewing threat at the Ukrainian border, where Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops, Biden predicted that Moscow would invade Ukraine and promised Vladimir Putin would pay a “dear price” if he moved forward with an attack. He also appeared to suggest that a “minor incursion” would draw a lesser response from Nato than a full-scale invasion.Moments after he spoke, White House press secretary Jen Psaki sought to clarify the remark, saying that any act of aggression by Russia, including cyberattacks and paramilitary tactics, would be “met with a decisive, reciprocal, and united response.”On Afghanistan, Biden said there was no easy way to leave the country after 20 years of war: “I make no apologies for what I did.” And asked about talks with Iran, he said now was “not the time to give up” on efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.Pressed on the economy, he said it was the “critical job” of the Federal Reserve to tame inflation, but touted his domestic agenda as a remedy for rising costs, which has left voters pessimistic about the state of the economy and Biden’s ability to improve it.But Biden was bullish: “I’m happy to have a referendum on how I handled the economy.”Looking ahead, he was unequivocal when asked whether vice-president Kamala Harris would again be his running mate in 2024. “Yes,” he replied.In one exchange, a reporter with a right-wing news outlet asked why some Americans view Biden as mentally unfit to run the country. “I have no idea,” he replied tartly.In another, he pushed back on the notion that he was trying to pull the country leftward. “You guys have been trying to convince me that I am Bernie Sanders. I’m not,” Biden said, asserting that he was a “mainstream Democrat” as he always had been.Asked how he could win back independent voters who supported him in 2020 but have become disillusioned with his leadership so far, Biden pushed back. “I don’t believe the polls.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsCoronavirusUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      DoJ creates unit to counter domestic terrorism after Capitol attack

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      DoJ creates unit to counter domestic terrorism after Capitol attack‘We face an elevated threat from domestic violent extremists,’ says assistant attorney general of the national security division

      US politics – live coverage
      The Biden administration is creating a new unit in the justice department to counter domestic terrorism following the deadly US Capitol attack by supporters of Donald Trump, a senior official said on Tuesday.‘The Timothy McVeighs are still there’: fears over extremism in US militaryRead more“We face an elevated threat from domestic violent extremists,” Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general of the national security division, told a hearing held by the Senate judiciary committee.Olsen was testifying days after the US observed the first anniversary of the violent attack on Congress, in which Trump supporters sought to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.Olsen said the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists had more than doubled since the spring of 2020.In November, a top FBI official told Congress the bureau was conducting around 2,700 investigations related to domestic violent extremism.Olsen defined such extremists as “individuals in the United States who seek to commit violent criminal acts in furtherance of domestic social or political goals”.“Domestic violent extremists are often motivated by a mix of ideologies and personal grievances,” he said. “We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.”The attorney general, Merrick Garland, told lawmakers last May domestic violent extremist groups, particularly white supremacists, posed a growing threat to the US.The DoJ national security division has a counter-terrorism section. Olsen told the committee he decided to create a specialised domestic terrorism unit “to augment our existing approach”.Olsen said the new unit will be housed within the national security division and will work to “ensure that these cases are properly handled and effectively coordinated” across the department and around the country.Five people died around the Capitol attack and more than 100 police officers were hurt. The DoJ has brought criminal charges against more than 725 participants.Some of the defendants are members or associated with far-right groups or militia including the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.TopicsBiden administrationThe far rightUS politicsUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      The US jobs report was a warning sign – even before the Omicron surge | Robert Reich

