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      US faces extreme heat as Biden’s climate crisis plan stalls – live

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      For the past year and a half, it seemed like Joe Biden would get to sign a major piece of legislation addressing climate change. The vehicle was at first his marquee Build Back Better spending plan, which would have allocated more than a trillion dollars to addressing a host of Democratic priorities. Then that died, and Democrats quietly began working on a follow-up bill that could pass both the Senate and the House of Representatives, which the party controlled with razor-thin margins.Now, it seems like Congress won’t act to curb America’s carbon emissions at all. Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat whose vote is necessary to get any legislation that doesn’t win Republican support through the Senate, has said now is not the time to spend money fighting climate change due to the current high rate of inflation, even as extreme weather continues to batter the United States and world.The senator’s declaration last week was a major loss for the White House, but Biden may still get to use his pen by signing to-be-announced executive orders intended to keep temperatures from rising.Steve Bannon, a former top advisor to Donald Trump, is going to trial today for defying a subpoena by the January 6 committee, as Sam Levine reports:A federal criminal trial is set to begin on Monday to determine whether Steve Bannon, the influential former adviser to Donald Trump, broke the law by refusing to comply with a subpoena for documents and testimony by the panel investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.Last fall, the congressional committee investigating the deadly Capitol riots subpoenaed Bannon to sit for a deposition and to provide a wide range of documents related to the events of January 6. Bannon refused to comply. The committee cited him for contempt and referred him to the US justice department for prosecution in October of last year.The justice department pursued the referral, and a federal grand jury indicted Bannon on two counts of contempt of Congress, both misdemeanors, in November. It is extremely rare for the justice department to pursue such charges – before Bannon, the last contempt prosecution was in 1983. Bannon faces between 30 days and a year in prison if convicted on each charge.Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt of Congress trial set to beginRead morePerhaps we are doing this whole development thing wrong. In an interview with The New York Times Magazine, Herman Daly, a lauded economist who was once a senior figure at the World Bank and is now a emeritus professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, argues that modern economics’ obsession with growth is misguided, due in part to the damage done to the planet.Economic growth is considered a major barometer of a country’s health, both for wealthy nations and the developing world. In the interview, Daly argues that we are viewing growth incorrectly, and that it’s implausible all nations can continue expanding their GDP endlessly. From the interview, here’s an encapsulation of his argument:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} It’s a false assumption to say that growth is increasing the standard of living in the present world because we measure growth as growth in G.D.P. If it goes up, does that mean we’re increasing standard of living? We’ve said that it does, but we’ve left out all the costs of increasing G.D.P. We really don’t know that the standard is going up. If you subtract for the deaths and injuries caused by automobile accidents, chemical pollution, wildfires and many other costs induced by excessive growth, it’s not clear at all. Now what I just said is most true for richer countries. Certainly for some other country that’s struggling for subsistence then, by all means, G.D.P. growth increases welfare. They need economic growth. That means that the wealthy part of the world has to make ecological room for the poor to catch up to an acceptable standard of living. That means cutting back on per capita consumption, that we don’t hog all the resources for trivial consumption.The article only briefly gets into what Daly would propose to change the growth paradigm across the world, and indeed, his ideas would be a tough lift for many countries:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Daly’s policy prescriptions for how this would happen include, among many ideas, establishing minimum and maximum income limits, setting caps for natural-resource use and, controversially, stabilizing the population by working to ensure that births plus immigration equals deaths plus emigration.Many parts of the