World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Harvard billboard accusing students of antisemitism linked to rightwing funder

      by

      The organization that placed a billboard at Harvard University accusing some students of antisemitism amid the fight between Israel and Hamas is part of a network of rightwing media organizations being funded by a major conservative donor via a shadowy new foundation.The single largest identified donor last year to Accuracy in Media (AIM), which placed the billboard, is the Informing America Foundation (IAF), formed in 2021, which has already dished out at least $8m to rightwing nonprofit and for-profit organizations, according to IRS filings.In turn, the IAF’s biggest donor is the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, a longstanding funder of rightwing causes whose founder and namesake sits on the IAF’s board.Last Wednesday, AIM parked a truck with a billboard affixed to it on Harvard’s campus, and the organization’s president Adam Guillette went on X, formerly Twitter, to brag about the action.The billboard featured photographs of students who are members of student groups that had signed a statement after Hamas’s attacks on Israel with a caption describing them as “Harvard’s biggest antisemites”. The organization also set up a page at a special URL, harvardhatesjews.com, to fundraise off the action.The statement drew criticism for saying it held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”. University leadership then came under fire from a former president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, for not denouncing the student statement and for failing to make a stronger condemnation of Hamas.The billboard action was just the latest billboard stunt from AIM under Guillette, who has taken the 55-year old organization in a more confrontational direction.In recent months the organization has also mounted billboard campaigns against pro-Democrat social media influencer, Harry Sisson, and targeted lawmakers in Loudon, Virginia, who subsequently accused the group of harassment.AIM also publishes media criticism of outlets it considers progressive, and its columnists exhibit a preoccupation with outlets such as video news outlet Now This, Vice News and Teen Vogue.According to AIM and IAF tax filings, IAF donated $166,666 in contributions to AIM in 2022, more than 18% of the $908,474 in contributions and grants AIM declared for that year. Tax filings from the Vanguard Charitable Foundation indicate a separate contribution of $300,000 to AIM but the contributor is not identified, leaving IAF as the most significant identified donor. (Donor-advised funds are not required to disclose the identity of donors in tax filings and have thus been criticized as vectors of “dark money” to political nonprofits).But the Guardian can reveal that AIM is just one node in a network of rightwing media and activist organizations IAF is bankrolling, according to its filings.According to the publicly available tax returns, the organization has submitted since its founding in 2021, IAF has handed out more than $8m to rightwing for-profit and nonprofit organizations.In 2022, according to its tax documents, IAF donated $900,000 to Empower Oversight (formerly Empower Whistleblower Center), a nonprofit founded in 2021 to assist whistleblowers and run by three former staffers of Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. That organization’s mission statement says it is a “nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to enhancing independent oversight of government and corporate wrongdoing”.The Guardian emailed Empower Oversight for comment. In response, a spokesperson wrote that the organization was “a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization” that “works with whistleblowers regardless of their political affiliations” and holds accountable “officials from both major political parties”, pointing out that the Biden administration had appointed Empower president Tristan Leavitt to the Merit Systems Protection Board before he joined the organization in 2023.Other organizations on IAF’s donor list have a far more ideological edge, however. They include Star News Digital Media, a for-profit company that operates a network of so-called “pink slime” news sites that present themselves as local media outlets, but mostly recycle slanted stories and rightwing talking points across the network.The network was founded by three former Tea Party activists in 2017, and its outlets across 15 states have been called “Baby Breitbarts”.Real Clear Foundation, a news nonprofit, received $250,000 from the IAF in 2022. Like Empower Oversight, the 501(c)(3) organization presents itself as a nonprofit, but most of the aggregated news and original investigations on the foundation’s site at the time of reporting were directed at Democrats and specifically Joe Biden.A New York Times investigation in 2020 detailed how coverage in sites run by the Real Clear Foundation swung right during the Trump era, fueled by donations from rightwing foundations and dark money.The Guardian emailed a Real Clear Foundation spokesperson for comment but received no response.The IAF’s largest donation was to Bentley Media Group, which operates a rightwing media site called Just The News. According to Washington DC company records, Bentley Media Group’s directors include John Beck, also listed as chief operating officer of Just The News, and John Solomon, a former Washington Times, the Hill and AP reporter who is also listed as Just The News’s editor-in-chief.Beyond funding Bentley Media and Just The News, IAF’s otherwise bare-bones website highlights years-old stories from the website, and lists the two organizations together in the footer of the site.The precise relationship between the for-profit Bentley Media Group and the IAF was not clear on the site or in filings from the organizations.The IAF supported 12 rightwing media and activist organizations in 2022 according to its filings; the average donation was around $425,000.IAF chief executive Debbie Myers has a long history in the entertainment industry, with stints at a CBS affiliate and the Discovery Channel. More recently, according to her LinkedIn and contemporaneous reporting, Myers was president and chief executive of Gingrich 360, a media company founded by the Republican former House speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista.The IAF itself has benefited from remarkable donor largesse in the short time since it was founded, receiving $14.3m in just two years, per its tax filings.Those filings indicate that its largest single donor is the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation (DDSF), whose founder, executive chairman and namesake Diana Davis Spencer also sits on the IAF’s board.The DDSF gave the IAF $1.5m in 2021, according to its tax filing for that year, the most recent one that is publicly available.The DDSF was reportedly instrumental in funding a network of voter suppression groups in the wake of the 2020 election and is a successor organization to foundations founded by Spencer’s parents, who were also sponsors of rightwing organizations.Spencer’s father, Shelby Cullom Davis, was an investment banker who served as the US ambassador to Switzerland under the Ford and Nixon administrations and was later chairman of the board of the rightwing Heritage Foundation from 1985 to 1992. More

