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      Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip puts US analysts and Democrats on edge

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      Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip puts US analysts and Democrats on edgeExperts and officials raise concern over timing of trip even as Republicans hail House speaker Typically a plane crash is big news, whereas a plane taking off or landing is not news at all.But the sight on Tuesday of Nancy Pelosi’s US military aircraft touching down at Taipei Songshan airport in Taiwan – smoothly and without incident – was certainly news, and cause for a collective sigh of relief.In this instance, however, the destination is as important as the journey. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and its bellicose response to the House speaker’s arrival suggested that the risk of unintended consequences remains high. For those who believe a confrontation between the US and China over the self-governing island is one day inevitable, the speaker’s provocation may have just accelerated the timeline.Nancy Pelosi defends Taiwan trip as ‘more important today than ever’ amid China tensions – liveRead morePelosi, second in line to the presidency, defied a series of increasingly stark threats from China that have fuelled tensions. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, told Joe Biden during a phone call last week that “whoever plays with fire will get burnt”.Biden himself acknowledged that the US military felt it was “not a good idea right now” but also knew better than to try to meddle in the plans of Pelosi, who has long marched to the beat of her own drum.She wrote in the Washington Post: “We cannot stand by as the CCP [Chinese Communist party] proceeds to threaten Taiwan – and democracy itself.“Indeed, we take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy. As Russia wages its premeditated, illegal war against Ukraine, killing thousands of innocents – even children – it is essential that America and our allies make clear that we never give in to autocrats.”Even as American democracy crumbles internally, there is nothing like a rallying cry for democracy abroad to bring the major political parties together. Twenty-six Republican senators, including the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, issued a joint statement in support of Pelosi’s visit. Even Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News lauded her.Newt Gingrich, a Republican who was the last House speaker to visit Taiwan in 1997, told the Guardian: “Once it became public, she had to go through with it. Otherwise Xi Jinping would have got the impression that we could be bullied. She had no choice once it was public and it was disappointing to have the Biden administration confused by that reality.”Which is reassuring up to a point, although, as a general rule, earning the full-throated endorsement of McConnell and Gingrich would normally give Pelosi cause to at least take a second look at her course of action. Some analysts believe they have all got it wrong.Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia engagement at the Defense Priorities thinktank, said: “This foolish political stunt is unlikely to cause a war in itself, but it will only accelerate the sad process of sleepwalking into a global and national catastrophe at some unspecified time in the future. Preserving Washington’s One China policy and strategic ambiguity are the best approaches to maintain Taiwan’s autonomy.”01:00Some have also questioned: why now? For Pelosi, it may simply be electoral arithmetic as she seems poised to lose the speaker’s gavel to Republicans in November’s midterm elections and, at the age of 82, potentially retire. The Taiwan visit could be the culmination of a long career calling out Beijing’s human rights abuses.But for critics, while the cause is just, the timing is off. Thomas Friedman, an opinion columnist at the New York Times, described the visit as “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible”, not least because the White House has been involved in delicate negotiations to prevent China providing military assistance to Russia in Ukraine.Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan risks upsetting Beijing to no advantage Read moreBonnie Glaser, director of the Asia programme at the US-based German Marshall Fund thinktank, argues that it would have been better to wait until after the Chinese Communist party’s 20th national congress later this year, when Xi is expected to secure a third term, and after the US clarifies its Taiwan policy. Biden raised eyebrows earlier this year by promising to defend the island militarily, throwing the longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” into doubt.Glaser said: “There have been many statements about our policy toward Taiwan, some of which have been contradictory, and there is a need for some consistency and clarity in US policy. One of the reasons why China is responding as it is – and there are many drivers – is that they are losing confidence in the US commitment to One China and they see a gap between US words and deeds.“The Chinese see a need to bolster their red lines to head off a bigger crisis with the United States down the road. They want to get US attention and react strongly enough now so that they can avoid a crisis later that might lead to a decision in China that they have to use force in order to stop the United States from going down this path. There is a need for the US to be more consistent and more disciplined.”Indeed, China’s foreign affairs ministry wasted no time in condemning Pelosi’s visit, saying it “has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-US relations, and seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. It could respond by breaching Taiwan’s air defense identification zone or firing missiles into the Taiwan Strait – risking an accident that leads to escalation.Democrats around the world may thank Pelosi for making a stand against autocrats – while praying that she can also keep the peace.TopicsNancy PelosiTaiwanUS politicsAsia PacificDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Pelosi defends Taiwan visit amid China tensions: ‘Never give in to autocrats’

