World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

      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

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

      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

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

      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

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      How Bernie Sanders and conservatives united against US semiconductor bill

      by

      How Bernie Sanders and conservatives united against US semiconductor billVermont senator opposed ‘corporate welfare’ to firms paying huge salaries to executives – but Chips and Science Act passed Congress When it comes to alliances in Washington, few are as unlikely as the common ground the democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders briefly found with the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, two architects of conservative policies across the United States.Yet that is what happened this week when Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, made a lonely and unsuccessful stand against a $280bn bill funding scientific research and, controversially, giving computer chip manufacturers financial incentives to build more production in the United States – one that rightwing groups also encouraged lawmakers to make.Pro-Israel group pours millions into primary to defeat Jewish candidateRead more“The question we should be asking is this: should American taxpayers provide the microchip industry with a blank check of over $76bn at a time when semiconductor companies are making tens of billions of dollars in profits and paying their executives exorbitant compensation packages? I think the answer to that question should be a resounding no,” Sanders said during a Monday speech on the Senate floor.The senator’s objections ultimately amounted to naught. The bill passed Congress on Thursday, and Joe Biden is expected to soon sign it.But the episode underscores the tensions that arise when Washington moves to help an industry facing tough times. In this case, the stricken businesses were semiconductor makers who are struggling to keep up with demand and fearful of the threat from ascendant Chinese industry.“The left in this country has generally sort of failed to recognize the importance of capital investment. At the same time, they’re sort of complaining about companies not investing in America, they haven’t actually supported the companies that do invest in America,” said Michael Mandel, chief economist and vice-president of the Progressive Policy Institute thinktank.“My personal view is that capital investment is absolutely essential, and anything we can do to get more investment in this country is a plus for workers and a plus for consumers.”Dubbed the Chips and Science Act, the measure represents Washington’s response to the shortage of semiconductors that began during the pandemic and has snarled the assembly lines of US industries while helping drive up inflation. The bill would offer computer chip manufacturers $52.7bn in incentives to build factories in the United States, as well as $24.3bn in tax breaks.The proposal has taken a tortuous path to passage, with the Senate first approving a version of it last year, before the idea was caught up in the legislative logjam that struck Biden’s agenda in the closing months of 2021.But, unlike some of what the Democratic president hoped to get out of Congress, many Republicans supported the concept of helping the semiconductor industry, particularly because it was seen as an effort to counter China, which has heavily invested in its own microchip industry.And while the US ally Taiwan is one of the biggest manufacturers of computer chips globally, another motivation for Chips is concern about what would happen to its supply if Beijing moves against the island. In July, the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, and defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, wrote a letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress, saying that the measure was “critical for our national security”.Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state under the Republican president Donald Trump, made an unlikely contribution to calls for its passage. “Congress must pass the Chips Act for both our national and economic security. We have to become less dependent on China for critical technologies – and this is how we do it,” he tweeted as the House of Representatives was considering it.But some of the most influential conservative groups in Washington didn’t buy in.“The answer to the [Chinese Communist party’s] malevolent ambitions is not spending billions of dollars to help Fortune 500 companies, with no guarantee those dollars won’t end up supporting these companies’ business operations in China,” the Heritage Foundation president, Kevin Roberts, said in a statement.“Additionally, the act’s $250bn price tag will contribute to record inflation and increase the already historic cost of living for working- and middle-class Americans.”Americans for Prosperity, which was funded by the conservative industrialists Charles Koch and his late brother David, who are well known for their work promoting climate change denialism, sees the bill as “corporate welfare”.“The United States didn’t become the strongest and most prosperous society in the history of mankind by emulating the Chinese government’s central planning, and we shouldn’t start now,” the group’s vice-president of government affairs, Akash Chougule, said. “If we want to see more American investment, the US government needs to stay out of the way.”The effort ultimately failed, with 24 Republicans voting for Chips in the House and 17 Republicans in the Senate, along with almost all Democrats. While Sanders voted against it, none of his usual allies in that chamber or the House joined him in opposition.It wasn’t just the Biden administration that lawmakers were hearing from. Semiconductor firms invested heavily in lobbying to make the bill become law, with Bloomberg reporting major manufacturers spent $19.6m in just the first half of this year, after $15.8m in the same period of 2021.Particularly vocal was Intel, which has announced a $20bn investment in two new semiconductor factories in Ohio. But amid the Chips Act delay in June, the company announced those plans could be pushed back or curtailed without the funding.“My message to our congressional leaders is: hey, if I’m not done with the job, I don’t get to go home. Neither should you. Do not go home for August recess until you have passed the Chips Act, because I and others in the industries will make investment decisions. Do you want those investments in the US?” Intel’s chief executive, Ryan Scott, said in an interview on CNBC. “Get the job done.”Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who sponsored a bill that was a precursor to Chips, denied that the legislation was corporate welfare, saying there were guardrails in its text to stop corporations from using the funds for their own enrichment. Instead, he likened it to a return of 1940s-era industrial policy, in which the government makes investments in industries deemed strategically important.“I think there’s understandable concern about corporate welfare, but corporate welfare is different than the FDR model of mobilizing for production,” he said, referring to the Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led the country through most of the second world war.He envisioned Chips as a template for future efforts that could boost green technologies such as electric vehicles, and solar and wind energy.“I think it’s a first step for how we continue to industrialize America, how we bring our production back, how we reduce our trade deficits. I absolutely think this should be a model,” Khanna said. “And the commerce department should enforce this so none of the money is going to stock buybacks, that it is going to building factories.”TopicsBernie SandersDemocratsUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      The Big Lie review: Jonathan Lemire laments what Trump hath wrought