    • 213 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican Will Hurd on his failed quest for president: ‘I’m going to always look at this fondly’

      by

      Will Hurd wanted to be the most powerful man in the world. Like so many candidates before him, he knew the loneliness of the long distance runner criss-crossing Iowa and New Hampshire in a quest for votes that might make him president of the United States. But it was not be.This week Hurd called it a day after a campaign that failed to make much of a splash. Indeed, arguably his biggest headline came in July when he declared, “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison,” and was roundly booed at the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner. Unrepentant, Hurd told them: “Listen, I know the truth is hard.”It was a telling moment that said much about the Republican party in 2023, cult-like in its devotion to Trump – he remains the runaway favourite for the nomination – and blocking its ears to dissenters making the case that it is time to move on from a doubly impeached, quadruply indicted septuagenarian.Still, in a phone interview from his home in San Antonio, Texas, Hurd – who got married last New Year’s Eve – insists that he has no regrets. “Look, running for president in my first year of marriage was incredibly difficult and it goes back to: why are you doing it?” he says. “For me, it was always very clear.“I’ve been lucky to have some amazing experiences and America is at an inflection point: if we want to make sure we leave this country better off for our kids, we’ve got to start making better decisions now. For me, that was always in my mind, that’s everything that I focused on when I woke up. It was never like, why the hell am I doing this? I knew exactly why I was doing this.”Hurd, 46, is no stranger to the campaign trail. He served three terms in the House of Representatives and was the chamber’s sole Black Republican during his final two years in office. He represented Texas’s then most competitive district, which was heavily Hispanic and stretched from the outskirts of San Antonio to El Paso, spanning more than 800 miles of US-Mexico border.But with the Republican party still in thrall to Trump, Hurd, a trenchant critic of the then president, chose not to seek re-election in 2020, saying he would instead focus his energies on technology companies in the national security domain. Last year he travelled the country promoting his book American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done.Hurd was the last major candidate to join the already crowded Republican presidential primary field when he announced his run in late July. He campaigned as a pragmatic, pro-business moderate with strong national security credentials who was unafraid to seek bipartisan consensus. He took on the grind of countless hours on planes, in hotels and away from family with good grace.“What is it like to run for president?” he muses. “It’s a lot of travel. It’s a lot of interviews. I have the experience of running for Congress before but running for president, because you’re doing so much, is more raw and authentic. It’s not as staged as some of the other experiences I’ve had. To be in a position to run for president and be taken seriously was an honour. I’m going to always look at this experience fondly.”Hurd’s 14-week foray delivered moments he won’t soon forget. On 11 September he joined first responders and people from Iowa on a 21-mile walking salute to those who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. At campaign stops, the crowds were often bigger than he expected or had experienced when hustling as a relative unknown in west Texas.“You’d meet some great people. I met this seven-year-old kid in New Hampshire who was super space and the fact that he asked his dad to travel like 90 minutes to come see me talk because he read something I wrote about space. That’s pretty big and cool.”Nine in 10 people in Iowa and New Hampshire are white. Democrats, for their part, have revised their 2024 presidential primary schedule, replacing Iowa with the more racially diverse South Carolina as the leadoff voting state. Hurd, the son of a Black father and white mother, has written about the racism he endured as a teenager and entitled the first part of his book: “The GOP needs to look like America.”But he denies encountering racial prejudice on the trail. “I did not experience any of that. The folks in Iowa and New Hampshire recognise and understand the important role they play in setting the tone of the country and part of that is why a dark horse candidate like me even had a chance to potentially try to catch fire.”Even so, it has been hard for anyone to find a divine spark when confronting the Trump forest fire that has consumed the Republican party for eight years. Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s challenge faded in recent months while other candidates struggled to transcend the quixotic.Asked if there was a moment when they all realised just how formidable Trump still is, notwithstanding his electoral setbacks and legal woes, Hurd replies: “I went in with that clear-minded. I knew that Donald Trump was starting with the largest base and in a place like New Hampshire I think that’s a third of the electorate, a third of the Republican primary voter.