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      Pelosi defends Taiwan visit amid China tensions: ‘Never give in to autocrats’‘We cannot stand by as China proceeds to threaten Taiwan,’ says speaker in op-ed, but trip poses diplomatic headache for Biden 01:00Having landed in Taiwan amid soaring tensions with China’s military, the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, defended her controversial trip to the self-ruling island, saying she was making clear that American leaders “never give in to autocrats” in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post.“We cannot stand by as [China] proceeds to threaten Taiwan – and democracy itself,” said Pelosi’s piece, published just as the veteran California congresswoman’s plane touched down on Tuesday. “Indeed, we take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.”Given that Pelosi’s trip presents a serious diplomatic headache for the Joe Biden White House, there had been much speculation about the motivations behind the controversial visit. In her op-ed Pelosi struck a hard line against China’s position that her trip was a provocation and placed it in the context of a broader global struggle over political freedom.In the article Pelosi said: “We take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy. As Russia wages its premeditated, illegal war against Ukraine, killing thousands of innocents – even children – it is essential that America and our allies make clear that we never give in to autocrats.”Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is unfolding during a tour of Asian nations this week. Her diplomatic mission aims to punctuate a foreign policy career that has seen her defend human rights and democratic values abroad. But it has infuriated China, which claims Taiwan as a province of its own and has threatened retaliation over the visit. The US officially supports a “one-China” policy but in practice treats Taiwan as an economic and democratic partner.She is the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan since the Republican Newt Gingrich went there as the House speaker in 1997, going there even after Biden recently said the American military did not think it was a good idea for her to travel there.Chinese state media reported that fighter jets were flying across the Taiwan strait just as Pelosi’s plane landed in the island’s capital, Taipei.Analysts do not expect China to follow through with a hostile military act, at least not while Pelosi is there. But already on Tuesday authorities in China had announced a ban on imports from more than 100 Taiwanese food companies, which many had interpreted as retribution over Pelosi’s trip.If her piece in the Washington Post is any indication, none of it fazed Pelosi, who in 1991 unfurled a banner in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square hailing the pro-democracy student activists killed there two years earlier.Pelosi’s op-ed said it was 43 years ago that the US Congress passed an act recognizing Taiwanese democracy that thenpresident Jimmy Carter signed into law.“It made a solemn vow by the United States to support the defense of Taiwan [and] to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means … [a] grave concern to the United States,” Pelosi’s piece added, noting that her trip sent an important message nearly six months after Russia invaded Ukraine and unbalanced global peace.“Today,” Pelosi continued, “America must remember that vow. We must stand by Taiwan, which is an island of resistance.”TopicsNancy PelosiTaiwanChinaBiden administrationJoe BidenUS foreign policyAsia PacificnewsReuse this content More

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      Families of 9/11 victims hail killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri

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      Families of 9/11 victims hail killing of Ayman al-ZawahiriDrone strike against al-Qaida leader praised across US political spectrum but 9/11 families press for Saudi accountability Families torn apart by the deadly September 11 terrorist attacks celebrated Sunday’s killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the top al-Qaida leaders behind the 2001 attacks, but they continued demanding accountability for the Saudi Arabian government’s alleged role.How Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘pattern of life’ allowed the US to kill al-Qaida leader Read moreMeanwhile, Democratic politicians touted Zawahiri’s death as a major accomplishment for Joe Biden.The president announced Zawahiri’s killing on Monday during a live televised address from the White House, saying, “Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more.“People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.”Survivors of those killed by the September 11 attacks published a statement on Zawahiri’s killing, expressing gratitude about the al-Qaida leader’s death but expressing a desire to see Saudi Arabia held to account for its alleged role in the terror plot. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals.“This news is also a reminder that in order to achieve full accountability for the murders of thousands on September 11 2001, President Biden must also hold the Saudi paymasters accountable for killing our loved ones,” the national chairperson of 9/11 Families United, Terry Strada, said in a statement.Referring to a controversial trip Biden took to Saudi Arabia last month where Biden fist bumped the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Strada added: “The financiers are not being targeted by drones, they are being met with fist pumps and hosted at golf clubs. If we’re going to be serious about accountability, we must hold everyone accountable.”The organization wrote that they have repeatedly requested meetings with the president about punishing the Saudi Arabia government for September 11, but Biden has refused to meet.Barack Obama, for whom Biden once served as vice-president, stood prominently among politicians who hailed Zawahiri’s death.01:05He tweeted in part: “It’s a tribute to President Biden’s leadership, to the members of the intelligence community who have been working for decades for this moment, and to the counter-terrorism professionals who were able to take al-Zawahiri out without a single civilian casualty.”Obama called Zawahiri’s death “proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan”.