World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Two injured in shooting outside New York governor candidate’s home

      by

      Two injured in shooting outside New York governor candidate’s homeTeenage boys, both 17, treated in hospital after being hit by gunfire from moving car outside home of Lee Zeldin in town of Shirley New York congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two teenagers were shot outside his Long Island home on Sunday afternoon.The boys, both 17, were walking with a third teenager on the street in Shirley, New York, where Zeldin lives when they were hit by gunfire from a moving car, local police said.The wounded teens then tried to hide in Zeldin’s yard, ducking under his porch and into the bushes, while the person who was with them fled.Zeldin and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting, but their teenage daughters were in the kitchen doing homework when they heard gunshots and screaming, the congressman said.“One of the bullets was actually found 30ft (9.14m) from where they sitting,” Zeldin said at a news conference late on Sunday.Police said the wounded teens were treated at an area hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening.Authorities didn’t release their names.“At this time investigators have no reason to believe there is any connection between the shooting and the residence,” said a statement from the Suffolk county police department, whose jurisdiction includes Shirley.Zeldin said he did nt know either of the injured teens. He said his 16-year-old daughters locked themselves in a bathroom and called 911.The congressman added that he and his family were shaken but OK.Zeldin and his wife were returning from a parade in the Bronx when the shooting occurred. He said police officers were at his home investigating on Sunday evening and were looking over the home’s security cameras.Police said they had no information to release about who fired the shots.Zeldin is challenging New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, in an election set for 8 November, and he has made violent crime a focus of his campaign. He has called for the state’s bail laws to be toughened, among other measures.“Like so many New Yorkers, crime has literally made its way to our front door,” Zeldin said Sunday.It is the second scare he has had in several months. In July, while Zeldin campaigned in upstate New York, a man approached him onstage and thrust a sharp object near the congressman’s head and neck.He was uninjured, and the attacker was arrested.Hochul said in a statement posted on Twitter that she had been briefed on the shooting outside Zeldin’s home.“As we await more details, I’m relieved to hear the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for law enforcement’s quick response,” the governor said.TopicsNew YorkUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake | Bernie Sanders