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      The US jobs report was a warning sign – even before the Omicron surgeRobert ReichThe Fed wants to raise interest rates and coronavirus support programs are ending. Millions of families stand to suffer Friday’s jobs report from the Department of Labor was a warning sign about the US economy. It should cause widespread concern about the Fed’s plans to raise interest rates to control inflation. And it should cause policymakers to rethink ending government supports such as extended unemployment insurance and the child tax credit. These will soon be needed to keep millions of families afloat.US workforce grows by just 199,000 in disappointing DecemberRead moreEmployers added only 199,000 jobs in December. That’s the fewest new jobs added in any month last year. In November, employers added 249,000. The average for 2021 was 537,000 jobs per month. Note also that the December survey was done in mid-December, before the latest surge in the Omicron variant of Covid caused millions of people to stay home.But the Fed is focused on the fact that average hourly wages climbed 4.7% over the year. Central bankers believe those wage increases have been pushing up prices. They also believe the US is nearing “full employment” – the maximum rate of employment possible without igniting even more inflation.As a result, the Fed is about to prescribe the wrong medicine. It’s going to raise interest rates to slow the economy – even though millions of former workers have yet to return to the job market and even though job growth is slowing sharply. Higher interest rates will cause more job losses. Slowing the economy will make it harder for workers to get real wage increases. And it will put millions of Americans at risk.The Fed has it backwards. Wage increases have not caused prices to rise. Price increases have caused real wages (what wages can actually purchase) to fall. Prices are increasing at the rate of 6.8% annually but wages are growing only between 3-4%.The most important cause of inflation is corporate power to raise prices.Yes, supply bottlenecks have caused the costs of some components and materials to rise. But large corporations have been using these rising costs to justify increasing their own prices when there’s no reason for them to do so.Corporate profits are at a record high. If corporations faced tough competition, they would not pass those wage increases on to customers in the form of higher prices. They’d absorb them and cut their profits.But they don’t have to do this because most industries are now oligopolies composed of a handful of major producers that coordinate price increases.Yes, employers have felt compelled to raise nominal wages to keep and attract workers. But that’s only because employers cannot find and keep workers at the lower nominal wages they’d been offering. They would have no problem finding and retaining workers if they raised wages in real terms – that is, over the rate of inflation they themselves are creating.Astonishingly, some lawmakers and economists continue to worry that the government is contributing to inflation by providing too much help to working people. A few, including some Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are unwilling to support Biden’s Build Back Better package because they fear additional government spending will fuel inflation.Joe Biden needs to stand up and fight Manchin like our lives depend on it | Daniel SherrellRead moreHere again, the reality is exactly the opposite. The economy is in imminent danger of slowing, as the December job numbers (collected before the Omicron surge) reveal.Many Americans will soon need additional help since they can no longer count on extra unemployment benefits, stimulus payments or additional child tax credits. This is hardly the time to put on the fiscal brakes.Policymakers at the Fed and in Congress continue to disregard the elephant in the room: the power of large corporations to raise prices. As a result, they’re on the way to hurting the people who have been taking it on the chin for decades – average working people.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsUS economyOpinionFederal ReserveEconomicsBiden administrationUS politicsUS domestic policyUS taxationcommentReuse this content More

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      Joe Manchin appears to have withdrawn offer to back $1.8tn bill on Biden agenda

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      Joe Manchin appears to have withdrawn offer to back $1.8tn bill on Biden agendaConservative Democratic senator has signalled privately he is not interested in supporting any Build Back Better package

      Can Democrats can salvage Build Back Better?
      A $1.8tn spending offer proposed to the White House in late 2021 by Senator Joe Manchin appears to be off the table, following another breakdown in talks between the moderate Democrat from West Virginia and the Biden White House, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.Harry Reid: Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and Obama to attend Nevada memorialRead moreManchin told reporters this week he is no longer involved in discussions with the White House and has signaled privately that he is not interested in approving any legislation like Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Package, the newspaper said, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.Manchin’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The legislation is one of Biden’s signature domestic priorities. Manchin’s vote is critical in the evenly divided Senate. In December, his opposition torpedoed Build Back Better, drawing ire from progressives and sending the party scrambling to find a way to resurrect the package.Biden’s plan includes funding for high-priority issues for many Americans, including free pre-school, support for childcare costs, coverage of home-care costs for the elderly and expansion of free school meals. It also seeks to fund measures to combat the climate crisis.Manchin has spoken with officials and others seeking to garner his support, the Post said, among them the senior White House aide Steve Ricchetti; a former economic adviser to Donald Trump, Larry Kudlow; and the Republican senator Mitt Romney, of Utah.Manchin is the only Democrat in major elected office in West Virginia. Attempts to secure his support for Build Back Better have been dogged by fears he could quit the party, either to sit as an independent or to switch to the Republicans, thereby tipping the Senate to the GOP.TopicsJoe ManchinDemocratsUS politicsUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden needs to stand up and fight Manchin like our lives depend on it | Daniel Sherrell