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, in his own statement on Zawahiri on Twitter, added: “This is a major accomplishment to bring to justice one of the world’s most wanted terrorists who helped orchestrate the cold-blooded murder of thousands of my fellow New Yorkers on 9/11.”Conservatives have had mixed reaction to the announcement of Zawahiri’s killing, with few directly praising Biden for the attack and calling for increased scrutiny of al-Qaida’s presence in Afghanistan.The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said in a statement that Biden “deserves credit” for approving the strike that killed Zawahiri, but the Republican stalwart noted that the administration needs a “comprehensive plan” to address al-Qaida in Afghanistan.The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, wrote on Twitter celebrating the “brave Americans who took out the terrorist, [al-Zawahiri]”. McCarthy added that a briefing is needed from the Biden administration to address questions over al-Qaida’s remaining in Afghanistan after the American military’s withdrawal from the region between February 2020 and August 2021.On Twitter, the Colorado representative Lauren Boebert also praised Zawahiri’s killing, writing that it “is undoubtedly a win for the world”.“This truly evil man can do no more harm to anyone,” Boebert added. “God bless the USA!”Zawahiri’s death came after his family had moved into a reported safe house in downtown Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, according to White House officials.In the months leading up to his death, the 71-year-old had been spotted several times on a balcony, making al-Qaida propaganda videos.Zawahiri had just stepped on to the balcony Sunday morning when the drone strike that killed him unfolded.TopicsAyman al-ZawahiriUS politicsJoe BidenAl-QaidaChuck SchumerBarack ObamanewsReuse this content More

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      How Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘pattern of life’ allowed the US to kill al-Qaida leader

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      How Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘pattern of life’ allowed the US to kill al-Qaida leader After a decades-long hunt the simple habit of sitting out on the balcony gave the CIA an opportunity to launch ‘tailored strike’ In the end it was one of the oldest mistakes in the fugitive’s handbook that apparently did for Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top al-Qaida leader killed, according to US intelligence, by a drone strike on Sunday morning: he developed a habit.The co-planner of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 had acquired a taste for sitting out on the balcony of his safe house in Sherpur, a well-to-do diplomatic enclave of Kabul. He grew especially fond of stepping out on to the balcony after morning prayers, so that he could watch the sun rise over the Afghan capital.According to a US official who briefed reporters on Monday, it was such regular behavior that allowed intelligence agents, presumably CIA, to piece together what they called “a pattern of life” of the target. That in turn allowed them to launch what the White House called a “tailored airstrike” involving two Hellfire missiles fired from a Reaper drone that are claimed to have struck the balcony, with Zawahiri on it, at 6.18am on Sunday.It was the culmination of a decades-long hunt for the Egyptian surgeon who by the time he was killed had a $25m bounty on his head. Zawahiri, 71, was held accountable not only for his part as Bin Laden’s second in command for 9/11, with its death toll of almost 3,000 people, but also for several other of al-Qaida’s most deadly attacks, including the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, which killed 17 US sailors.The mission to go after the al-Qaida leader was triggered, US officials said, in early April when intelligence sources picked up signals that Zawahiri and his family had moved off their mountainside hideaways and relocated to Kabul. Following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan last August, and with the support of the Haqqani Taliban network, Zawahiri and his wife, together with their daughter and grandchildren, had moved into the Sherpur house.MapIn their telling of events, US officials were at pains to stress that under Joe Biden’s instructions the mission was carried out carefully and with precision to avoid civilian casualties and US officials said no one else was killed or wounded in the attack.Social media images of the strike suggested the use of a modified Hellfire called the R9X with six blades to damage targets, sources familiar with the weapon told Reuters. They caused surprisingly little damage beyond the target, suggesting they may be a version of the missile shrouded in secrecy and used by the US to avoid non-combatant casualties.The US president was first apprised of Zawahiri’s whereabouts in April, and for the next two months a tightly knit group of officials delved into the intelligence and devised a plan. A scale model of the Sherpur house was built, showing the balcony where the al-Qaida leader liked to sit. As discussions about a possible strike grew more intense, the model was brought into the situation room of the White House on 1 July so that Biden could see it for himself.The president “examined closely the model of al-Zawahiri’s house that the intelligence community had built and brought into the White House situation room for briefings on this issue”, a senior administration official told reporters.The White House made further claims to