      by

      Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistakeBernie SandersAmerica has long faced structural economic crises. Democrats must win on the economy and present a pro-worker agenda As someone who has a lifetime 100% pro-choice voting record, and is outraged by the supreme court’s horrific decision to overturn Roe v Wade, there is no question but that Democrats must continue to focus on the right of women to control their own bodies. This is a fight that most Americans want us to wage and, given the Republicans’ extremist position on the issue, makes them genuinely vulnerable.Can Latino voters help Democrats hold Arizona in crucial Senate race?Read moreBut, as we enter the final weeks of the 2022 midterm elections, I am alarmed to hear the advice that many Democratic candidates are getting from establishment consultants and directors of well-funded Super Pacs that the closing argument of Democrats should focus only on abortion. Cut the 30-second abortion ads and coast to victory.I disagree. In my view, while the abortion issue must remain on the front burner, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy and allow Republican lies and distortions to go unanswered.This country has, for decades, faced structural economic crises that have caused the decline of the American middle class. Now is the time for Democrats to take the fight to the reactionary Republican party and expose their anti-worker views on the most important issues facing ordinary Americans. That is both the right thing to do from a policy perspective and good politics.We have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the modern history of this country, with three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of our nation. Is there one Republican prepared to raise taxes on billionaires, or do they want to make a bad situation worse by extending Trump’s tax breaks for the rich and repealing the estate tax?Today, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and millions work for starvation wages. Is there one Republican in Congress who is prepared to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour?The United States pays, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Is there one Republican prepared to allow Medicare to immediately begin negotiating prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry and cut the cost of medicine by half?We have a dysfunctional healthcare system which, despite being the most expensive in the world, allows 85 million Americans to be uninsured or underinsured. Is there one Republican who believes that healthcare is a human right and supports universal coverage?We remain the only major country on earth not to guarantee time off for moms who have babies or need to take care of sick children.Is there one Republican who supports at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave?The list goes on: childcare, housing, home health care, college affordability. On every one of these enormously important issues the Republican party has virtually nothing to say to address the desperate needs of low and moderate income Americans. And what they do propose will most often make a bad situation worse.Nevertheless, in poll after poll Republicans are more trusted than Democrats to handle the economy – the issue of most importance to people. I believe that if Democrats do not fight back on economic issues and present a strong pro-worker agenda, they could well be in the minority in both the House and the Senate next year.And it’s not only the long-term structural crises that Democrats must address. It is the outrageous level of corporate greed that we now see every day that is fueling the inflation hurting so many people.While the price of gas has soared over the last year, the five big oil companies made $59bn in profits during the 2nd quarter of this year alone, and are spending $88bn on stock buybacks and dividends to benefit their wealthy shareholders.While global food prices soared by over 33% last year and are expected to go up another 23% this year, billionaires in the global food and agri-business industry became $382bn richer during the pandemic.While we continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, 3 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in America – Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and AbbVie – increased their profits by 90% last year to $54bn.While 46% of Americans either skipped or delayed the healthcare they need because they could not afford it, the six largest health insurance companies in America last year made over $60bn in profits.What do Republicans have to say about corporations that are charging Americans outrageously high prices, while enjoying record breaking profits? They talk a lot about inflation. But what are they going to do about it? Does one of