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      Joe Biden needs to stand up and fight Manchin like our lives depend on itDaniel SherrellIf we are to stand any chance in avoiding climate breakdown, Biden needs to act decisively – and now A few days before Christmas, Joe Manchin appeared on Fox News to publicly retract his support for the Build Back Better Act. Even by the pathologically callous standards of Washington, it felt surreal to watch a politician jeopardize tens of millions of lives in a single 10-minute interview. But the stakes of his decision remain clear: without the act, the United States will fall far short of its climate goals, making a century of ecological collapse, economic devastation and civilizational upheaval not only more likely, but increasingly unavoidable.In the wake of the announcement, despair flickered across the internet. Friends called me in tears. My generation has watched our government fail again and again to enact meaningful federal climate legislation. But this latest betrayal is almost too much to bear. It feels like we are being forced to say goodbye: to our democracy, to our future, to the world we were told we’d inherit.If Build Back Better fails, Manchin may well be remembered as the man who killed the planet. Given the prospect of having to one day explain to his grandchildren why they can’t go outside in the summer, you think he’d at least attempt to marshal some plausible justifications. But his arguments collapse under the lightest scrutiny. His inflation fears have been thoroughly debunked, including by Larry Summers, the patron saint of inflation anxiety. His climate arguments are fundamentally unserious, anti-science propaganda copied straight from the big coal playbook.The most generous interpretation is that he’s a mulish egotist: a man who sticks to his guns, even when his guns are firing blanks. But the bulk of the evidence points to simple bad faith. Since joining the Senate, Manchin has personally grossed over $4.5m from coal companies he owns. In recent months he has received millions in campaign donations from Republican billionaires and fossil fuel executives who want to see Build Back Better die a slow, painful death. Meanwhile, he has ignored the pleas of West Virginia mothers, tuned out the counsel of his own pope and bulldozed the very coal miners he’s so often wielded as political props. In the light of day, his motives seem as obvious as they are depressing.Regardless of his true endgame, Manchin’s reversal raises a pressing question: what exactly is Biden’s strategy? He’s already forfeited his most obvious piece of leverage, allowing the bipartisan infrastructure bill to move forward without any promise of reciprocation. His “charm offensive” – an exercise in Beltway nostalgia, if not outright political delusion – has run aground on the brutal logic of contemporary petro-politics. When it comes to his signature policy agenda, his administration seems flustered, reactive and naive.And yet, the bill must not be abandoned. Executive action alone probably can’t deliver the lasting emissions reductions that climate science demands. If the first Democratic trifecta since 2009 fails to produce ambitious climate legislation, both party and planet will suffer catastrophic consequences.So Biden needs a new strategy, and fast. There are two basic options. The first is to take off the kid gloves and start playing hardball. If he doesn’t have any leverage, then he needs to get some, especially if Manchin is acting in bad faith. That means channeling Lyndon B Johnson and pairing noble intent with sharp elbows. Threaten targeted federal regulations that would cripple Manchin’s benefactors in big coal. Use the bully pulpit to call them out by name: Michelle Bloodworth, Chris Hamilton, Joe Craft, Jim McGlothlin – all the special interests ready to sacrifice my generation on the altar of their quarterly returns.Have the justice department revisit allegations that Manchin’s daughter, former Mylan chief Heather Bresch, played a personal role in criminally inflating the price of life-saving EpiPens (as if corporate fealty and misanthropic greed were a sort of family tradition). Dare him to defect to the Republican party, where he’ll either kiss the ring of the autocrat he voted twice to impeach or be eaten alive as a Republican in Name Only, or Rino.The second option is to publicly accept Manchin’s private counteroffer, get it to the Senate floor for a vote, and then dare him to renege. The $1.8tn counter-offer – which reportedly included universal pre-K, an expansion of the Affordable Care Act and $500 to 600bn in clean energy incentives – would fall short of what working people need. But it would offer some crucial support, while keeping America’s climate commitments alive.There’s a chance Biden could still circumvent Manchin on extending the child tax credit, which would lift millions of American children out of poverty. No state has benefited from the popular policy more than Utah, and Mitt Romney has indicated a willingness to negotiate. Progressives could blanket his state in ads on child poverty while the administration buttonholes him on specifics.Whichever path the administration chooses, they need to abandon their fixation on “projecting normalcy”. We are not living in normal times, and every American knows it. With each new failure, their genteel posture reads less like a steady hand and more like a form of sleepwalking.It’s time they communicated candidly with the American public and made clear what is actually happening. Manchin’s intransigence is not an unfortunate product of normal democratic deliberation. It is a perverse and dangerous attempt on the part of fossil fuel oligarchs to prevent the demos from protecting itself against climate change. Republicans’ lockstep opposition to clean energy investments supported by almost two thirds of American voters is not the product of legitimate policy disagreement, but of a party actively and transparently opposed to majoritarian democracy.As the Biden presidency enters what could be the final act of a political tragedy, the only way out is to break the fourth wall. Sound the alarm and enlist the public. Expose the actors standing between young people and a livable future; between working families and a dignified living; and between all Americans and their right to representation.If Biden wants to win the war for democracy, then he must summon the courage to name it – loudly and repeatedly. Otherwise, his base will remain as we were after Manchin’s announcement: demobilized, despairing and deeply, justifiably cynical.
      Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (Penguin Books) and a climate activist
      TopicsJoe BidenOpinionJoe ManchinDemocratsUS politicsUS domestic policycommentReuse this content More