United States will today also face blistering heat, particularly in the south and southwest, and the Great Plains.The New York Times has published a map looking at where temperatures will be highest. The good news is that the heat will cool later this week. The bad news is that for the next few days, much of the country will face heat levels that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says warrant “extreme caution”. And the worst affected areas will face temperatures at the “danger” level, when heat cramps or exhaustion are “likely” and heat stroke is also a possibility.Britain is weathering a record-breaking heat wave that just saw Wales endure its hottest day on record. Follow The Guardian’s live coverage for more:Extreme UK weather live: Wales provisionally records its hottest day with 35.3C in Gogerddan, near AberystwythRead moreThe unhoused are one group bearing the brunt of the climate crisis – particularly in California. Sam Levin reports:In a remote stretch of southern California desert, at least 200 unhoused people live outside, battling the extremes: blazing hot temperatures in the summer, snow in winter, rugged terrain inaccessible to many vehicles, a constant wind that blankets everything with silt, and no running water for miles.For Candice Winfrey, the conditions almost proved deadly.The 37-year-old lives in a camper in the Mojave desert, on the northern edge of Los Angeles county, miles from the nearest store. During a record-breaking heatwave in July 2020, she found herself running out of water. The jug of a gallon she had left had overheated, the water so hot it was barely drinkable. It was more than 110F (43C), and no one was around to help. She recalled laying in her tent, trying not to think about the heat exhaustion and dehydration overtaking her. “I thought I was gonna die. I was seeing the light. I was just waiting it out and praying to God that I’d make it.”As police crack down on homelessness, unhoused end up in Mojave desertRead more“Collective suicide”: that’s what the UN secretary general said humanity is facing due to rising temperatures, as The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey reports:Wildfires and heatwaves wreaking havoc across swathes of the globe show humanity facing “collective suicide”, the UN secretary general has warned, as governments around the world scramble to protect people from the impacts of extreme heat.António Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss the climate crisis on Monday: “Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.”He added: “We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.”Humanity faces ‘collective suicide’ over climate crisis, warns UN chiefRead moreFor the past year and a half, it seemed like Joe Biden would get to sign a major piece of legislation addressing climate change. The vehicle was at first his marquee Build Back Better spending plan, which would have allocated more than a trillion dollars to addressing a host of Democratic priorities. Then that died, and Democrats quietly began working on a follow-up bill that could pass both the Senate and the House of Representatives, which the party controlled with razor-thin margins.Now, it seems like Congress won’t act to curb America’s carbon emissions at all. Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat whose vote is necessary to get any legislation that doesn’t win Republican support through the Senate, has said now is not the time to spend money fighting climate change due to the current high rate of inflation, even as extreme weather continues to batter the United States and world.The senator’s declaration last week was a major loss for the White House, but Biden may still get to use his pen by signing to-be-announced executive orders intended to keep temperatures from rising.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at the real-world consequences of American politics, specifically the collapse last week of Democratic efforts to get Congress’s approval of a plan to fight climate crisis. The United States and the world at large is today grappling with extreme heat and other calamities fueled by rising global temperatures, and experts warn if Washington and other top carbon emitters don’t change something, it will only get worse.Here’s more about what’s happening today:
      Texas and much of the central US could see their hottest temperatures of the summer this week, The New York Times reports. Meanwhile in Britain, temperatures may climb to an unheard-of 43C – or 109.4F. The Guardian has a live blog covering the crisis.
      Democrats may not be able to get a major climate change bill through Congress, but they are moving forward on several other measures with an eye towards rescuing Joe Biden’s presidency, Punchbowl News reports.