them have the courage to consider a windfall, profits tax? Absolutely not.You can’t win elections unless you have the support of the working class of this country. But you’re not going to have that support unless you make it clear that you’re prepared to take on powerful special interests – and fight for the millions of Americans who are struggling economically. Whether it is extending the $300 a month child tax credit that expired in December that slashed the child poverty rate by over 40%, or increasing social security benefits, or expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision or making childcare affordable, the Democrats must stand with the working class of this country and expose the Republicans for the phonies that they are.None of what I am suggesting here is “radical”. It is, in fact, extremely popular. It is what the American people want. If we close this critical midterm campaign with a clear, unified vision to meet the needs of working families, to take on corporate greed, and protect a woman’s right to choose, we will begin to rebuild the trust between Democrats in Washington and the working families of this country.And we’ll win the election.
      Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionBernie SandersUS midterm elections 2022DemocratscommentReuse this content More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Pentagon spokesperson tamps down concerns over nuclear ‘armageddon’

      by

      Pentagon spokesperson tamps down concerns over nuclear ‘armageddon’ John Kirby says Biden’s warning about threat of a nuclear attack from Russia were not based on specific new information The US military’s top spokesperson tamped down concerns of an imminent nuclear threat from Russia, days after Joe Biden warned of a potential nuclear “armageddon”.Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser this week, Biden talked bluntly about the threat of a nuclear attack from Russia. “We have not faced the prospect of armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” the president said. He added that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming” after invading Ukraine earlier this year.Echoing comments from the White House earlier this week, top Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Biden’s comments were not based on specific new information.“His comments were not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons,” Kirby told Martha Raddatz in an interview on ABC News’ This Week. “Quite frankly, we don’t have any information that he has made that kind of decision. Nor have we seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture.”U.S. has not “seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture” following Putin’s threats in Ukraine, NSC spokesman Kirby tells @MarthaRaddatz. “We don’t have any indication that he has made that kind of decision.” https://t.co/OpYwwOBhrk pic.twitter.com/RHNNlj06Ar— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 9, 2022
      Biden’s remarks invoking Armageddon drew a sharp rebuke from former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, a member of the Donald Trump White House’s cabinet who is mulling a 2024 presidential run.“Those comments were reckless” and “a terrible risk to the American people”, Pompeo said on the Republican-friendly Fox News network.Kirby on Sunday also declined to weigh on a recent explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and Crimea, the Ukrainian territory under Russian control.The explosion dealt a blow to Russian military logistics and embarrassed Putin, for whom the bridge had symbolic personal importance. Ukraine has not yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but it has been celebrated by senior leaders in the country.“We don’t really have anything more to add to the reports about the explosion on the bridge,” Kirby said. “I just don’t have anything more to contribute to that this morning.”Kirby also addressed Biden’s comments last week that the US was trying to find where Putin could get an “off ramp” to the war on Ukraine.“Mr Putin started this war and Mr Putin could end it today, simply by moving his troops out of the country,” Kirby said. “He’s the one who chose to start this conflict again and he can choose to end it.”Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February. But Ukraine’s defenders in recent weeks have taken back some of the territories it had lost control of during the invasion.With its hold on Ukraine weakening, Putin recently ordered the mobilization of reservists to reinforce the invasion, which ignited protests in dozens of cities across Russia and has led to long lines at its land borders with other countries.TopicsUkraineJoe BidenVladimir PutinRussiaUS politicsUS militaryEuropenewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in World Politics