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      Progressives concerned as Eric Adams takes helm as New York mayor

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      Progressives concerned as Eric Adams takes helm as New York mayorHomelessness, safe housing, police brutality and racial injustice – does Bill de Blasio’s replacement have the policies to fix them? For many New Yorkers, the inauguration of Eric Adams as the 110th mayor of New York City – and only the second Black person to serve in the position – has evoked a range of feelings, from excitement at the possibility of change to confusion and concern.‘Generals don’t lead from the back’: New York mayor Eric Adams seeks bold start Read moreAdams’ rise through city and state politics was fairly typical. In addition to serving as a New York police captain, he was the Brooklyn borough president and a state senator. But he remains an unconventional, even enigmatic figure. There are questions surrounding his home address and curiosity about his plant-based diet, but information about his actual policies remain scarce.“Where Eric Adams has thrived, in many ways, is in really failing to lay out a vision,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, director of the New York Working Families party. “His transition has been defined by personality, less [by] an agenda for the city.”Progressives and advocates working across multiple sectors have voiced concerns at the slow emergence of Adams’ plans and priorities, and worry about positions he has taken including increasing the use of the heavily criticized “stop-and-frisk” policy and resurrecting plainclothes policemen units.Adams’ ascent comes at a crucial time in New York history, as the city seeks to emerge from the pandemic and the economic and social chaos that has come with it.New York’s ballooning homelessness crisis, primarily caused by a lack of affordable housing, is one of the largest issues Adam must contend with. In 2020, more than 120,000 people, including children, slept in the New York municipal shelter system, with homelessness reaching the highest levels since the Great Depression.Covid presented additional challenges, spreading rapidly among homeless populations.Advocates have widely supported Adams’ priority of increasing permanent, affordable housing in a city which has some of America’s most expensive rents. But many have raised concerns about Adams’ main plan: converting 25,000 hotel rooms into permanent apartments, noting zoning and conversion requirements many hotels do not meet.Public housing, managed by the New York Public Housing Association, is another area where Adams has faced pushback. Adams supports privatizing public housing units as well as selling air rights above public housing units. Activists have said such actions, presented as an opportunity to raise capital for blighted buildings, are ineffective and that oversight for private landlords when it comes to addressing housing issues like mold and lead paint would become even more difficult.“His focus is going to be on his big-money donors. That’s been his track record all along. That’s not a secret,” said Fight for NYCHA core member Louis Flores.“We expect him to continue down that road, and for public housing that he’s going to support policies that benefit the real estate development industry at the expense of the public housing residents.”Slice of life: New York’s famed $1 street pizza under threat from rising costsRead moreDespite ambiguities around some of Adams’ plans for addressing homelessness, some experts are hopeful delays in appointments – and Adams’ reputation for flexibility – could be an opportunity for his administration to receive input from community leaders on how to address the crisis, including through the creation of a deputy to oversee homelessness and affordable housing.”Having a bit more of a deliberative process is ultimately going to be more impactful than coming out on day one with an ambitious target for the number of units of affordable housing that should be created that might not actually have the impact of reducing homelessness and housing insecurity,” said Jacquelyn Simone, policy director at Coalition for the Homeless.Proposed changes to policing are another point of tension.Adams, who has described assault at the hands of an NYPD officer as inspiration for joining public service, has faced criticism for his plans to resurrect controversial plainclothes units, an anti-crime department in the NYPD involved in a number of shootings, and increase use of stop-and-frisk, a policy critics have condemned as racially discriminatory.While Adams and his newly appointed NYPD commissioner, Keechant Sewell, the first Black woman to lead the department, have supported these policies and vowed to use properly trained, “emotionally intelligent” officers, progressive have argued that previous training attempts have failed, with many officers continually excused for misconduct.“What does the emotional intelligence of an officer matter if he’s got you up against the wall, patting you down,” said Kesi Foster, a lead organizer with the nonprofit Make the Road New York and a steering committee member with Communities United for Police Reform.Simone said: “The ways to solve unsheltered homelessness is not through policing and pushing people from one corner to another.”Other policing initiatives Adams has sponsored have met criticism, specifically when it comes to New York’s troubled jail system.While Adams has publicly supported closing down Rikers Island, a jail with notoriously poor conditions where several people have died in pre-trial custody, he has also promised to bring back solitary confinement to Rikers, reversing a previous ban on a practice several experts have called “inhumane”.Eric Adams sworn in as mayor of New York CityRead moreAdams has publicly opposed bail reform measures, meant to curtail pre-trial detention but rolled back, citing debunked claims that releases have spurred increases in crime.“Changing the bail bill is not going to achieve the outcome the mayor wants. We’re hoping that we can convince him of that during his tenure,” said Marie Ndiaye, supervising attorney of the Decarceration Project at the Legal Aid Society.“Getting wishy-washy on bail reform is pretty scary because there’s a pretty linear correlation between the rollbacks and the jail population increasing,” said Sara Rahimi of the nonprofit Emergency Release Fund.In general, advocates contend there is more to be learned about Adams as more appointments are made, but given his comments so far, many are approaching the mayor-elect with caution and timid hope of being able to advance progressive policy.“Cautiously optimistic and cautiously pessimistic all at once would be the way to go there,” said Ndiaye.TopicsNew YorkUS politicsUS policingUS crimeUS domestic policyHomelessnessHousingnewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate run