“But there’s more people that are considering somebody other than Donald Trump. There are other people that are frustrated with the direction both parties are going that want to be inspired. I also evaluate that in 2020 his support in the Republican primary electorate was 98% so he is without doubt damaged goods. People that voted for Donald Trump twice that still like him recognise his baggage is going to be more harmful than helpful.”What were Hurd’s conversations with Trump supporters like on the campaign trail – did he try to change their minds? “It’s funny, a couple times, especially in New Hampshire, you show up somewhere and someone’s wearing a Trump hat and then after you speak they’re like, ‘Can we get a picture?’ and they take the Trump hat off.“Supporters of other candidates – that’s their right and they should be proud of that. But the opportunity to articulate my positions was great and so I did that everywhere and people were open to having a conversation and I always engage people regardless of who they ultimately supported.“What makes this country great is to be able to have that competition of ideas and this experience proved to me, especially on the ground, we can disagree without being disagreeable and I saw that with the actual voters. I’m optimistic about the future of the country because of the people that I met.”But Hurd and his fellow candidates have faced their share of criticism for, at best, embarking on vanity projects with a view to becoming a TV pundit or Trump’s vice-president and, at worst, splitting the anti-Trump vote and effectively handing him the nomination. He rejects the charge.“The Republican party is supposed to be the party of the competition of ideas. We’re meant to have a diversity of thought and I’ve always said that having a number of people to put their message out there and offer different perspectives is valuable. Donald Trump as the GOP nominee is not inevitable but we put ourselves in a better position by starting to consolidate if there’s not a clear path to victory.”For all his efforts, Hurd barely registered in opinion polls of Republican voters. When he failed to qualify for the first two presidential primary debates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Simi Valley, California, the writing was on the wall. This week he followed the Miami mayor, Francis Suarez, who became the first presidential hopeful to suspend his campaign shortly after failing to make the first debate stage.He explains: “I’ve always been honest, and so when I knew that our pathway to victory was going to be incredibly tough, I had to be honest with supporters and event planners and people that were hosting things, and so that’s why the timeline is what it is.”Hurd is throwing his weight behind Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and ex-US ambassador to the UN, who has been steadily gaining ground as the leading Trump alternative. Her campaign reported that she raised more than $11m between July and September and this week George Will, an influential Washington Post columnist, called on South Carolina senator Tim Scott and other contenders to drop out and rally around the “experienced, polished, steely and unintimidated” Haley.Hurd says: “Running for president is as much about organisation as it is ideas and she has been able to do that. When it comes to areas like how do you create a strong economy, how you deal with our foreign policy, those are things that I’m aligned with her and she has the best chance. There’s a lot of great people in this race and a lot of them are my friends but Nikki has the momentum to win.”Hurd joined the CIA in 2000 and, after 9/11, spent eight years on the frontlines of the “war on terror” including Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Now the world again appears to be catching fire with unpredictable consequences. While Trump and others preach “America First” isolationism, Hurd believes that Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, is most able to meet the moment.“People are nervous, especially with what’s happening now in Israel, two wars going on, the threat that the Chinese government poses to the US and our allies,” he adds. “People want a leader who understands these issues, who’s going to have a steady hand, and right now that’s Ambassador Haley.”Hurd sounds upbeat for a man who has just joined all those other White House hopefuls on the boulevard of broken dreams. His bio on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, still describes him as “Candidate for President. Common sense Republican. Husband.”Anyone seeking Hurd 2024 merchandise on his campaign website, however, might be out of luck. “No products were found matching your selection,” it says. More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Jim Jordan races to try to change minds of holdouts in bid for House speaker