      Under the Taliban, Afghanistan’s Madrassas Increase and Harbor Terrorists

      by

      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

    • 238 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Confidence Man: The Making of Trump and the Breaking of America review – the vain sadist and his 'shrink'

      by

      Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America by Maggie Haberman review – the vain sadist and his ‘shrink’ The New York Times reporter’s eagerly awaited book on the ex-US president scathingly exposes the toxic mix of egotism, bigotry and delusion behind his cynical riseDonald Trump has always alternated between snarling at reporters and fawning over them. During his time in the White House he defamed Maggie Haberman as a third-rate drudge or a “crooked Hillary flunkey” and tried to hack her phone to unearth the sources for her revelations about him in the New York Times. He once tweeted an unflattering photograph of her; whenever he saw her on CNN he sneered at her smudgy specs. His animosity amounted, in Haberman’s opinion, to a “fixation”. Yet although Trump knew she was writing a book about his ignorant, incompetent and often insane conduct as president, he welcomed her to his Florida country club and during their last interview remarked to his aides: “I love being with her, she’s like my psychiatrist.”Haberman dismisses the ingratiation, then reflects that Trump “treats everyone like they are his psychiatrists”. He vents experimentally in the hope that others will be able “to decipher why he was doing what he was doing”; while in office he “drove days of news based only on his reaction to people reacting to him”. The crucial difference from a therapeutic session is that this tantrum-prone patient is not hoping for a cure. Instead, his aim is to mystify and, with luck, to madden the world. The White House during Trump’s occupancy was a crib for the mentally stunted monster Freud called “His majesty the child” and cabinet officials spent their days dangling shiny objects to distract him as he “popped off about various topics and chased fragments of conversation about things he’d heard on television”. Haberman’s book is chockablock with scoops, comprehensively leaked to the press before publication, but what singles it out from the competition is its perceptiveness about Trump’s character and the way his private vices became public menaces.Officiating as a harassed shrink, Haberman diagnostically reviews Trump’s early life, when his manias and self-delusions were already blatantly evident. His mentor Roy Cohn, a corrupt and perverse attorney with a scar-pocked face and the habit of deliciously licking his lips as he uttered curses, taught him the uses of “emotional terrorism”. Negotiating with mafia thugs and political bosses during his years as a property developer in New York, Trump devised the tricks that have served him ever since: brazen lying, performative rage, chaotic plotting that sets allies at odds with one another. These tactics expose his gamesmanship, since power for him means unhindered play, kept going by double and triple bluffs. Hence his current claim, after the FBI raided his country club to retrieve the cartons of contraband nuclear secrets hidden there, that he could declassify such documents simply by thinking that he had done so.Trump’s fabled, probably fabulated wealth also amounts to no more than random zeroes dancing in his head: his net worth, he admitted in 1991, “fluctuates with attitudes and feelings, even my own feelings”, since billions of dollars are merely “mental projections”. This confidence man defies the suckers to believe in him or vote for him and he mocks them when they are dim enough to do so. “Look at those losers,” he sneered at the customers who squandered their welfare cheques in his Atlantic City casino – though Trump himself, bankrupted by the ill-managed venture, was the ultimate loser. “They’re fucking crazy,” he often muttered as he basked in the baying adulation of the mobs at his election rallies.Trump lives, Haberman argues, in “the eternal now”, which is why in his White House no one did any long-term planning. But he is also held captive by an “eternal past” of grudges and grievances, re-enacted in assaults on those who supposedly slighted him. Barack Obama, whom he envied and therefore despised, was exorcised in a hygienic rite: Trump replaced the Oval Office’s en suite toilet because he refused, Haberman suspects, to entrust his arse to the seat used by “his Black predecessor”. On other occasions he seems crassly sadistic or downright evil. He wanted his notional border wall painted black to absorb and reflect the sun’s heat so that the skin of migrants would burn and blister when they touched it. Hitler, he proclaimed during a presidential visit to Europe, “did a lot of good things”.For all Trump’s belligerence, in Haberman’s view he remains fragile and fearful. He dispatched White House valets to fetch Big Macs for his dinner because fast-food restaurants wouldn’t know who they were serving and therefore were less likely to poison him. In the 1980s he required the models he dated to take Aids tests before he would condescend to have sex with them; he still rubs his hands red-raw with disinfectant wipes meant for use on non-porous surfaces (which may be the only symptom of guilt he has ever exhibited). At his pettiest, squeamish phobias such as these shade into prissy vanity. In France in 2018 Trump cancelled a visit to a cemetery for the American war dead when the weather changed: he explained that he didn’t want to get his hair wet in the rain. In his first television address about Covid-19, the prospect of an impending plague mattered less to him than “a visible spot on his white shirt” that he noticed just before the live broadcast began. He took the pandemic as a personal slight: his petulant refrain throughout those two terrible years was: “Can you believe this is happening to me?”Trump “used the government”, Haberman concludes, “as an extension of himself”, treating it as a private enterprise that serviced his appetites, threatened his detractors and enriched his family firm. Even more destructively, he “ushered in a new era of behaviour” by turning hatred into “a civic good”; although he began with puerile name-calling, the vituperation has advanced beyond rhetoric and he no longer bothers to euphemise his appeals to militias such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. It is all at once alarming and absurd, elated by the imminence of a spectacular apocalypse. The Trump show, as Haberman remarks, has “a menacing psychological-thriller score and a sitcom laugh track” playing simultaneously. This is the way the world ends, with both a bang and a hollow, cynical guffaw.TopicsBiography booksThe ObserverDonald TrumpPolitics booksUS politicsreviewsReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘We need action’: how an Iranian soccer player is using his fame to fight the regime