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate runCritics seize on Build Back Better criticisms from controversial candidate nonetheless endorsed by Donald Trump Herschel Walker has Donald Trump’s endorsement in the race for US Senate in Georgia but the former NFL star may be struggling to counter fears from some Republicans that he could damage the party’s chances of taking back a seat lost in 2020, and with it the Senate itself.Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account Read moreIn December, the former University of Georgia and Dallas Cowboys running back admitted he does not have a college degree – having repeatedly said that he did.Then, as January began, Walker posted to social media a short but to some bafflingly phrased video.Under the message “a few things to think about as we start the New Year”, Walker attacked policy priorities championed by Democrats including Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator who will defend his seat in November.“Build Back Better,” he said, referring to Joe Biden’s domestic spending plan, which targets health and social care and the climate crisis.“You know I’m always thinking: if you want to build back better, first you probably want to control the border, because you want to know who you’re building it for and why. Then you probably want to protect your military, because they’re protecting you against people in other countries that don’t like you.”He then shifted to a broader goal, popular among progressives.“Defunding the police? Bad idea. You want to fund the police so that they have better training, better equipment to protect the law of the land, because you don’t want people doing whatever they want to do.”Then he shifted back again.“Build Back Better. You probably want to become energy independent. Otherwise you’re going to depend on other countries for your livelihood. Build Back Better. You probably want something written, like law of the land, stating that all men are to be treated equal. Oh! We have the constitution. So you probably want to put people in charge who’s going to fight for the constitution.“Just thinking. God bless you.”Burgess Owens, a Republican congressman from Utah who once played safety for the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, said Walker “represents what the American dream is all about: hard work, strong character, and love for our great country. I am honored to endorse Herschel for Senate and look forward to working with him!”But critics said the video – and a similarly rambling Fox News appearance – was evidence of Walker’s unsuitability for office.To some, such evidence has piled up ever since Walker signaled a shift into politics. Last summer, the Associated Press said “hundreds of pages of public records tied to Walker’s business ventures and his divorce, including many not previously reported, shed new light on a turbulent personal history that could dog his Senate bid”.The documents, the AP said, “detail accusations that Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife’s life, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior”.The day Donald Trump’s narcissism killed the USFLRead moreThe AP also reported that Walker “has at times been open about his long struggle with mental illness, writing at length in a 2008 book about being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, once known as multiple personality disorder”.The report also quoted the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, who said that while Walker “certainly could bring a lot of things to the table … as others have mentioned, there’s also a lot of questions out there”.In the matter of Walker touting a college degree he does not hold, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the false claim was made on a campaign website, “in an online biography advertising Walker’s book, at a campaign rally … and even during his introduction this year at a congressional hearing”.In a statement, Walker said: “I was majoring in criminal justice at UGA when I left to play in the USFL my junior year. After playing with the New Jersey Generals” – a team Trump owned – “I returned to Athens to complete my degree, but life and football got in the way.”TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrest

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      The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrest Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague have produced an indispensable and alarming ground-level record of how Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election played out in precincts and ballot-counting centers in key statesIn their terrific new book, the veteran reporters Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague argue that the mob that invaded the Capitol in Washington almost exactly a year ago “had no more chance of overthrowing the US government than hippies in 1967 had trying to levitate the Pentagon”.From Peril to Betrayal: the year in books about Trump and other political animalsRead moreThe “real insurrection” was the one “led by Trump and his coterie of sycophants” in Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona. It “was only slightly better organized than the mob but considerably more calculated and dangerous”.That real insurrection is the subject of this timely and important volume. The authors have used a stethoscope to examine the minutia of the American election process. The result is a thrilling and suspenseful celebration of the survival of democracy.The attempted coup was led by Donald Trump. Its intended denouement, in which the vice-president, Mike Pence, would ignore the votes of the six states above plus Washington DC in order to swing the election to Trump, was outlined in an insane memo written by the lawyer John Eastman, described here as “surely the most seditious document to emerge from the White House in American history”.That final act, of course, never happened. Not even Pence, the most sycophantic vice-president of modern times, could bring himself to violate the constitution so blatantly to keep his boss in the White House.But the genuine heroes, brought to life here, were the “hundreds of obscure Americans from every walk of life, state and local officials, judges and election workers. Many of them were Republicans, some were Trump supporters. They refused to accept his slander of themselves, their communities and their workers, and they refused to betray their sworn duty to their office and their country. They were the real patriots.”Bowden and Teague – the latter a Guardian contributor – take us through six battles that lasted from the night of the election, 3 November 2020, until Joe Biden’s election was finally certified by Congress early on 7 January last year.Their book performs a vital service, demonstrating just how well our tattered democracy managed to function despite vicious partisanship and all the new challenges created by the pandemic. For the first time, I understood how brilliantly new machines used to count the votes performed, the intricacies of opening outer and inner envelopes, capturing the images of both then preserving the vital paper ballots inside, making it possible to confirm electronic results with a hand count in case of any failure in technology.In Arizona, the elections department conducted “the mandatory hand count of election day ballots from 2% of the vote centers and 1% of the early ballots as required by Arizona law and it yielded a 100% match to the results produced by the tabulation equipment”.Scott Jarrett was co-director of elections in the populous Maricopa county, and he is one of the crucial bureaucrats celebrated here: “A pale slender young man … dressed in a plain gray suit, the very picture of an earnest functionary, a man happily engaged in the actual machinery of government and quietly proud of his own unheralded importance and competence.”In a public hearing crowded with crazed conspiracy theorists, Jarrett carefully explained how only one of the two “encrypted memory cards (both with tamper-proof evidence seals)” was transported from various polling centers to the main counting location, “so that the results on one card could be double-checked against the other as well as the precinct ballot report they had generated. Backing up that memory were, of course, the actual ballots that had been run through the machines. The memory cards and the ballots were sealed and delivered by “two members of different parties”, escorted by county sheriffs.Clint Hickman, chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, noted that if the eyes of some in the audience were glazing over, he just wanted “people that are watching this” to understand “we don’t glaze over”.The authors point out that Hickman was touching on a fundamental feature of The Steal, the factitious narrative concocted by Trump and his cronies: conspiracy theorists depend on ignorance.“They begin with distrust: only a sucker believes the official story. They then replace the often tedious, mundane details of an intricate process … with a simpler narrative”: theft.They invent colorful stories about a “deal struck with a late Venezuelan dictator to deliver tainted election machines, or a plot to preprint fake ballots in the dead of night”. This creates what cognitive scientists call “a community of knowledge”.The big problem that didn’t exist even 30 years ago is the speed with which such idiotic stories are spread through the internet and by the Twitter feed of a malevolent president like Trump, exploding the reach of such stories and their power to undermine democratic norms.March of the Trump memoirs: Mark Meadows and other Republican readsRead moreThe book reminds us that democracy itself depends on a modicum of trust. That is why Trump’s ability to persuade so many Americans of the truth of so many lies has had such a disastrous effect on our body politic.Bowden and Teague have performed a singular service by revealing the details that disprove Republicans’ unceasing inventions about voter fraud.The problem is that so many Republicans will continue to ignore the lessons of this book. American democracy could still be destroyed by the torrent of voter suppression laws already passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures, spurred by lies invented by Trump and amplified by insidious “journalists” like Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, whose perfidy is brilliantly dissected in these pages.If democracy does prevail, it will survive because of the ability of authors like Teague and Bowden to make the truth even more compelling than Fox News fictions.
      The Steal is published in the US by Atlantic Monthly Press
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