      by

      The Big Lie review: Jonathan Lemire laments what Trump hath wrought The Politico reporter and MSNBC host’s book is an indictment of the former president but also his Republican partyJoe Biden sits in the Oval Office but Donald Trump occupies prime space in America’s psyche. Mike Pence’s most senior aides have testified before a federal grand jury. An investigation by prosecutors in Georgia proceeds apace. In a high-stakes game of chicken, the message from the Department of Justice grows more ominous. Trump’s actions are reportedly under the microscope at the DoJ. He teases a re-election bid. Season two of the January 6 committee hearings beckons.Thank You For Your Servitude review – disappointing tale of Trump’s townRead moreInto this cauldron of distrust and loathing leaps Jonathan Lemire, with The Big Lie. He is Politico’s White House bureau chief and the 5am warm-up to MSNBC’s Morning Joe. He has done his homework. He lays out facts. His book is a mixture of narrative and lament.Lemire contends that Trump birthed the “big lie” in his 2016 campaign, as an excuse in the event of defeat by either Senator Ted Cruz in the primary or Hillary Clinton in the general election. Trump held both opponents in contempt.In the primary, Trump lost Iowa – then falsely claimed Cruz stole it.“Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified,” Trump tweeted.In the general, a half-year later, he dropped another bomb.“I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged. I have to be honest.”In the final presidential debate he upped the ante, refusing to say he would accept the electorate’s verdict.“I will look at it at the time,” Trump said. “I will keep you in suspense.”He definitely warned us. Lemire’s first book is aptly subtitled: “Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020.”Then and now, Trump posited that only fraud could derail him. After he beat Clinton in the electoral college, he claimed he actually won the popular vote too. In Trump’s mind, he was the victim of ballots cast by illegal aliens.“In addition to winning the electoral college in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Trump tweeted.To those within earshot, he said people who didn’t “look like they should be allowed to vote”, did.To soothe his ego, he appointed a commission headed by Kris Kobach, a nativist Kansas secretary of state, to vindicate his claims. It found nothing.In a blend of fiction and wish-fulfillment, Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary, and Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser, embarked on flights of fantasy. Spicer declared that Trump’s inaugural crowd was larger than that for Barack Obama. Conway introduced us to alternative facts.Lemire’s indictment goes way beyond that offered by Clinton, who called Trump voters deplorable. He casts the issue as systemic – and punches up. He is angered but does not condescend. The Big Lie is also about elite conservative lawyers, Ivy League-educated senators, Republican House leadership and Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy.Like Gollum in Tolkien’s Rings trilogy, the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, wants to get his hands on the speaker’s gavel that badly. Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser and author of the ill-fated “Green Bay Sweep” plan to overturn the election, faces charges of criminal contempt. Such acolytes know exactly what they do.Extremists in Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are vocal totems, empowered by an enraged ex-president and a vengeance-filled base. In such a world it seems no surprise cries of “hang Mike Pence”, makeshift gallows and Confederate battle flags in the halls of the Capitol came to supplant “fuck your feelings”, the mantra of Trump 2016.As expected, Steve Bannon appears in The Big Lie. He loves dishing to the press. It is in his DNA. The former Trump campaign guru and White House aide, now convicted of contempt of Congress, trashes his former boss as a reflexive liar.According to Lemire, Bannon said: “Trump would say anything, he would lie about anything.” On cue, a Bannon spokesperson disputed Lemire’s sources, telling the Guardian they were inaccurate.In Jeremy Peters’ book, Insurgency, Bannon mused that Trump would “end up going down in history as one of the two or three worst presidents ever”. In Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, he described the Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr and a group of Russians amid the 2016 election campaign as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”.And yet Bannon’s role in Trump’s bid to stay in power remains of central interest to the January 6 committee. On 5 January 2021, Bannon announced on-air that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow”. He spoke to Trump that morning.Despite his thoroughness, Lemire does omit the role of one group of Republicans in giving the big lie added heft. In May 2021, the Washington Post reported on the efforts of Texas Republicans led by Russell Ramsland, a businessman with a Harvard MBA.After the 2018 midterms, Ramsland and colleagues pressed convoluted theories concerning “voting-machine audit logs – lines of codes and time stamps that document the machines’ activities”. Pete Sessions, a defeated congressman, didn’t buy what Ramsland was selling. Trump did.For Trump’s minions, this remains a war over lost place and status.“Republicans need to prove to the American people that we are the party of … Christian nationalism,” says Greene, a first-term congresswoman from Georgia.Like a toxic weed, the big lie has taken root.“It is now part of the Republican party’s core belief,” Lemire writes. Violence and insurrection have become legitimate. “The Big Lie was who they were.”Our cold civil war grows hotter.
      The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020 is published in the US by Macmillan
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS elections 2020US midterm elections 2022reviewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015