      The criminal contempt trial of Steven Bannon, a former top advisor to Donald Trump, begins today, with jury selection. More

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      in World Politics

      China Will Decide Who Wins the Fight: Russia or the West

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

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      in US Politics

      Bernie Sanders condemns Joe Manchin for sabotaging president’s agenda

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      Bernie Sanders condemns Joe Manchin for sabotaging president’s agenda Senator also rebukes Biden for Saudi Arabia trip: ‘I don’t believe we should maintain a warm relationship with a dictator like that’ Bernie Sanders harshly criticized prominent fellow Democrats on Sunday, accusing his Senate colleague Joe Manchin of sabotaging the president’s agenda and rebuking Joe Biden for traveling to Saudi Arabia last week.During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Sanders interrupted host Martha Raddatz when she said Manchin had “abruptly pulled the plug” on supporting a scaled-back version of a spending bill that is crucial to Biden’s agenda. Manchin said he would not support provisions in the bill that increase spending to combat climate change and close tax loopholes. Democrats cannot pass the bill without Manchin’s support in a US Senate that is divided 50-50, with vice-president Kamala Harris serving as a tiebreaker in the event one is needed.The other Joe: how Manchin destroys Biden’s plans, angering DemocratsRead more“He didn’t abruptly do anything – he has sabotaged the president’s agenda,” Sanders said. “If you check the record, six months ago, I made it clear that you have people like Manchin, Sinema to a lesser degree, who are intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda, what the American people want, what a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want.”“Nothing new about this,” he added. “The problem was that we continued to talk to Manchin like he was serious. He was not,” noting how the West Virginia senator and coal baron has benefited from campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies.Manchin said last week that he wants to delay any major decisions on the bill because of high inflation. Sanders said Sunday he wasn’t buying that justification, saying the people of West Virginia would support the provisions in the bill.“It’s the same nonsense Manchin has been talking about for a year,” he said. “In my humble opinion, Manchin represents the very wealthiest people in this country, not working families in West Virginia or America.”Biden tells summit of Arab leaders the US ‘will not walk away’ from Middle EastRead moreSanders also criticized Biden for his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, where the president fist-bumped and met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.The president has faced heavy criticism for the trip largely because Prince Mohammed personally approved the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, US intelligence agencies have concluded.As a presidential candidate Biden said he would make Saudi Arabia a “pariah”, but has defended the trip as necessary to promote US interests in the Middle East, including stabilizing troubled oil markets. Biden said to reporters on Friday that he personally told the Saudi crown prince he believed he was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.Sanders said Biden should not have gone to Saudi Arabia.“You have a leader of that country who was involved in the murder of a Washington Post journalist,” Sanders said. “I don’t think that that type of government should be rewarded with a visit by the president of the United States.“I just don’t believe that we should be maintaining a warm relationship with a dictator like that.”TopicsJoe BidenBernie SandersJoe ManchinUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Trump won’t blunt January 6 inquiry by entering 2024 race, panel member says

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      Trump won’t blunt January 6 inquiry by entering 2024 race, panel member says‘No one is above the law,’ says Elaine Luria in response to whether Trump could shield himself from threat of prosecution by simply announcing run Donald Trump won’t blunt the investigation by the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6th attack on the Capitol by announcing that he’s running for the Oval Office again, a member of the panel said Sunday.Elaine Luria, a Virginia congresswoman and one of seven Democrats on the committee, told CNN’s Dana Bash, “The bottom line is that no one is above the law – whether he’s a president, former president or a potential future presidential candidate, we are going to pursue the facts.”Luria’s remarks were in response to an oft-asked question about whether Trump could simply announce he is running for president again in 2024 and shield himself from the threat of prosecution posed by the evidence presented during the January 6 committee’s recent hearings.Secret Service’s January 6 text messages story has shifted several times, panel is toldRead moreWhile the committee itself can’t charge Trump, it can recommend that federal prosecutors do so.Federal prosecutors have historically avoided pursuing criminal cases against prominent candidates ahead of high-stakes elections. But Luria’s comments suggest the committee members won’t shelf their inquiry