bolster its argument that the attack was lawful, flawless and with a loss of life limited to Zawahiri alone. Officials said that engineers were brought in to analyse the safe house and assess what would happen to it structurally in the wake of a drone strike.Lawyers were similarly consulted on whether the attack was legal. They advised that it was, given the target’s prominent role as leader of a terrorist group.Biden, by now quarantined with Covid, received a final briefing on 25 July and gave the go-ahead. It was a decision in stark contrast to the advice he gave Barack Obama in May 2011 not to proceed with the special forces mission that killed Bin Laden in a raid on his safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan.On Monday evening, Biden stood on his own balcony – this one in the White House with the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial as his backdrop – to address the nation.“I authorized the precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield once and for all,” Biden said. “This measure was carefully planned, rigorously, to minimize the risk of harm to other civilians.”Biden’s insistence that no one other than the al-Qaida leader was killed in the attack was amplified repeatedly by US officials. The narrative given by the White House was that Zawahiri was taken out cleanly through the application of modern technological warfare.Skepticism remains, despite the protestations. Over the years drone strikes have frequently proved to be anything but precise.In August last year one such US drone strike in Kabul was initially hailed by the Pentagon as a successful mission to take out a would-be terrorist bomber planning an attack on the city’s airport. It was only after the New York Times had published an exhaustive investigation showing that the strike had in fact killed 10 civilians, including an aid worker and seven children, that the US military admitted the mission had gone tragically wrong.Perhaps mindful of the doubts that are certain to swirl around the Zawahiri killing for days to come, the White House said that the Sherpur safe house where the drone strike happened had been kept under observation for 36 hours after the attack and before Biden spoke to the nation. Officials said that Zawahiri’s relatives were seen leaving the house under Haqqani Taliban escort, establishing that they had survived the strike.TopicsAyman al-ZawahiriAfghanistanTalibanSouth and central AsiaJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans’ agenda for a second Trump term is far more radical than the first | Andrew Gawthorpe

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      Republicans’ agenda for a second Trump term is far more radical than the firstAndrew GawthorpeRather than sideline federal agencies, Republicans want to seize control of them, purge civil servants and replace them with America First footsoldiers The Republican party of today has a new attitude towards the power of government. The Reaganites who used to dominate the party mostly saw government as the problem: if only it could be cut back or eliminated entirely, free markets would deliver everything America needed. But a new report on plans being developed for Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House shows just how much this has changed. Rather than sidelining or eliminating federal agencies, Republicans now want to do something much more disturbing: seize effective control of them in order to persecute their enemies and implement a radical agenda.This summer may be one of the most consequential in US democracy | Thomas ZimmerRead moreAt the core of the new plan, as reported by Axios, is the intention to strip away employment protections from thousands of senior civil servants, eliminating at a stroke a large chunk of the civil service’s expertise and institutional memory. This would allow them to be replaced with a “cadre” loyal to Trump’s America First agenda, most of them likely to be 20- and 30-somethings with no experience in government who would owe their newfound prominence to Trump alone. Ideologically zealous and loyal to a fault, they would set about trying to reshape the government in Trump’s image.Whoever developed this plan certainly had a keen eye for Trump’s greatest weakness as president. He hollowed out some agencies, particularly the state department, by driving staff to leave. But ignorant of how government worked and too impulsive to stay focused on a long-term program of change, he had little success at actually forcing most agencies to implement his America First agenda. Often, it seemed like Trump considered his own government to be more useful to him as a political foil than as a tool in his hands. Trump appeared to have decided there was little point to trying to actually control the “deep state” when he could instead portray himself as its victim.What seems to have changed in the interim is Trump’s desire for revenge. According to the Axios report, Trump’s top priority in a new administration will be to “clean house” in the intelligence community, DoJ and FBI. Loyalists will be installed in the place of current leadership. Why these places? The standard conservative critique of the civil service is that everyone in it is a liberal, but that certainly isn’t true of these agencies. Rather, they’re the places you need to corrupt if you’re bent on breaking the law and persecuting your opponents. Trump – notoriously thin-skinned, impulsive, and vengeful – wants to do just that.But this isn’t just a problem limited to Trump. The conservative movement as a whole increasingly dreams of turning the state against its enemies. The people at the heart of the movement today are more likely to idolize the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán than they are Ronald Reagan. They aren’t animated by the belief that the job of government is simply to get out of the way – instead, they want to use it to impose a radical agenda on American society. And the recent overturning of Roe v Wade provides a blueprint for how a compliant conservative judiciary can enable government officials to