      by

      ‘We need action’: how an Iranian soccer player is using his fame to fight the regimeMahmood Ebrahimzadeh is one of a network of former athletes living in exile and urging global support for the uprising rocking Iran Can soccer change the world? Mahmood Ebrahimzadeh, an Iranian international who played for his country in the Fifa World Cup, believes it can.Ebrahimzadeh is one of a network of retired Iranian soccer players now living in exile and urging global support for the uprising currently rocking the country’s theocratic regime. The group is preparing a joint letter to Joe Biden calling for the president and the US to help the Iranian people just as they are helping the people of Ukraine.“A lot of actors, a lot of singers, a lot of soccer players in the world are supporting the movement in Iran right now,” said the 69-year-old, who lives in Woodbine, Maryland. “The only people that need to come to the same line are the governments, European and American.”Spontaneous protests have erupted in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly wearing a hijab headscarf in an “improper” way. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested over three weeks.The upheaval vibrates within Ebrahimzadeh, whose political activism disrupted his soccer career in Iran in the 1970s. He played as a striker for the national team – “I think it was 15 times,” he says – including World Cup and Olympic qualifying matches. But after the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought chaos and oppression, he felt his dissident views froze him out of the national team.Finally, in 1982, when the team’s coach invited Ebrahimzadeh back to play in the Asian Cup, the regime saw an opportunity to seize him along with two other players. “They captured those two,” he recalled. “They put them in the jail and then they killed one of them.“I had the chance to run away in the night-time and go and meet my wife and my son Maboud, who was nine months old. We left through Kurdistan and we left the country. It was hard, 10 days and nights walking through the mountains in snow, 20 degrees minus, and we were not familiar with the roads. No passport or nothing.”The family crossed the border into Turkey, then went on to Germany, which – despite a language barrier – Ebrahimzadeh recalls as “heaven” compared to the freezing Zagros Mountains. He said Germans’ learning he was a soccer pro “was the key to open all the doors” for him.He went on to play for renowned German club VfL Wolfsburg and proved a prolific goalscorer. He moved to the US in 1986 and joined a Chicago indoor team but a broken leg forced him into premature retirement. He ran a US-based soccer school for AC Milan before becoming a travelling representative for the Italian club, then directed Olympic development programmes in Maryland.Ebrahimzadeh is still in touch with at least 20 Iranian former soccer players living in America and Europe who, like other prominent figures, are showing solidarity with the protesters in Iran.Ali Karimi, an ex-Iranian captain and Bayern Munich player now based in Dubai, was charged in absentia by Iran over social media posts supporting the protests, including on Instagram, where he has nearly 12m followers. Ebrahimzadeh reflected: “They’re supporting the young generation in the streets. They’re supporting human rights. They’re supporting the movement right now.”The political potency of soccer was evident last year when England’s players took the knee during the European championships to express support for racial justice after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in the US.Ebrahimzadeh noted that some current members of the Iranian national team have also spoken out at great personal risk. “On social media they said this is not way to treat the people, this is their right, this is their choice. The government has to respect them and killing is not the solution. You have to open up democracy further.”But the government crackdown under hardline president Ebrahim Raisi has been draconian. Ebrahimzadeh continued: “Anybody that speaks out against the government and supports the woman’s movement right now, they capture them, they put them in the jail.“Of course non-soccer players, regular people, they can kill easier. They can hardly kill soccer players or singers or actors but they put them in a jail and that’s happened to a couple of the national team players.”Ebrahimzadeh said reports of a 16-year-old soccer player being jailed were enough to bring him to tears.The Iranian government seeks to restrict TV coverage of European soccer leagues in Iran but the big clubs still have a following. Ebrahimzadeh called on Fifa, the sport’s world governing body, to play its part by barring Iran from the World Cup finals in Qatar. The team’s campaign is to begin against England on 21 November.He likened the move to sporting organizations suspending Russia from competition after the country’s invasion of Ukraine.“Fifa knows that the federation of Iran and all the clubs [there] are controlled by military generals,’” he said. “A bunch of terrorists is running a federation that is part of Fifa.”Leaderless, protean and durable, the protests go on, largely fuelled by the middle and upper classes. They pose the biggest threat to the authoritarian government since the 2009 green movement brought millions to the streets.Ebrahimzadeh, who last visited his homeland five years ago, said he dreams of an Iran free from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime.In order to realise that dream, he wants America to focus on human rights in Iran rather than negotiations to restore a nuclear deal struck under President Barack Obama which, he fears, would release tens of millions of dollars to Tehran.“Don’t pay them,” Ebrahimzadeh said. “The money that they release from here is going to be weapons, bullets and killing our young kids over there.”Instead he wants to see the US rally the international community and “support the people” by pressuring Iran’s regime through boycotts.“We need action,” Ebrahimzadeh said. “We need them to stand up for us.”TopicsIranActivismUS politicsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in World Politics

      Time for Americans to Stand for a New Moral Core

      by

      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      The Breach review: ex-January 6 staffer on how Republicans lurched into madness