or avoid potentially recommending charges against Trump just because the ex-president were to announce his aspirations to seek an electoral rematch against Joe Biden.Millions of Americans have watched live as witnesses summoned by the January 6 committee have exposed the lengths to which Trump tried to keep himself in the presidency after losing to Biden in the 2020 race.Among the most alarming episodes: he is accused of trying to commandeer his armored car and turn it towards the Capitol as a mob of his supporters – whom he told to “fight like hell” – stormed the building on the day Congress was supposed to certify his defeat. And when his vice-president faced a mob trying to hang him for not impeding the certification, Trump allegedly told aides that Mike Pence “deserves it”.Luria and the Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the panel, are slated to lead the committee’s next hearing on 21 July.Luria on Sunday said the committee planned to call new witnesses close to Trump and air additional “minute-by-minute” evidence to establish that he sat idly by as the attack on the Capitol unfolded. A bipartisan Senate report has linked seven deaths to the riots that day.Meanwhile, Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation, Kinzinger pledged that the committee’s investigation is “not winding down”. He said he personally hoped the panel could set up an interview with Pence, though he acknowledged, “I am not sure we get a lot out of him.”New book claims Steve Bannon admitted Trump ‘would lie about anything’Read moreSimilarly, when asked on ABC’s This Week if the committee would seek to interview Pence or Trump himself, panel member Zoe Lofgren of California said: “Everything is on the table.”The committee over time has recommended criminal charges against four prominent Trump White House aides who refused to cooperate with its investigation: Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino.Federal prosecutors charged Bannon and Navarro, who face jail time and have pleaded not guilty, but it did not charge Scavino or Meadows.Bannon’s trial is set to start Monday with jury selection, though he’s recently offered to meet with the committee and provide sworn testimony.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Thank You For Your Servitude review – disappointing tale of Trump’s town

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      Thank You For Your Servitude review – disappointing tale of Trump’s town Mark Leibovich had a big hit with one Washington exposé but his follow-up tells us little we did not know alreadyMark Leibovich is the winner of a National Magazine Award, a former staffer of the New York Times Magazine, the author of a bestseller about Washington and a recent hire of the Atlantic, one of the hotter, the more serous news websites.Newt and the Never Trumpers: Gingrich, Tim Miller and the fate of the Republican partyRead moreIn short, he has a byline that arouses of expectations of thoroughness and thoughtfulness. So one might assume that his new 304-page tome (before the acknowledgments, the notes and the index) would include some new facts or several new insights about his subjects, the Trump sycophants who enabled the most disastrous presidency of modern times.Sadly, Leibovich has almost nothing fresh to tell us. Instead of new information, we get a recycled account of “the dirt that Trump tracked in, the people he broke, and the swamp he did not drain”.To be fair, Leibovich is remarkably up front about his lack of originality. As early as page 11 he warns the reader that “you will almost certainly recall many of the episodes described in the chapters ahead”. But it is still remarkable that he is unable to tell us almost anything new about the greatest hits of the Trump administration.In its preoccupation with gossip and a near-religious avoidance of substance, this book is a parody of the worst practices of the Washington press corps – which are among the biggest reasons a dangerous buffoon like Trump was able to reach the White House in the first place.Leibovoich does make one interesting observation in the first chapter, when he describes the Republican party as “a political version” of the “Stanley Milgram experiment on obedience” conducted at Yale in the early 1960s, when the researcher’s subjects were instructed to administer electric shocks upon innocent neighbors, ostensibly in the next room.“The force of the shocks was apparently becoming more and more painful as the victims screamed” – yet 65% of the subjects kept following instructions to continue the shocks.“The essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes,” Milgram concluded. “He therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.”Leibovich writes: “Republicans demonstrated much of the same fealty during the Trump years.”Unfortunately, his original insights begin and end there.The rest of the book consists of everything he wrote down in his notebooks, which he wisely left there until he sat down to compose this volume.His most frequent refrain is “Once again, you might recall all of it” – as indeed we do when he recounts the brief moment during the 2016 campaign when it looked like Marco Rubio might be the man to rescue the Republican establishment from Trump, or Rick Perry’s single spate of truth-telling, when he called the orange man from Queens a “toxic mix of demagoguery, mean–spiritedness and nonsense”.Of course, this “did nothing” to stop Perry endorsing Trump and becoming his energy secretary – but yes, we already recall that too.Like any good clip job, the book does include a few good lines – all of them from stories generated by others. Trump’s second secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was “like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass” (reported by Susan Glasser, in the New Yorker). Or Stormy Daniels, recoiling in horror when the late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel referred to her “making love” with the future president.