take away even the most fundamental of human rights.What will be done with this power? Some of it is grimly predictable. With the Department of Justice finally under control, the next Republican president would be free to launch criminal inquiries into political opponents. The brutality of immigration enforcement would be sharply increased while environmental regulations would languish unenforced. Rightwing extremists would go unmolested while American Muslims had their rights abused. Corruption and venality would become rampant across the government as checks and balances were removed and inexperienced hacks had their first taste of power.Given the scale of the federal government and the sheer weirdness of conservative politics, other consequences are hard to fathom. Be it vaccines, Disney movies, or whatever else is agitating the Fox News faithful, the government would be much more responsive to their views. At the same time, the things that actually matter – from nuclear safety to protecting the country from terrorist attacks – would go neglected. A civil service bent to the will of the modern conservative movement would not be a place that respected science, rationality, or legality. Precisely what might give under the weight of an attack on these principles is difficult to predict. But something definitely would.Although Trump would bring his own particular set of grievances to the venture, any future Republican president is likely to follow a similar blueprint. Given the sheer scale of changes they want to impose on America, today’s conservatives act more like revolutionaries. And like all revolutionaries, they want to seize control of the state and launch an offensive on as many fronts as possible. If Trump’s first term isn’t to appear to future historians as a grim prelude to something far worse, they must never be allowed to do it.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States and host of the podcast America Explained
      TopicsRepublicansOpinionUS politicsDonald TrumpcommentReuse this content More

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      'Justice has been delivered': al-Qaida leader killed in US drone strike, Biden says – video

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      US President Joe Biden  has announced  the top al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan. The US president described the death of al-Zawahiri, who was Osama Bin Laden’s deputy and successor, as a major blow to the terrorist network behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.
      The CIA strike will be seen as a proof of the US’s ability to conduct ‘over-the-horizon’ operations despite last year’s military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. But it also raised questions over al-Qaida’s continued presence in the country since the Taliban regained power

      Who was Ayman al-Zawahiri? The al-Qaida leader who helped plot their deadliest attacks
      Al-Qaida enjoying a haven in Afghanistan under Taliban, UN warns More

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      Democrats prepare for showdown over key spending and climate bill – as it happened

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      Senate Democrats are working to face off on the reconciliation bill – officially known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin made the rounds on all the talk shows touting the $740bn legislative package that the senate parliamentarian will go over later this week.
      Meanwhile, John Cornyn, the Republican senator from Texas, tested positive for Covid-19. He vowed to continue fighting the reconciliation bill while in quarantine.
      Joe Biden also remains in quarantine after testing positive again for Covid-19. Though his physician reports that he has minimal symptoms, he still continues to test positive, as expected.
      House speaker Nancy Pelosi is in Asia and multiple news outlets are reporting that she will be including Taiwan in her itinerary. It would mark the first visit to Taiwan by a house speaker in a quarter of a century, but the White House spent the press briefing talking it down as not a big deal. “The speaker has the right to visit Taiwan, and the speaker of the House as visited Taiwan before, without any incident, as have many members of Congress, including this year,” said White House national security spokesman John Kirby. Kirby said if Pelosi does choose to visit Taiwan, her decision would have no standing on the US stance on the One China Policy that does not support Taiwan’s independence.
      Kirby had strong words for China’s threats that its military would “not sit idly by” if the visit happened. “There is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with long-standing US policy into some kind of crisis or conflict or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan strait,” he said.
      The Biden administration will authorize today a $550m security assistance package for Ukraine, bringing the total aid to $8bn.
      Guy Reffitt, the first of the horde of Donald Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 to be convicted, has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison. 🚨 SENTENCE: U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich orders Guy Reffitt to serve 87 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Warns if he violates terms she will send him back to prison for up to maximum term. $2,000 in restitution. pic.twitter.com/IGZjxFqoXb— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) August 1, 2022
      While it is the harshest sentence for any of the individuals involved in the attack on the US Capitol, it is considerably less than the 15 years the justice department had sought with the terrorism enhancement. JUST NOW: Judge Friedrich DENIES prosecutors’ request to impose a terrorism enhancement and other upward departures at the sentencing of Guy Reffitt. His recommended sentencing range will be 87-108 months in prison.— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) August 1, 2022
