US politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris must break with Biden on Israel and Palestine | Lily Greenberg Call

      by

      On a late summer day in 2019, I packed up my life into an old Nissan Altima and drove across the country from San Francisco to Waterloo, Iowa, to work to elect then senator Kamala Harris as president. After four years of a Trump presidency that stripped away the rights of the most marginalized in this country, I was driven by her vision that “justice is on the ballot” and that every individual should have their fundamental rights guaranteed and have the opportunity to thrive.I would eventually join the Biden administration as a political appointee at the US Department of the Interior, eager to apply the values that so inspired me from the Harris campaign. Those very same values drove me to become the first Jewish American political appointee to resign from the Biden administration in May in protest of the president’s unconditional support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Now, Harris is poised to be the Democratic nominee to take on Donald Trump in November.I resigned because of Joe Biden’s disastrous policy on Gaza, providing the financial and diplomatic support for the Israeli military to massacre, starve and forcibly expel countless Palestinians in Gaza. As a staffer in the administration, I heard reports that Harris and her staff pushed the US president to adopt a policy on Gaza that was both more humane and in alignment with international law, but were rebuffed. I saw the Harris I moved to Iowa for in her speech in Selma, becoming the first senior administration official calling for a ceasefire, even as I was disappointed that it was only for six weeks. This was reportedly an effort by Biden’s team to water down her speech. It is shameful that Biden refused to listen to Harris – or the majority of Americans for that matter. Now that Biden has stepped aside, she has the opportunity to chart her own path on Israel and Palestine.For months, the majority of Democrats and Americans, including American Jews, have supported a lasting ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. Harris must make clear that she supports using the US government’s leverage to end the bloodshed and reunite families. One clear way that she can do so is by supporting an arms embargo on offensive weapons for the Israeli military – a policy floated by Biden before he ultimately backtracked and greenlit Israel’s devastating ground invasion of Rafah.Once Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza ends, a President Harris could begin a new era in which the US government uses commonsense diplomatic and financial pressure to bring about a long-term political solution that would end Israel’s system of apartheid over Palestinians and guarantee equality, justice and safety for Palestinians and Israelis alike.By setting herself apart from Biden’s failed policy, Harris has the opportunity to rebuild a coalition to defeat Trump that would include progressives, young people and Arab Americans among others.More than 700,000 Democrats voted uncommitted during the primary in protest of Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. They are a crucial part of the coalition needed for Democrats to win swing states like Michigan, Georgia and Minnesota. The policies these voters are demanding are broadly popular among Democrats and Americans writ large. Even a majority of my own community, American Jews, support conditioning arms shipments to Israel.Harris must initiate a new era in American policy towards Israel, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is both the popular and the politically savvy popular thing to do. What better way to draw attention to the authoritarianism of Trump than for Harris to resoundly reject all authoritarianism abroad?Harris has at times fallen short of her promise to deliver justice. As a prosecutor, she put nonviolent drug users behind bars and she prosecuted parents for their children’s absence from school. She has also maintained close ties with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the rightwing lobby primarily funded by Republican donors that has endorsed election-deniers and anti-abortion extremists. If Harris is serious about “putting justice on the ballot”, she must commit to ending mass incarceration and overzealous prosecution in this country and reject Aipac’s rightwing agenda as president. If she does both, she has the opportunity to turn out record numbers of voters to enable her to defeat Trump in November.On 20 January, I am hopeful we will inaugurate the first female president, one who was successful because she stopped playing to the allegedly movable center, and instead embraced the Democratic party’s full coalition, including progressives, young voters and Arab Americans. To win this fight, Harris must take a clear stance against unconditional support for the Israeli military. She must strive to serve the American people and listen to the majority of Americans who are pleading for an end to the status quo of violence and pave a path forward to genuine equality, justice and freedom for Palestinians and Israelis.

      Lily Greenberg Call was a special assistant to the chief of staff at the US Department of the Interior More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris earns enough delegate support to become Democratic nominee