“Gross!” said Daniels. “What is wrong with you? I laid there and prayed for death.”(A few paragraphs before that, Leibovich praises himself for the “minor feat” of not mentioning Daniels until page 153.)The author’s tenuous grasp of substance is most evident when he fudges exactly how much the Republican party had done to prepare itself for this moment, after its decades-long dances with racism and homophobia, dating back to Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy in 1968 and George W Bush’s courageous endorsement of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in 2004.Leibovich makes fun of Mitch McConnell for telling Politico Trump was “not going to change the basic philosophy of the party”, a prediction which turned out to be completely correct, since Trump’s biggest accomplishments were huge tax cuts for the rich and the appointment of three of the most disastrous, pro-business and anti-civil rights supreme court justices of all time.Steve Bannon admitted Trump ‘would lie about anything’, new book saysRead moreBut Leibovich treats the Senate Republican leader’s comment with all the wisdom of a spokesman for the Republican National Committee: “This turned out to be 100% true, except for Trump’s ‘basic philosophy’ on foreign policy, free trade, rule of law, deficits, tolerance for dictators, government activism, family values … and every virtuous quality the Republican party ever aspired to in its best, pre-Trump days.”If you want to hear Leibovich reprise all of the softball questions he asked (half of them off the record) of all Trump’s sycophants, this book is for you. But if you’re interested in explosive new facts about exactly how Trump tried to demolish American democracy, skip this and stay tuned for the next hearing of the House select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
      Thank You For Your Servitude: Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission is published in the US by Penguin Press
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationRepublicansreviewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Biden tells summit of Arab leaders the US ‘will not walk away’ from Middle East

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      Biden tells summit of Arab leaders the US ‘will not walk away’ from Middle EastThe president delivered his remarks on the final leg of a four-day tour, also announcing a $1bn effort to relieve hunger in the region Joe Biden, speaking at a summit of Arab leaders, said Saturday that the United States “will not walk away” from the Middle East as he tries to ensure stability in a volatile part of the world and boost the global flow of oil to reverse rising gas prices.The president also announced $1bn in US funding to relieve hunger in the region.His remarks, delivered at the Gulf Cooperation Council on the final leg of a four-day Middle East tour, came amid concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and support for militants in the region.“We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran,” Biden said. “We will seek to build on this moment with active, principled, American leadership.”Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and ChinaRead moreAlthough US forces continue to target terrorists in the region and remain deployed at bases throughout the Middle East, Biden suggested he was turning a page after the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.“Today, I’m proud to be able to say that the era of land wars in the region, wars that involved huge numbers of American forces, is not under way,” he said.He pressed his counterparts, many of whom lead repressive governments, to ensure human rights – including for women – and allow their citizens to speak openly.“The future will be won by the countries that unleash the full potential of their populations,” Biden said, and that includes allowing people to “question and criticize leaders without fear of reprisal”.Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, convened the summit, which gave him an opportunity to showcase his country’s heavyweight role in the Middle East. He also hinted that the kingdom could pump more oil than it is currently, something Biden is hoping to see when an existing production deal among OPEC+ member countries expires in September.Biden’s attendance at the summit followed his Friday meeting with the Saudi prince, heir to the throne currently held by his father, King Salman.The 79-year-old Biden had initially shunned the 36-year-old royal over human rights abuses, particularly the killing of US-based writer Jamal Khashoggi, which US intelligence officials believe was likely approved by the prince.But Biden decided he needed to repair the longstanding relationship between the two countries to address rising gas prices and foster stability in the volatile region.