      Senators Tim Kaine and Kyrsten Sinema – Democrats – joined with Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to introduce the Reproductive Freedom for All Act today, legislation to codify Roe v Wade, which was recently overturned by the supreme court. Senate Democrats Kaine & Sinema and Republicans Collins & Murkowski introduced the Reproductive Freedom For All Act today,bipartisan legislation to codify the Roe v. Wade decision recently overturned by the Supreme Court. House passed their version of the bill earlier this month. https://t.co/EIRl7ChQMP— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) August 1, 2022
      All close contacts Joe Biden had when he tested positive for Covid-19 have tested negative, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. He is not experiencing any reoccurring symptoms. “He’s feeling fine,” Jean-Pierre said. “There’s no reason for this to escalate,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and her purported Taiwan trip. While House speaker Nancy Pelosi “has not confirmed any travel plans” regarding a decision to visit Taiwan on her trip to Asia, “we have been clear from the very beginning that she will make her own decisions and that Congress is an independent branch of government,” said White House national security spokesman John Kirby “Our Constitution embeds a separation of powers,” Kirby said. “This is well known to the (People’s Republic of China), given our more than four decades of diplomatic relations. The speaker has the right to visit Taiwan, and the speaker of the House as visited Taiwan before, without any incident, as have many members of Congress, including this year.”Pelosi visiting Taiwan on this trip won’t change anything, Kirby said. “Nothing has changed about our One China Policy,” Kirby said. “We have repeatedly said that we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We do not support Taiwan independence and that we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.”Kirby had strong words for China’s threats that its military would “not sit idly by” if the visit happened. Even before Pelosi arrived in the region, China conducted a live-fire exercise, and Kirby said that China appears to be positioning itself to potentiallhy take further steps in the coming days, be they military provocations, air or naval activities or military exercises. “There is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with long-standing US policy into some kind of crisis or conflict or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan strait,” he said. “We will not take the bait or engage in sabre rattling. At the same time, we will not be intimidated. We will keep operating in the seas and the skies in the western Pacific, as we have for decades. We will continue to support cross-strait peace, stability, support Taiwan, defend a free and open Indo-Pacific, and we’re still going to seek to maintain lines of communication with Beijing. All of that is important and all of that is preserving the status quo.”White House national security spokesman John Kirby kicked off today’s press briefing by celebrating the first ship to successfully leave the port of Odessa in Ukraine carrying agricultural exports and announcing a $550m security assistance package for Ukraine. The ship was allowed out under a recent deal brokered between the United Nations, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia to allow for Ukraine, Europe’s breadbasket, to export some of its agricultural products as a way to ease the world’s food insecurity crisis. Previously, Russia had a blockade on Ukraine’s ports since the start of its invasion. . “We urge Russia to meet its commitments under this new arrangement, including by facilitating unimpeded exports of agriculture products from Black Sea ports in order to ease the food insecurity around the world,” Kirby said. “We will be watching that closely.”The $550m security assistance package stems from the president’s drawdown authority, bringing the total to $8bn that Joe Biden has drawn down for Ukraine since the Russia invasion began, Kirby said. The Associated Press is reporting that the North Carolina state board of elections voted unanimously today to recognize the Green Party as a new political party, reversing a previous decision to reject the party’s petition while the board investigated the signature sheets for fraud.The North Carolina Green Party has submitted more than enough signatures validated by both the state and county elections boards to earn immediate recognition, Katelyn Love, the board’s legal counsel, said. But Green Party candidates still face an ongoing legal battle to appear on the November ballot after the state board’s initial rejection of the petition led the party to miss the 1 July deadline.The elections board’s Democratic majority previously rejected the Green Party petition in a 3-2 vote on 30 June, citing petition sheets with nearly identical handwriting as well as incomplete personal information, duplicate names and deceased signatories.The Green Party sued the board on 14 July, alleging Democratic interference in the petitioning process and asking the court to reverse the board’s decision. The board filed a response to the lawsuit on Friday, opposing the Green Party’s demand that a judge order the board to include its candidates on the ballot. The board agreed the court should extend the candidate filing deadline should the party earn official recognition at Monday’s board meeting, the brief states.Democrats have warned that Green Party certification could divide progressive voters and clear a path for Republican victories in key races — particularly the tight US senate race between Democrat Cheri Beasley and Trump-endorsed Republican congressman Ted Budd. Prior to the board’s initial vote, the Democratic senatorial campaign committee acknowledged contacting signers of the Green Party’s petition to request they remove their names.K Ryan Parker, a plaintiff in the Green Party lawsuit, called the board’s decision “a welcome surprise and a huge win for democracy,” which he believes was prompted by the recent onslaught of media attention and a desire to settle the matter outside federal court.