      by

      The rightwing congressman Jim Jordan is seeking to shore up support for his bid to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, with plans to appear on the House floor early this week to try to sway Republican members of Congress who signaled in a secret ballot vote they will not support his bid.Jordan, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, claimed in a brief interview with Politico he believes he will get the 217 votes required to secure the speakership in a vote now set to happen on Tuesday at noon.“We think we’re going to get 217,” Jordan said.Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy has expressed support for Jordan’s bid to succeed him after a small faction of eight Republicans in the House joined Democrats to oust McCarthy from the role earlier this month and plunged the party into a bitter squabble.Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana was slated to secure the Republican nomination for the speaker role before Scalise withdrew from the speakership race after he failed to secure enough support to win a vote. With Republicans holding a slim majority of three seats in the House, any group of Republican holdouts could cause any nominee to fail to secure the speakership.Several Republicans have publicly said they remain no votes on Jordan’s speakership. Mike Rogers of Alabama and John Rutherford and Carlos Gimenez of Florida are in this group, according to Politico.Meanwhile, yet another potential Republican candidate has emerged if Jordan’s effort fails. Louisiana congressman Mike Johnson plans to jump into the race if Jordan stumbles, according to NBC News.“If Jordan cannot get to 217, Johnson intends to step up,” a source told the television network. “Many members are asking him to do so.”NBC added: “Johnson would seek to be a consensus candidate, attempting to bridge hard-right conservatives and moderates who have been waging a war against one another”.”Trump has vocally supported Jordan for the speakership role. The stalemate has halted legislative business.Supporters of Jordan have gone on social media encouraging followers to call Republican holdouts to demand they support Jordan’s bid or face ousting efforts of their own in primaries.That is a hardline tactic that has prompted some dismay even among Jordan’s own supporters.Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw slammed some of his fellow Republicans for an online pressure campaign on behalf of Jordan, saying it would likely put people off backing him.“That is the dumbest way to support Jordan and I’m supporting Jordan. I’m going to vote for Jordan. And as somebody who wants Jim Jordan, the dumbest thing you can do is to continue pissing off those people and entrench them,” Crenshaw told CNN’s State of the Union show.Democrats have expressed concerns over Jordan’s speakership bid, citing the congressman’s role leading up to and in the wake of the 6 January insurrection.“House Republicans are intent on doubling down and have chosen to nominate a vocal election-denier in Jim Jordan,” Congressman Pete Aguilar, chair of the Democratic caucus, told reporters. “A man whose rhetoric and partisanship fomented the January 6 attack on this very building, on these very steps.” More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      White House seeks weapons package for Israel amid ‘real risk of escalation’