“It is only becoming clearer to me how closely interwoven America’s interests are with the successes of the Middle East,” the president said Saturday. Ending his speech on a hopeful note, Biden expressed his belief in cooperation among the nations.“This is a table full of problem solvers,” he said. “There’s a lot of good we can do if we do it together.”After a lunch with other leaders, Biden began his trip back to Washington, flashing a thumbs up and waving to reporters as he boarded Air Force One.Earlier, Biden met individually with the leaders of Iraq, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, some of whom he had never sat down with since taking office in January 2021.He invited Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who became president of the UAE two months ago, to visit the White House this year.Biden also met with King Abdullah II of Jordan. The White House later announced that the US was extending and expanding financial assistance to the country, to no less than $1.45bn per year.The summit in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah was an opportunity for Biden to demonstrate his commitment to the region after spending most of his presidency focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing influence in Asia.On Saturday, the White House released satellite imagery indicating that Russian officials visited Iran in June and July to see weapons-capable drones it is looking to acquire for use in Ukraine. The disclosure appeared aimed at drawing a connection between the war in Europe and Arab leaders’ own concerns about Iran.So far, none of the countries represented at the summit has moved in lockstep with the US to sanction Russia, a foreign policy priority for the Biden administration. If anything, the UAE has emerged as a sort of financial haven for Russian billionaires and their multimillion-dollar yachts. Egypt remains open to Russian tourists.Meantime, there are sharp divisions on foreign policy among the nine Middle East heads of state who attended the summit.For example, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE are trying to isolate and squeeze Iran over its regional reach and proxies. Oman and Qatar have solid diplomatic ties with Iran and have acted as intermediaries for talks between Washington and Tehran.Qatar recently hosted talks between US and Iranian officials as they try to revive Iran’s nuclear accord. Iran not only shares a huge underwater gas field with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, but it also rushed to Qatar’s aid when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut off ties and imposed a years-long embargo on Qatar that ended shortly before Biden took office.Biden’s actions have frustrated some of the leaders. Although the US has played an important role in encouraging a months-long cease-fire in Yemen, his decision to reverse a Trump White House move that had listed Yemen’s rebel Houthis as a terrorist group has outraged the Emirati and Saudi leadership.Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya reported on Saturday that students were protesting in Tehran over Biden’s meeting with Israel leaders in Tel Aviv as part of his trip. Protesters burned the American and Israeli flag, opposing the normalization of relations with Israel.The Associated Press contributed to this report.TopicsJoe BidenMiddle East and north AfricaUS politicsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Newt and the Never Trumpers: Gingrich, Tim Miller and the fate of the Republican party

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      Newt and the Never Trumpers: Gingrich, Tim Miller and the fate of the Republican party In two new books, a partisan warrior and a repentant operative paint an alarming portrait of a party gone rogueIn 1994, after 40 years in the wilderness, a Republican party led by Newt Gingrich recaptured the House of Representatives. Eventually, scandals of his own making, the impeachment of Bill Clinton and a drubbing in the 1998 midterms forced Gingrich to step down. But he did not leave public life.Newt Gingrich: Democrats are trying to ‘brainwash the entire next generation’Read moreThe former Georgia congressman ran for the presidential nomination in 2012, seamlessly adapted to the rise of Donald Trump in 2016, and kept on publishing all the while. His latest book, the catchily titled Defeating Big Government Socialism, comes as his party anticipates another congressional takeover in November.Tim Miller is another long-term Republican operative, if not a frontline politician. He served in a number of GOP campaigns, demonstrating media savvy and a knack for opposition research. After Jeb Bush left the presidential race in 2016, Miller emerged as vocal Trump critic. Now, in the footsteps of Never Trumpers Rick Wilson and Stuart Stevens, he has penned a political memoir. His subtitle – A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell – refers to a route many would say was partly paved by Gingrich.The former speaker’s new book is heavy on familiar bombast and predictably short on introspection. Its opening pages deliver a familiar beat-down of China and its financial allies.