“It doesn’t change the fact that the Democratic party attempted to disenfranchise North Carolina voters like me by hiring operatives to call, text and visit voters in their home, attempting to compel them to remove their signatures from the petition,” Parker said in an interview Monday. “And it doesn’t change the fact that this two-party system, this duopoly, has failed us at every turn and continues to force voters into a dilemma every four years of voting for a lesser evil.”Tomorrow’s a big primary day in a lot of states, and one big race to watch is the Missouri senate Republican primary. With Republican senator Roy Blunt retiring, basically everybody and their neighbor has come out to vie for his seat. Eric Greitens, the former governor of Missouri, initially held the lead, but he has been dogged by scandal after scandal, with his ex-wife alleging that he abused her and their child and a woman accusing him of sexually and physically abusing her and then threatening to release nude photos of her if she told anyone.Trump posts that he plans to endorse today in #mosen ahead of primary tomorrow. Many Rs had long been concerned he could endorse Greitens— Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 1, 2022
      John Cornyn, the Republican senator from Texas, has tested positive for Covid-19. After dodging it for 2+ years I’ve tested positive for COVID-19. I’m fully vaccinated and boosted, and doing fine. While quarantining I’ll continue to fight Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin’s massive tax increase on working families remotely, consistent with CDC guidelines.— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) August 1, 2022
      Cornyn will be quarantining during a very crucial week for Senate Democrats. They want to pass the reconciliation bill – officially known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 – and once it gets past the senate parliamentarian, they need just a narrow majority to do so. With Cornyn being out due to COVID, this means Dems could potentially pass Manchin bill without VP Harris breaking the tie if all 50 Dems are healthy & are yeas— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) August 1, 2022 More

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      Lucas Kunce: ‘Populism is about everyday people coming together’

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      InterviewLucas Kunce: ‘Populism is about everyday people coming together’Martin Pengelly Former US Marine with a progressive take on identity and masculinity hopes Missouri Democrats will pick him as their nominee for US Senate Lucas Kunce thinks populism has been given a bad name. “It’s outrageous,” he says, “that people call the Josh Hawleys, the Eric Greitens, the Donald Trumps of the world populist. Populism is about everyday people coming together to have power in a system that’s not working for them. So do that, Josh Hawley. I mean, good Lord, what a charlatan.”Josh Hawley, senator who ran from Capitol mob, mocked by home paperRead moreKunce is running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Missouri, in the fight to take the state’s second seat in Washington, alongside Hawley. The primary is on Tuesday.Kunce’s main challenger is Trudy Busch Valentine, a prominent donor from the Anheuser-Busch brewing dynasty. Kunce’s fundraising has been hugely successful but polling is tight.Kunce has attacked Busch Valentine for representing the donor class, but in conversation he focuses more on attacking Republicans. Hawley, he says, is “always talking about masculinity – this, that, the other – meanwhile, he skitters out of the Capitol from a riot he essentially started. The guy votes for every corporate judge that comes up in front of him. He doesn’t do anything that would actually empower everyday people.“And Donald Trump, I mean, he put the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, in charge of our economy. That’s not populism. What they do is divide people based on race, religion, where you come from, in a way that doesn’t give everyday people power. They make sure folks are divided so that they don’t have power as a whole against the system that’s not working.“And so I just think it’s a tragedy that we give sort of any sort of populist label to these guys because they don’t want to change the system.”Now 39, Kunce is a Yale law grad who joined the US marines, went to Iraq and Afghanistan and worked in international arms control. He’s a persuasive speaker, even over Google Meet, laptop camera on the fritz.He is for gun control but he is running in gun country. That in part explains an ad in which Kunce holds an AR-15-style assault rifle, makes as if to fire it and then says that unlike potential Republican opponents including Mark McCloskey, the lawyer who infamously pointed such a gun at protesters for racial justice, he doesn’t need to indulge in such macho posturing.Kunce is also for abortion rights, in a state with a post-Roe v Wade trigger law.He grew up in Jefferson City, “in what would be considered a pro-life house and pro-life neighbourhood. That’s what I knew. And then I joined the Marine Corps. I went out and saw what it was like for these countries where they have oppressive Big Brother governments, where women have no rights. I saw what it was like to live in countries where there’s this two-tiered system of rights, where if you have wealth, access and power, the world’s literally your oyster.