      by

      Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015In forthcoming memoir, obtained by the Guardian, former adviser claims to have made hugely consequential intervention In a forthcoming memoir, Jared Kushner says he personally intervened to stop Donald Trump attacking Rupert Murdoch in response to the media mogul’s criticism, at the outset of Trump’s move into politics in 2015.Trump said sorry to Cruz for 2016 insults, Paul Manafort says in new bookRead moreIn the book, Breaking History, Kushner writes: “Trump called me. He’d clearly had enough. ‘This guy’s no good. And I’m going to tweet it.’“‘Please, you’re in a Republican primary,’ I said, hoping he wasn’t about to post a negative tweet aimed at the most powerful man in conservative media. ‘You don’t need to get on the wrong side of Rupert. Give me a couple of hours to fix it.’”Kushner says he fixed it. If his claim is true, he could be seen to have made a hugely consequential intervention in modern US history.Murdoch’s support, chiefly through Fox News, did much to boost Trump to victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Despite persistent reports of friction between the two men, Murdoch supported Trump through four tumultuous years in power which culminated in Trump’s refusal to admit defeat and the deadly attack on Congress.The Guardian obtained a copy of Kushner’s book, which will be published next month.The book lands at a time when Murdoch’s newspapers and to some extent Fox News are widely seen to be pulling away from Trump, amid congressional hearings into his election subversion and the January 6 attack, speculation about criminal charges and as he prepares another White House run.In his book, Trump’s son-in-law, who became a senior White House adviser, describes a friendship with Murdoch built on time on Murdoch’s yacht and at Bono’s house in France, watching the U2 frontman sing with Bob Geldof and Billy Joel. Kushner also describes how Wendi Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s third wife, helped get him back with Ivanka Trump after a breakup.Kushner claims to have convinced Murdoch to support Trump in 2015.Trump and Murdoch were not close before Trump entered politics. But in July 2015, after Trump launched his explosive campaign for the Republican presidential nomination with a racist rant about Mexicans, the Fox News owner tweeted: “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing the whole country?”A week later, the New York Times described Murdoch disparaging Trump. Trump was furious and threatened to tweet. Kushner was not then an official adviser to his father-in-law but he writes: “I called Rupert and told him I had to see him.“‘Rupert, I think he could win,’ I said, as we sat in his office. ‘You guys agree on a lot of the issues. You want smaller government. You want lower taxes. You want stronger borders.’“Rupert listened quizzically, like he couldn’t imagine that Trump was actually serious about running. The next day, he called me and said, ‘I’ve looked at this and maybe I was misjudging it. He actually does have a real following. It does seem like he’s very popular, like he can really be a kingmaker in the Republican primary with the way he is playing it. What does Donald want?’“‘He wants to be president,’ I responded.“‘No, what does he really want?’ he asked again.“‘Look, he doesn’t need a nicer plane,’ I said. ‘He’s got a beautiful plane. He doesn’t need a nicer house. He doesn’t need anything. He’s tired of watching politicians screw up the country, and he thinks he could do a better job.’“‘Interesting,’ Rupert said.“We had a truce, for the time being.”Kushner also writes about Trump’s clashes with Fox News during the 2016 campaign, including a clash with the anchor Megyn Kelly. Kushner says he agreed a deal with Roger Ailes, then in charge of Fox News, for a donation of $5m to a veterans’ organisation of Trump’s choice, in return for Trump choosing not to skip a debate.Murdoch rejected the deal, Kushner writes, saying if he took it he would have to “pay everyone to show up to debates”.Kushner also describes how Murdoch helped shape his view of why the US needed Trump. At a rally in Springfield, Illinois in November 2015, Kushner was reminded “of a book that Rupert Murdoch had given me months earlier: Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, which makes a case that over the last 50 years America has divided into upper and lower classes that live apart from each other, geographically and culturally”.Trump, Kushner writes, appealed to the “forgotten and disenfranchised”. For his son-in-law rally in Illinois “was a wake-up call”.Is Murdoch tiring of Trump? Mogul’s print titles dump the ex-presidentRead moreKushner’s version of another call with Murdoch, on election night 2020, has been widely reported. He says Murdoch told him Fox News’s call of Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden in Arizona, a decision which infuriated the president and his advisers, was “ironclad – not even close”.Arizona played a central role in Trump’s attempt to overturn the election through lies about voter fraud. Fox News is now the subject of a $1.6bn defamation suit from a maker of voting machines, over conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies and repeated on the network.Fox News has said it is “confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs”.TopicsBooksJared KushnerDonald TrumpRupert MurdochRepublicansUS politicsPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump said sorry to Cruz for 2016 insults, Paul Manafort says in new book