      by

      Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan toured the US Sunday morning shows to sell White House policy on the conflict between Israel and Hamas as Israeli forces massed on the border ahead of an expected ground incursion into Gaza amid a deepening humanitarian crisis there and fears over the conflict spreading.Responding to an Axios report that Iran warned Israel through the United Nations that it will intervene if the Israeli operation in Gaza continues, Sullivan told ABC’s This Week that he could not confirm it.But, he said, the US is “concerned” about the conflict spreading. “We see a real risk of escalation on the northern border and that is why President Biden has been so clear and so forceful in saying that no state and no group should seek to exploit the situation to their advantage or should escalate the conflict.”The deployment of the USS Eisenhower from the US to the region is “to give additional capacity to respond to any contingency and also to send a clear message of deterrence that no one should get involved in this, no one should escalate this”, he added.Sullivan said the Biden administration would seek a new weapons package for Israel and Ukraine, which will be significantly higher than $2bn, and hold intensive talks with US lawmakers.Sullivan said on CBS’s Face the Nation that the Israel arms package would be “to help Israel defend itself as it fights its terrorist threat”. A second US carrier group is also now confirmed headed to the region.A Hamas attack from Gaza saw in fighters kill more than 1,400 people in Israel and has sparked a retaliatory Israeli assault on Gaza. Health officials in the densely packed strip of land said on Sunday that Israel’s response had killed 2,329 Palestinians and injured 9,714. As on the Israeli side, most were civilians.The purpose of an Israeli incursion into Gaza, Sullivan told CNN, would be at the broadest level to ensure the “safety and security of the state of Israel and the Jewish people” and to “eliminate the Hamas terrorist infrastructure and Hamas terrorist threat”.Sullivan said he was “not in a position” to give a longer term picture but said the US was talking to Israel about the full set of questions to ensure that “Israel is safe and secure, and also that innocent Palestinians living in Gaza can have a life of dignity, security and peace”.The return of US hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, Sullivan said, was of “no higher priority” to the administration, despite the intense Israeli bombardment of the territory. US hostage experts have been sent to Israel, and US diplomats are in touch with third parties in the region “to explore avenues for their safe release”.Pressed on why the US had not used special forces to rescue US hostages, Sullivan confirmed that the US does not have “pinpoint location information” for where they are.“We have to refine our understanding of where they are, and who they are. We know there are 15 unaccounted-for Americans but we cannot confirm the precise number being held by Hamas,” Sullivan said.“All we can do is work closely with the Israeli government on hostage recovery options, and work through third countries to see if there are avenues for release,” he added. He said a possible prisoner swap was not currently under discussion.Pressed on the loss of life in Gaza from the Israeli bombardment and airstrikes, and the cutting off of food, water and electricity supplies, Sullivan said the US was “working actively” to ensure Palestinian access to water, medicine and food, and water had been turned back on to southern Gaza earlier Sunday.The US, he said, would continue to work with Israel, the UN, Egypt, Jordan and aid groups to make sure innocent Palestinians would have access to basic necessities and “would be protected from bombardment”.Amid reports that Gaza hospitals are overwhelmed with injured, and without electricity or adequate supplies, Sullivan said the US position is that “hospitals should have power, hospitals should not be targeted, people should have access to life-saving medical care. We do not qualify these statements, nor there is some caveat to them.”But Sullivan also said that the failure to open the Rafah Gate between Gaza and Egypt to let Americans and foreign nationals out was complicated. “The Egyptians have, in fact, agreed to allow Americans safe passage through the crossing, [and] the Israelis agreed to ensure that area would be safe.”But when on Saturday the US tried to move a group on Saturday, Sullivan said, “it was actually Hamas taking steps to prevent that from happening. We are doing all that we can to make sure Americans can get across. Secretary Blinken is meeting with the president of Egypt today and this is at the top of his list.” More

    • 100 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump-backed Republican Jeff Landry wins Louisiana governor’s race

      by

      Attorney General Jeff Landry, a rightwing Republican backed by Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor’s race, holding off a crowded field of candidates.The win is a major victory for the Republican party as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years. Landry will replace current governor John Bel Edwards, who was unable to seek re-election due to consecutive term limits.Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the south.“Today’s election says that our state is united,” Landry said during his victory speech on Saturday night. “It’s a wake-up call and it’s a message that everyone should hear loud and clear, that we the people in this state are going to expect more out of our government from here on out.”By garnering more than half of the votes, Landry avoided an expected runoff under the state’s “jungle primary” system. The last time there wasn’t a gubernatorial runoff in Louisiana was in 2011 and 2007, when Bobby Jindal, a Republican, won the state’s top position.The governor-elect, who celebrated with supporters during a watch party in Broussard, Louisiana, described the election as “historic”.Landry, 52, has raised the profile of attorney general since taking office in 2016. He has used his office to champion conservative policy positions.More recently, Landry has been in the spotlight over his involvement and staunch support of Louisiana laws that have drawn much debate, including banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, the state’s near-total abortion ban that doesn’t have exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and a law restricting youths’ access to “sexually explicit material” in libraries, which opponents fear will target LGBTQ+ books.Landry has repeatedly clashed with Edwards over matters in the state, including LGBTQ rights, state finances and the death penalty. However the Republican has also repeatedly put Louisiana in national fights, including over Joe Biden’s policies that limit oil and gas production and Covid vaccine mandates.Landry spent two years on Capitol Hill, beginning in 2011, where he represented Louisiana’s third US congressional district. Prior to his political career, Landry served 11 years in the Louisiana Army National Guard, was a local police officer, sheriff’s deputy and attorney.Landry has made clear that one of his top priorities as governor would be addressing crime in urban areas. The Republican has pushed a tough-on-crime rhetoric, calling for more “transparency” in the justice system and continuing to support capital punishment. Louisiana has the nation’s second-highest murder rate per capita.Along the campaign trail, Landry faced political attacks from opponents on social media and in interviews, calling him a bully and making accusations of backroom deals to gain support.He also faced scrutiny for skipping all but one of the major-televised debates. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      The Conspiracy to End America review: Trump and the fascist threat