“And then I see what they did in Missouri here, how these country club Republicans passed the country’s first trigger law, saying abortion is not even available in cases of rape or incest. It’s like they’re willing to do that because they know it’s not going to affect them. Because they’re gonna go out of state, they have the wealth and the means. And so I think that’s messed up. People in my old neighborhood, that’s who’s not gonna have access. We’re gonna have a two-tier system here.The dystopian American reality one month after the Roe v Wade reversalRead more“And I’ve seen people from from my life go through very hard pregnancies I don’t think they should ever have to be forced to go through. People should be able to have that right and opportunity … And so my position is that I will vote to end the [Senate] filibuster and codify Roe v Wade. I think we need to make that happen.”The Republican primary in Missouri is certainly messy, an all-in scrap in which Greitens, a pro-Trump ex-governor who quit in disgrace and is accused of sexual and physical abuse, could yet come out on top.Polling suggests a Missouri US Senate seat remains a stretch for any Democrat. All the same, Kunce has attracted national attention. He says that was a surprise.“I had no expectations going into this. I was a guy nobody knew. I wanted to run a campaign where I rejected corporate Pac money, federal lobbyists’ money, big farm executive money, big fossil fuel executive money. People basically said that wasn’t possible and that was stupid.“And we just decided we’d do it the right way anyway. To actually stand for something and to win and to make sure you only represent people like the ones who took care of me growing up, rather than these folks who are buying off politicians and using them to strip our communities for parts.“I’m thrilled we’ve gotten the attention that we’ve gotten for what we’re doing and how Democrats can win in the midwest again – if they take a real straightforward populist message.”Kunce talks of “big, bold investment” in the midwest, of spending the sort of billions previously spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on building “the next generation of energy technology right here, to build out manufacturing, research and development, we’re talking wind and solar but we’re also talking hydrogen, distributed nuclear or modular nuclear, battery technology [and] good union jobs”.Independence, Missouri: tribalism, the flag and 4 July in the age of TrumpRead moreSuch aims are part of the Green New Deal and Build Back Better, progressive and Democratic plans fiercely opposed by big business and the right. Kunce’s description of a “Marshall plan for the midwest”, a reference to US aid for postwar Europe under a Missourian Democratic president, Harry Truman, seems in part a repackaging. He isn’t big on progressive labels. Asked about identity politics, he prefers to talk about class.“My focus is on top-bottom, as far as identity politics go. There are a lot of people who are being used as targets, usually the most vulnerable people in our society, by the shareholder class, these massive corporations who are funding campaigns against trans youth, against gay people, against minority communities. They do whatever they can to fund divisive campaigns in order to make it so we don’t have a top-bottom race.“This is what I was talking about earlier with these charlatans who pretend to be populist but they’re actually dividing people as much as they can. I’m absolutely for protecting communities that are vulnerable. I just don’t want to lose sight of this top-bottom dynamic that’s really killing us and making it so everybody is fighting for crumbs underneath the table rather than actually having to sit at it.”Kunce has been presented as a representative of progressive masculinity, a type of Democrat who might appeal away from the coasts. He connects the issue back to Republican posturing.“It’s crazy. I mean, Mark McCloskey on his AR-15, frightening people who are walking by his house. You don’t even hold it right. He would have burned himself up with hot brass if he’d shot a round. The fakeness here is just incredible. Josh Hawley’s right there too.“Real men aren’t a bunch of posers. They are people like my dad who sacrifice for their family, sacrifice for their community, stay in the first job they ever took out of school for their entire life, even when they’re miserable, because they needed their little girl to have health insurance so that she would survive. People that invest in their community, in their families.“It’s like the guy who inspired me to join the marines. This guy named Al. When I was a kid, we always volunteered at the church soup kitchen. Twice a month we’d go down there … and this guy who ran the kitchen, he was always like, ‘OK, what chores do all the kids want to do?’ And my little sister and I were always like, ‘Oh, we want to do the dishes.’ And Al was always confused about why two kids wanted to do the dishes.‘If I’d not got help, I’d probably be dead’: Jason Kander on PTSD, politics and advice from ObamaRead more“But at my house with a big family, doing the dishes, man, it was like 40 minutes of standing at the sink, hurting your back, scrubbing hard and drying. Well, the church kitchen had a dishwasher. So doing the dishes was a scam there. You just threw a bunch of stuff in and walked away. I was like, ‘This guy’s an idiot, he thinks we’re doing a chore.’ And so Al figured that out.“And two years later, when he renovated the kitchen in his house, he took his old dishwasher, put it in his pickup truck, drove it to our house and installed it for us, because he remembered that and he wanted to do something for somebody.“That’s what a real man does. That’s masculinity. Al was a marines officer in Vietnam. Never talked about it. Just, you know, quiet fortitude. That’s what I think being a man is and it’s why I joined the Marine Corps and it’s why I think these [Republican] guys are just a bunch of posturing peacocks.”My last question is in part prompted by Kunce’s mention of “quiet fortitude”. Kunce is a fan of Clint Eastwood movies. Which is his favorite?“Unforgiven. Because Unforgiven was such a comeback for the western brand. It brought it back in the early 90s. And I thought that was really cool. I mean, I watch all the old ones. Pale Rider, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly … but I think Unforgiven was just, it was a real comeback story for the genre which I love.”I’m for In the Line of Fire. If Kunce wins on Tuesday, the Republicans will be too.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsMissouriUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressinterviewsReuse this content More