      by

      The Breach review: ex-January 6 staffer on how Republicans lurched into madness Denver Riggleman offers an inside track on the Capitol attack, the House committee and Donald Trump’s great GOP hijackDenver Riggleman is a US air force veteran who became a one-term Republican congressman from Virginia. In the House from 2019, he was a member of the hardline Freedom Caucus and voted with Donald Trump more than 90% of the time. Yet according to his new book, Riggleman “began to understand that some of my colleagues had fully bought into even the more unhinged conspiracy theories” he had witnessed while campaigning.Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down TrumpRead moreIn 2020, Riggleman lost his Republican nomination – after he officiated a same-sex wedding. In retaliation, someone tampered with the wheels of his truck, endangering the life of his daughter. “If I ever find the individual responsible, God help that person,” the former congressman writes now.Out of office, Riggleman became a senior staffer to the House January 6 committee. Last spring, he resigned. The Breach is an account of what he learned, his decision to publish reportedly angering some on the panel.The book is also a memoir, in which Riggleman describes growing up in a tumultuous home and his bouts with religion and his parents as well as the metamorphosis of the GOP into the party of Trump, and the events and people of January 6.“The rift between Trump’s wing of the Republican party and objective reality didn’t begin with the election,” Riggleman writes.He omits specific mention of birtherism, the Trump-fueled false contention that Barack Obama was not born a US citizen. He does acknowledge the “explosion of conspiracy theories during the Trump years”.As a former intelligence officer and contractor, Riggleman places the blame on social media, algorithms and the religious divide. Together, such factors took a toll on the nation, democracy and the lives of the Republican base.Hostility to Covid vaccines exacted an explosion in excess deaths among Republicans, 76% higher than for Democrats. In Florida, the Covid death rate eventually surpassed that of New York, to rank among the highest in the US. Owning the libs can kill you – literally. Tens of thousands died on Trump’s altar of Maga. For what?Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, actively encouraged vaccine skepticism. He refused to say whether he received the vaccine, and attempted to stop young children getting the shots. He is in the hunt for the Republican presidential nomination in two years’ time, second only to Trump.The divine injunction against bearing false witness? It has elasticity.Bob Good, a self-described “biblical conservative” who successfully challenged Riggleman for his Virginia seat, said Covid was a hoax. Jerry Falwell Jr, Good’s boss at Liberty University, left that fundamentalist powerhouse in August 2020, amid a scandal ensnaring him, his wife and a pool boy.Falwell was also one of Trump’s most prominent supporters. Riggleman laments: “It was stunning to see true born-again holy rollers lining up behind Trump, a man who shunned church and had already been caught on camera bragging about grabbing women” by the crotch.Likewise, he voices disgust for what has become of the party of Lincoln: “As a kid the people I knew respected a line between church and state. Trump’s party was veering more and more into Christian nationalism, where they demonized Democrats for having an unholy agenda.”Riggleman is also horrified by the involvement of ex-servicemen in the Capitol attack. “There’s no denying it,” he writes. “The political challenge to the election was, at least on some level, linked to a military operation.”He reserves some of his harshest criticism for those closest to Trump. Mark Meadows, his last chief of staff; Mike Flynn, his first national security adviser; Roger Stone, his longtime political aide. Each played a major role in the insurrection.As Riggleman recounts, Meadows defied the committee and refused to appear for deposition. But he did turn over 2,319 texts and messages, avoiding prosecution for contempt of Congress. Some of those texts came from 39 House Republicans and five senators.“Meadows gave us the keys to the kingdom,” Riggleman writes, also describing the Meadows texts as the committee’s “crown jewels”.As for Stone, the Republican dirty trickster was an apparent link between the brains and brawn of the Capitol attack.On 7 November 2020, hours after the networks called the election for Joe Biden, Stuart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers militia, messaged: “What’s the plan … We need to roll.” Stone was part of the chat group. Rhodes now sits before a federal jury, charged with seditious conspiracy.The final chapter of The Breach is devoted to Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. Its title: “The Better Half”. Riggleman raises Thomas’s past membership in Lifespring, a personal development program and purported cult. He says he “found Thomas in Mark Meadows’ text messages after a hot tip and a case of mistaken identity”. She wrote of “watermarked ballots” and a “military whitehat sting operation”. She mentioned “TRUMP STING w CIA director Steve Pieczenik” [actually a former state department official and conspiracy theorist]. She condemned “the Biden crime family and ballot fraud conspirators”.Liz Cheney, the House committee vice-chair, asked Riggleman to pull back. The Wyoming Republican worried about exposing the Thomases as election deniers, QAnon followers, or both.We Are Proud Boys review: chilling exposé illuminates Republicans’ fascist turnRead more“I think we need to remove that briefing,” Cheney said, according to Riggleman’s telling. “It’s going to be a political sideshow.”Months later, Cheney and the committee reversed course. On 29 September 2022, Thomas testified for more than four hours behind closed doors. She continued to claim the election was stolen.In The Breach, Riggleman looks to the future.“We have a new enemy in this country,” he writes, “a domestic extremist movement that is growing online at fiber-optic speed. Is there a road back? To be honest, I’m not quite sure.”
      The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation Into January 6th is published in the US by Macmillan
      TopicsBooksUS Capitol attackUS politicsPolitics booksDonald TrumpRepublicansreviewsReuse this content More