      by

      Donald Trump’s supporters want an American Caesar. Back in 2016, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, made it explicit. “We need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country,” he declared. Joe Sitt, a major player in New York real estate and an early Trump backer, chipped in: “We don’t have a president, we have a king.”Five years later, January 6 and its aftermath crystalized another reality: Trump found fair and free elections useless. He and his allies had grown weary of democracy. After all, they had lost.The Republican party had a new credo: “Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.”The last time the GOP won the popular vote was in 2004, and before that 1988. Seeking to return to office, Trump has threatened the media with charges of treason and hankered for the execution of Gen Mark Milley, the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff.Against this dystopian backdrop, Stuart Stevens delivers his second book, The Conspiracy to End America, on what happened to the party he served for so long, this one under the subtitle Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy. The words are jarring but dead-on. Once a senior campaign operative, Stevens knows of what he speaks. In his view, only the Democratic party values democracy as an end in itself.He did media for George W Bush’s White House runs, then helped guide Mitt Romney to the Republican nomination in 2012. Now, though, Stevens is at the Lincoln Project, a haven for never-Trumpers. Their commercials got under Trump’s skin – to the delectation of Democrats. They were mean and funny. On the page, Stevens picks up where he left off in It Was All a Lie, his book of 2019. Four years furnished plenty of new material. At present, Trump faces 91 felony counts across multiple jurisdictions yet is the odds-on favorite to capture the 2024 presidential nomination. Truth is stranger than fiction.“Trump understood the true nature of the Republican party better than those who were the party’s leaders,” Stevens writes of Trump’s first campaign, launched in 2015, a tacit admission that the author himself did not fully comprehend the world around him. It was about resentments, not upward arc: “Hate was creating a surge of appeal.”Trump beat Hillary Clinton, then lost to Joe Biden. His ambitions were only momentarily derailed. His chief challenger, the hard-right Florida governor Ron DeSantis, faded in primary polling. The rest of the field is running in place or approaching asterisk status. None can land a punch.As Stevens sees it, the late Weimar Republic and the US today have plenty in common. As was the case 90 years ago, democracy could be made expendable, particularly if the donor class goes along for the ride.Back then, in Stevens’ telling, the German aristocracy lost touch with the workers. Fearing communism, they and the industrialists made peace with Adolf Hitler – much as GOP donors opened their wallets to Trump. Stevens leaves little to the imagination: “Like Adolf Hitler, Trump hated the establishment figures who supported him, and they despised him.”He quotes Mitch McConnell, the living embodiment of the Republican establishment, the Senate majority leader when Trump won the White House. With hindsight, McConnell sounds clueless, oblivious to the approaching storm.“I think we’re much more likely to change [Trump] because if he is president, he’s going to have to deal with the sort of the right-of-center world, which is where most of us are,” McConnell told CNBC.“Going to have to deal”? Really?After McConnell helped Trump’s judicial nominees over the finishing line, the senator became expendable. He emerged as a target for Trump’s rants and loathing, including potshots at Elaine Chao, McConnell’s Chinese American wife, who resigned from Trump’s cabinet – if only after January 6. At times, McConnell’s disdain seeped out. Ultimately, though, he maintained sufficient devotion to his Caesar: McConnell blamed Trump for January 6 but refused to vote to convict at the second impeachment trial.In the same quisling spirit, McConnell has said he would vote for Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee again. A coda: just like Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, McConnell never responded to the barbs Trump aimed at his wife.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs for Cruz, Trump linked his father to the assassination of John F Kennedy and, for good measure, called his wife ugly. No matter: “lyin’ Ted,” as Trump nicknamed him, was there to polish Trump’s boots with his tongue.Not surprisingly, Stevens shines an unflattering light on Cruz. He also stresses that McConnell wasn’t alone in trashing Trump and then acquiescing to his dominance: he namechecks the former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the New York Republican Elise Stefanik and senators Lindsey Graham, Marsha Blackburn and Tim Scott, all for condemning the insurrection only to backslide swiftly.“Two weeks after the insurrection, Kevin McCarthy was once again the aging fraternity rush chairman who would do anything to be accepted by the Big Man on Campus fraternity president,” Stevens writes.This month, in McCarthy’s hour of need, Trump did not rally to his side. The Californian became the first House speaker ever ejected by his own party – while Trump toyed with the idea of becoming speaker himself. Meanwhile, out on the presidential campaign trail, Pence and Scott go nowhere. The Republican party really is The Trump Show.On Wednesday, House Republicans tapped Steve Scalise, reportedly a David Duke wannabe, as their guy for House speaker. But his candidacy was short lived. On Thursday, he pulled the plug. Other far-right connections continue. Eric Trump was slated to share the stage with Ian Smith, a Nazi apologist, at Trump Doral in Florida this week.“The collapse of American democracy is like the pandemic,” Stevens warns. “Whatever you say at the beginning will sound alarmist but likely prove inadequate at the end.”
      The Conspiracy to End America is published in the US by Hachette More