      by

      Trump said sorry to Cruz for 2016 insults, Paul Manafort says in new bookIn a memoir obtained by the Guardian, former campaign manager risks embarrassing powerful rivals with description of apology Donald Trump made an uncharacteristic apology to Ted Cruz after insulting his wife and father during the 2016 campaign – only for the Texas senator still to refuse to endorse Trump at the Republican convention.Paul Manafort admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 but keeping it secret in wait for pardon Read moreIn a new memoir, Trump’s then campaign manager, Paul Manafort, writes: “On his own initiative, Trump did apologise for saying some of the things he said about Cruz, which was unusual for Trump.”The telling vignette – possibly an embarrassing one for two powerful Republicans who have since formed an alliance of convenience – is contained in Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced, which will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager between May and August 2016.Imprisoned on tax charges in a case arising from the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow, Manafort did not turn on Trump and received a pardon just before the end of Trump’s time in power.In his memoir, he denies collusion with Russia, bemoans his experiences at the hands of the US justice system, admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 while in home confinement, and expresses strong support for another Trump campaign in 2024.In 2016, in a brutal primary, Trump insinuated Cruz’s wife was ugly and linked his father to the assassination of John F Kennedy. He also questioned whether Cruz, born in Canada, was qualified to be US president and coined a lasting nickname, Lyin’ Ted.Manafort’s description of a Trump apology for such slurs may come as a surprise to both men.Trump is famous for never apologising, whether in his business career or in his seven-year careen across the US political scene.And when Cruz eventually came onside with Trump, in September 2016, he said: “Neither he nor his campaign has ever taken back a word they said about my wife and my family.”Now Manafort says Trump did apologise – and to Cruz’s face at that.Describing a meeting meant to get Cruz’s support before the convention in Cleveland in July, Manafort writes that the senator said he would work with the man who beat him into second in the primary but would not formally endorse him, “because his supporters didn’t want him to”.Manafort writes: “It was a forced justification for someone who is normally very logical. Trump didn’t buy it.”Trump nonetheless apologised, Manafort writes, then “told Cruz he considered him an ally, not an enemy, and that he believed they could work together when Trump was president.”At least initially, Trump’s effort was in vain. In his speech at the convention, Cruz did not endorse Trump and was booed by the crowd. The senator’s wife, Heidi Cruz, was escorted out of the arena, out of concern for her safety. Manafort accuses Cruz’s aides of “double dealing” and describes Trump declaring “This is bullshit” as the senator spoke, then walking to the back of the convention hall, “effectively pulling the attention away from Cruz and undercutting his speech.“Cruz then got the message that there was a technical issue – a legitimate glitch – and the volume went out on his speech.”Footage of the speech does not clearly show such a technical glitch.Cruz, Manafort writes, was “very upset. It took months to bring that relationship back. But eventually Cruz came around to supporting Trump, and Trump harboured no ill will.”Whether Cruz and Trump will harbour any ill will for Manafort, for undercutting Cruz’s claim never to have received an apology and for saying Trump delivered a rare one, remains of course to be seen.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTed CruzRepublicansUS elections 2016US politicsPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US House votes to ban assault weapons as Republicans criticize ‘gun grab’