      by

      Kamala Harris has said she is looking forward to “formally accepting the [presidential] nomination” of the Democratic party after she earned enough support from delegates including hundreds from her native California.“When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination,” she said in a statement late Monday.“Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi made the motion to endorse Harris for president at a virtual meeting of California’s DNC delegation on Monday evening, a spokesperson confirmed.Pelosi, who represents San Francisco in Congress, announced that with the endorsement of California’s delegation, Harris had earned enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president in August.Earlier on Monday, top Democrats rallied to support Harris in their bid to defeat Republican Donald Trump.Harris was headed to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday as her campaign for the White House kicks into high gear. The event in Milwaukee will be her first full-fledged campaign event since announcing her candidacy.She offered a sense of how she plans to attack Trump in a speech to campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware earlier on Monday, referring to her past of pursuing “predators” and “fraudsters” as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general.“So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said of her rival, a convicted felon who was found liable for sexual assault in civil court. Other courts have found fraud was committed in his business, charitable foundation and private university.She also cast herself as a defender of economic opportunity and abortion access. “Our fight for the future is also a fight for freedoms,” she said. “The baton is in our hands.”Biden, who is recovering from Covid-19 at his house in Rehoboth, spoke by phone to the staff first, saying he would be out on the campaign trail for Harris and adding: “I’ll be doing whatever Kamala Harris wants me or needs me to do.”When Harris took the microphone to address staff, Biden said to her: “I love you, kid.” Harris put her hands on her heart and said: “I love you, Joe.”Joe Biden’s departure freed his delegates to vote for whomever they choose at next month’s convention. And Harris, whom Biden backed after ending his candidacy, worked quickly to secure support from a majority.Big-name endorsements on Monday, including from governors Wes Moore of Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, left a vanishing list of potential rivals.According to an Associated Press tally, Harris had 2,668 delegates, well beyond the simple majority of 1,976 needed to clinch the nomination on the first ballot.The survey is unofficial, the AP said, as Democratic delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choice when the party formally chooses its candidate. Delegates could still change their minds before 7 August but nobody else received any votes in the AP survey, and 57 delegates said they were undecided.Pelosi, who had been one of the notable holdouts, initially encouraging a primary to strengthen the eventual nominee, said she was lending her “enthusiastic support” to Harris’s effort to lead the party.Pelosi said: “Politically, make no mistake: Kamala Harris as a woman in politics is brilliantly astute – and I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”A tweet late on Monday night announced that Pelosi’s office had confirmed Harris’s endorsement.Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison vowed that the party would deliver a presidential nominee by 7 August. A virtual nominating process before the national convention in Chicago, beginning on 19 August, is still needed.“I want to assure you that we are committed to an open and fair nominating process,” Harrison said on a conference call.The DNC had said earlier that a virtual vote would take place between 1 and 5 August, in order to have the nomination process completed by 7 August, the date by which Ohio law had required a nominee to be in place to make the state’s ballot.Ohio lawmakers subsequently pushed back the deadline to 1 September, but party officials said they hoped to beat the 7 August deadline to avoid any legal risk in the state.Winning the nomination is only the first item on a staggering political to-do list for Harris after Biden’s decision to exit the race, which she learned about on a Sunday morning call with the president.She must also pick a running mate and pivot a massive political operation to boost her candidacy instead of Biden’s with just over 100 days until election day.But Harris has also been raking in campaign contributions. Her campaign said on Monday she had raised $81m since Biden stepped aside on Sunday, nearly equalling the $95m that the Biden campaign had in the bank at the end of June.Hollywood donors ended their “Dembargo” on political donations, as fundraisers and celebrities from rapper Cardi B to Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis and TV producer Shonda Rhimes endorsed Harris.Wisconsin, where Harris will campaign on Tuesday, is among a trio of Rust-Belt states that include Michigan and Pennsylvania widely considered as must-wins for any candidate, and where Biden was lagging Trump.“There are independents and young people who did not like their choices, and Harris has a chance to win them,” said Paul Kendrick, executive director of the Democratic group Rust Belt Rising, which does routine polling in the battleground states where voting preferences can swing either way.Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Mehdi Hasan on Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump – podcast

      by

      It’s been a rollercoaster couple of weeks in the US election campaign. On Sunday Joe Biden announced he would not stand for re-election, before endorsing his vice-president, Kamala Harris, as the presidential candidate for the Democrats. On Monday endorsements – and money – rolled in from donors and political luminaries. Mehdi Hasan, a columnist for the Guardian US and a co-founder of the media organisation Zeteo, tells Michael Safi why despite criticising Kamala Harris in the past he is now an enthusiastic supporter of her campaign to be the next president. He explains how her entry will change the race for the White House, how Republican politicians might attack her, how her campaign may differ from Biden’s and, crucially, what he thinks of her chances of success against Donald Trump. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden calls for justice after footage released of police killing Black woman

      by

      Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, moments after shocking police video was released showing an Illinois officer fatally shooting Sonya Massey after she called police fearing a home intruder.In his first public statement since dropping his bid for re-election, Biden said the shooting of Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by white Sangamon county sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson, in her home in Springfield, after a dispute over a pot of boiling water, “reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not”.Biden, who is recovering from Covid at his home in Delaware, said Massey, “a beloved mother, friend, daughter and young Black woman … should be alive today”.“When we call for help, all of us as Americans – regardless of who we are or where we live – should be able to do so without fearing for our lives,” he said in the statement, adding: “Sonya’s family deserves justice.”“While we wait for the case to be prosecuted, let us pray to comfort the grieving,” he continued. “Congress must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act now. Our fundamental commitment to justice is at stake.”The act, known as HR-1280, addresses a range of issues in policing practices, including excessive force and racial bias and increases accountability for law enforcement misconduct. The bill was passed by the House in 2021 but stalled in the Senate.The statement came as a protest march is planned for Monday evening after police bodycam video released showed a rapidly escalating situation.Massey had been retrieving a pot of water from the stove after Grayson told her he did not want a house fire. Massey asked the officers – who visibly distanced themselves from her as she goes to handle the pot – why they moved away from her.“Where you going?” she asks them.“Away from your hot steaming water,” Grayson answers, with a laugh, before Massey responds: “Away from the hot steaming water? Oh, I’ll rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”“You better fucking not. I swear to God I’ll fucking shoot you right in your fucking face,” Grayson warns.Massey can be heard saying, “I’m sorry,” as Grayson continues to advance. “I’m sorry,” she says again as Grayson, with his gun drawn, fires three shots, killing her instantly. After the shooting another deputy said he was going to get his medical kit.“No, a head shot, dude, she’s done,” Grayson responds.Later on in the video, Grayson calls Massey “fucking crazy”.The prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Massey’s family, previously said the video would “shock the conscience of America like the pictures of Emmett Till after he was lynched”, referring to the photograph released after Till was lynched in Mississippi in 1955.Crump also likened the video to the police killing of Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times in the back by police in Chicago in 2014, and to the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.“It is that senseless, that unnecessary, that unjustifiable, that unconstitutional,” Crump said at Massey’s funeral on Friday. “This video is tragic in every sense.”Grayson has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bond until his trial is set to begin. Springfield resident Tiara Standage told the Guardian that when she watched the George Floyd tape, “it pissed me off. When I watched this, it pissed me off even further.”Antwaun Readus Sr, a local community activist, criticized city officials for spending money on police equipment but neglecting basic community services.“They militarized the whole police department,” he said, predicting that when the police video of Massey’s death was released, “the whole country can go upside down.” More