    • 200 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      I was a political prisoner in Egypt. The Bob Menendez allegations are appalling | Solafa Magdy

      by

      On Friday, 22 September, as Washington geared up for the weekend, a storm erupted. The US attorney general released a 39-page indictment accusing Senator Bob Menendez, his wife Nadine, and three others of involvement in a bribery scheme. The charges allege that they allowed Egyptian officials to gain illegitimate access to key figures in US foreign policy. On Thursday, federal prosecutors in New York accused Menendez of “conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government”.Menendez is accused of using his influence as the Senate foreign relations committee chairman to favor Egypt, facilitating US military aid and advocating for issues like the Ethiopian Renaissance dam. He’s also accused of pressuring officials to ignore anti-competitive practices by the firm ISEG Halal, the sole company authorized by Egypt to review American beef exporters, and of providing sensitive information about employees at the US embassy in Cairo that could endanger their lives.Following the indictment, key members of Congress have been weighing whether to delay $235m in military aid to Cairo as punishment for Egypt’s alleged involvement in this corruption and for Egypt’s failure to demonstrate consistent progress in releasing detainees and improving its human rights record. This has placed renewed strain on Egyptian-American relations. US law requires that military deals be approved by the president or a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, underscoring the regime’s strategic aim to influence Congress through Menendez.Yet Egyptian regime loyalists do not seem daunted by Menendez’s indictment or by US threats to withhold military aid. This is cause for grave concern to the international human rights community. The US already has a long history of providing assistance to Egypt despite documented human rights abuses. Egypt, sometimes dubbed “the Big Prison”, now has at least 169 prisons and detention centers. These prisons hold thousands of political detainees, including journalists and activists held in pretrial detention for years on frivolous terrorism charges.In Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index, Egypt is the 166th-ranked country, out of 188. In addition, human rights organizations estimate over 60,000 prisoners of conscience remain in Egyptian jails.In 2021, Egypt’s interior ministry inaugurated a massive new prison complex in the Wadi al-Natrun region, accompanied by a song titled Opportunity for Life. Constructed on Egyptian soil but on US terms, as described by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, it appeared to be an attempt to court the west and ease international human rights scrutiny. Situated in a desert area about 100km from Cairo, the complex was intended to isolate detainees from their families as a form of persecution.The US has repeatedly threatened to withhold a portion of its military aid to Egypt, but these threats are not consistently implemented. In 2013, for example, after the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, the US announced the withholding of aid, but it reversed the decision in early 2014 after President Sisi assumed power.About $320m of this aid is supposedly tied to improving Egypt’s human rights record, raising questions about the sincerity of the US commitment to combating corruption and autocracy. In this context, the Egyptian regime has become proficient in speaking the disingenuous language of western countries, which use human rights issues to exert pressure on dictatorial governments in pursuit of their interests, spanning arms deals, economic issues, and global migration.Journalists and advocates like me have long sought accountability for Egyptian officials involved in human rights violations and the torture of political prisoners. I was once one of those political prisoners. For nearly two years, I was confined to a dark cell with nearly 150 other women. I endured physical abuse, harassment including degrading strip searches, sleepless nights, and the denial of basic healthcare needs.My personal experience is merely one among many. Countless individuals have endured the consequences of corruption, violence, and lack of accountability in Egypt.If the charges against Senator Menendez are substantiated, it may partly explain why the Egyptian regime seemed so indifferent to America’s previous threats: there were people working to get Egypt assistance without it needing to adhere to human rights commitments. That’s a sad message to the many Egyptian political prisoners hoping to be freed.
      Solafa Magdy is an Egyptian journalist and former political prisoner More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      US reportedly persuaded Qatar to halt $6bn to Iran in breach of deal