      by

      US House votes to ban assault weapons as Republicans criticize ‘gun grab’Restrictions that expired 10 years after 1994 vote revived as bill passes 217-213, but effort likely to fail in US Senate The House has passed legislation to revive a ban on semi-automatic guns, the first vote of its kind in years and a direct response to the firearms often used in the crush of mass shootings ripping through communities nationwide.Once banned in the US, the high-powered firearms are now widely blamed as the weapon of choice among young men responsible for many of the most devastating mass shootings. But Congress allowed the restrictions first put in place in 1994 on the manufacture and sales of the weapons to expire a decade later, unable to muster the political support to counter the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the weapons ban.Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the vote toward passage in the Democratic-run House, saying the earlier ban had “saved lives”.California governor signs gun control law modeled after Texas anti-abortion measureRead moreThe House legislation is shunned by Republicans, who dismissed it as an election-year strategy by Democrats. Almost all Republicans voted against the bill, which passed 217-213. It will probably stall in the 50-50 Senate.The bill comes at a time of intensifying concerns about gun violence and shootings – the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York; massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas; and the Fourth of July shooting of revelers in Highland Park, Illinois.Voters seem to be taking such election-year votes seriously as Congress splits along party lines and lawmakers are forced to go on the record with their views. A recent vote to protect same-sex marriages from potential supreme court legal challenges won a surprising amount of bipartisan support.Joe Biden, who was instrumental in helping secure the first semi-automatic weapons ban as a senator in 1994, encouraged passage, promising to sign the bill if it reached his desk. In a statement before the vote, his administration said: “We know an assault weapons and large-capacity magazine ban will save lives.”02:03The Biden administration said for 10 years while the ban was in place, mass shootings declined. “When the ban expired in 2004, mass shootings tripled,” the statement said.Republicans stood firmly against limits on ownership of the high-powered firearms during an at times emotional debate ahead of voting.“It’s a gun-grab, pure and simple,” said Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania.Said Andrew Clyde of Georgia: “An armed America is a safe and free America.”Democrats argued that the ban on the weapons makes sense, portraying Republicans as extreme and out of step with Americans.Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said the weapons ban was not about taking away Americans’ second amendment rights but ensuring that children also had the right “to not get shot in school”.National gun violence prevention organizations are describing the House’s actions as a promising step toward getting future restrictions passed at the federal level.“Just a few years ago this would have been unthinkable,” said Trevon Bosley, a board member of March for Our Lives. The organization was born after a young gunman shot and killed 17 students and staff of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. “This bill won’t save lives yet, but it does send a powerful message to the millions of young people who are growing up fighting for our lives: change is possible.”The bill would make it unlawful to import, sell or manufacture a long list of semi-automatic weapons. Jerry Nadler, chair of the judiciary committee, said it exempts those already in possession.Since the previous ban expired nearly two decades ago, Democrats had been reluctant to revisit the issue and confront the gun lobby. But voter opinions appear to be shifting and Democrats dared to act before the fall election. The outcome will also make candidates’ stance on gun legislation clear ahead of the midterm elections.Congress passed a modest gun violence prevention package just last month in the aftermath of the tragic shooting of 19 school children and two teachers in Uvalde. That bipartisan bill was the first of its kind after years of failed efforts to confront the gun lobby, including after a similar 2012 mass tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.That law provides for expanded background checks on young adults buying firearms, allowing authorities to access certain juvenile records. It also closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by denying gun purchases for those convicted of domestic abuse outside of marriages.The new law also frees up federal funding to the states, including for “red flag” laws that enable authorities to remove guns from those who would harm themselves or others.But even that modest effort at halting gun violence came at time of grave uncertainty in the US over restrictions on firearms as the more conservative supreme court is tackling gun rights and other issues.Biden signed the measure two days after the supreme court’s ruling striking down a New York law that restricted people’s ability to carry concealed weapons.Abené Clayton contributed reportingTopicsUS gun controlHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More