      by

      A contentious deal to unfreeze $6bn of Iranian oil revenues has been plunged into uncertainty amid reports that the Biden administration has persuaded Qatar to withhold the funds in breach of a previous agreement following the devastating attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel.There has been mounting pressure from both Democrats and Republicans for the White House to deny Iran access to the revenues in the face of speculation over how big a role Iran played in the weekend’s attack by Hamas, Tehran’s close ally and proxy.CBS reported that the US had reached a “quiet understanding” with Qatar – which played a mediating role in last month’s agreement that saw the release of five Americans imprisoned by Iran – to keep the funds locked in a bank account specially set up in the Gulf kingdom.“CBS News has learned that the US reached a ‘quiet understanding’ with Qatar not to release any of the $6bn in Iranian oil money that was transferred as part of a US-Iranian prisoner swap,” the network’s chief White House correspondent, Nancy Cordes wrote on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York city criticized any move to hold up the revenues, saying in a statement: “The US cannot renege on the agreement. The money rightfully belongs to the people of Iran, earmarked for the government to facilitate the acquisition of all essential and sanctioned requisites for Iranians.”The US deputy treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, had earlier told a behind-closed-door session of congressional Democrats on Capitol Hill about a “quiet agreement” to retain the cash, saying that it “isn’t going anywhere anytime soon”.The administration’s signals appeared designed to dampen controversy surrounding the funds – frozen as a result of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in 2019 – after five Democratic senators demanded they be re-frozen in the wake of the Hamas assault, which has so far left 1,300 dead in Israel.The $6bn has also become a line of attack for Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, the former president and the party’s frontrunner for next year’s presidential nomination, who has mischaracterised the money as “US taxpayer dollars” which he said was used to finance Saturday’s attack.The White House national security council spokesman, John Kirby, declined to confirm any change in its status but repeatedly stressed that it had been untouched since the release of the five imprisoned Americans on September 18. “It’s still sitting in the Qatari bank account, all of it, every dime of it. None of it has been accessed by anybody,” he told a White House press briefing on Thursday, side-stepping questions about any new agreement to withhold it.“The [Iranian] regime was never going to see a dime of that money. This account was set up by the previous administration for this exact purpose. We have done nothing different. All that we have done is just moved the money from South Korea – where it was inaccessible – to Qatar, where it’s more accessible.”Under the terms of the agreement, he added, the money would not be accessible to Iranian regime officials but to “approved vendors” who would be allowed to use it for humanitarian and medical purposes. “We have always had the ability to provide oversight over the dispersal of these funds,” Kirby said.At the core of the controversy is speculation over what hand Iran’s theocratic rulers might have played in planning the attack by Hamas, an Islamist group which Tehran has financed over many years.Amid suggestions that the assault’s unprecedented magnitude and sophistication would surely have needed an Iranian hand, US intelligence agencies have said they have discovered no evidence of this. Instead, officials have cited early indicators that Iran had no advance knowledge of the attack and was taken by surprise, a view greeted by widespread scepticism among Republicans.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCritics of the exchange deal contend that regardless of whether the $6bn – originally earned from oil sales to South Korea – is actually touched, the money is “fungible”, meaning Iran could still exploit it by re-allocating funds originally earmarked for other purposes.Trita Parsi, of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said re-freezing the funds would signal acceptance of this argument and warned that it could kill any future US-Iran diplomacy. “This would be the second time in five years that the US has reneged on an agreement with Iran,” said Parsi. “But the last time was the Trump administration pulling out of the JCPA nuclear accords agreed with Barack Obama. This is very different – it’s Biden’s own deal that he made four weeks ago.“Even if we accept that the JCPA is dead, it doesn’t mean that some kind of agreement down the road cannot be pursued. However, reversing after four weeks on this issue makes it very difficult to have any diplomacy going forward, because the image in Iran is that the US is a serial betrayer of any agreement it signs.”Seasoned Iran watchers have reacted doubtfully to speculation that the country’s rulers played a decisive role in Hamas’s attack.“There’s definitely a convergence of interests between Hamas and Iran,” said Vali Nasr, a Middle East specialist at Johns Hopkins school of advanced international studies. “But that doesn’t mean that Iran directed this and Hamas said, OK we are going to do it. The truth is that Hamas would be in charge.“Where Iran comes in – and I don’t know how much planning they would be involved in – is that what we saw in this attack was an upgrade to the capabilities and sophistication of Hamas as a fighting force.” More