“Many of our elites refuse to even recognize the threat from Beijing,” Gingrich writes. “For many, it is because they make so much money from China.”He would have done better to check his own financial disclosures.By 2018, Newt and Callista Gingrich – ambassador to the Vatican under Trump – had invested at least $100,000 and possibly as much as $250,000 in certificates of deposit issued by the Bank of China.For what it’s worth, Trump maintained a bank account in China. Further, in such spirit of US-Sino amity, the late Sheldon Adelson funded Gingrich’s 2012 presidential run with $20m, courtesy of the blackjack tables and roulette wheels of his casino in Macau.In other words, Gingrich was cool with China until he wasn’t. Government records also show a $368,334 advance for a book with a simple working title: Trump vs China.Gingrich has long known that reality need not be a constraint. He has compared himself to William Pitt the Younger, the British prime minister who was in office for nearly 19 years, rather than Gingrich’s four as speaker. Gingrich has also suggested Brad Pitt should play him onscreen.A little more substantively, Gingrich uses his new book to demand fiscal responsibility, hammering Joe Biden and the Democrats for budgetary profligacy. The first chapter is titled “Big Government Socialism Isn’t Working and Can’t”. Once again, Gingrich should have thought twice.Gingrich’s presidential run to nowhere doubled as a poor man’s Trump University – the scheme by which Trump pulled in money for a product somewhere between shoddy and non-existent. According to the Federal Elections Commission, the Gingrich 2012 campaign remains more than $4.6m in debt. As Business Insider put it, “No presidential campaign from any election cycle owes creditors more money.”As for extravagance, in 2011 Gingrich maintained a credit line of between $250,001 and $500,000 at Tiffany’s, the Fifth Avenue jeweler.On the page, Gingrich also blames the left for America’s high Covid death rate – despite significantly lower post-vaccine mortality in Democratic states. So it goes: at a recent rally in Alaska, Trump declined to use the word “vaccine”, lest he anger the crowd.In Congress, Gingrich wrapped himself in gun rights, opposing the assault weapons ban in Clinton’s 1994 anti-crime bill and subsequently sending a written promise to the National Rifle Association that no gun control legislation would be considered as long as he was speaker.The assault weapons ban expired almost 20 years ago. As Gingrich’s latest book comes out, mass shootings fill the headlines. To the author, no matter: “The Founding Fathers insisted on the second amendment so that armed citizens would make a dictatorship impossible.”Amid all this, Gingrich calls for civility. In case folks forgot, he was the speaker who shut down the government in a snit after he was seated in the back of Air Force One en route to the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, and also called Hillary Clinton a bitch. How will his speakership be remembered? The late Robert Teeter, pollster to George HW Bush, accurately observed: “Gingrich makes a great backbencher.”So to Tim Miller. Like Lot’s wife, he cannot resist looking back. At the same time, he is overly repentant. But his attempt to explain why he stuck with the Republican party for as long as he did is revealing.Miller lets us know that he is gay, married and a dad. His rationales for rejecting his party are understandable but not necessarily satisfying. For him and other Republican operatives, the game was fun – until it wasn’t. The metamorphosis of the party of Lincoln into the party of Trump occurred in broad daylight, a train wreck a long time coming. The Never Trumpers could have spoken out sooner.As long ago as 1968, clashes between demonstrators and Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic convention offered a glimpse of simmering cultural tensions. At the same time, the discontent and racism voiced by the Alabama governor George Wallace found a home with a Republican party following Richard Nixon’s southern strategy. Fast forward three decades and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and Pat Buchanan’s quests for the presidency revealed the darker impulses of the pre-Trump right.Working-class resentment and pitchfork populism appeared long before the Iraq war and the great recession. The rise of Trumpism seems entirely predictable.Miller does deliver a searing indictment of officials and appointees who became Trump’s enablers, listing no less than 11 categories. His portraits of Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s senior senator, and Sean Spicer, Trump’s first press secretary, are devastating.“More than anything,” he writes, Graham “just wanted to be on the golf cart next to Trump. To be on the right hand of the father. Whether or not Trump did as Graham asked was merely icing on the cake.”Here’s the Deal review: Kellyanne Conway on Trump – with plenty of alternative factsRead moreAs reward for doubling as a human doormat, Graham now battles a subpoena from prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia, concerning his part in Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The senator cloaks himself in congressional immunity and invokes the constitution. It turns out he was fine with attempting to subvert an election but doesn’t like the idea of appearing before a grand jury. Funny, that.As Miller puts it, the same obsequious spirit made Spicer a peddler of lies for the ages, “happy to put up with Trump’s lunacy as long as he became a star. He didn’t see anything wrong with shining a poison apple … And you’d better believe he’d do it all over again.”Both Gingrich and Spicer may get another chance to ride the Trump rodeo. The 45th president is gearing up for 2024. By then, Biden and Gingrich will be octogenarians, Trump 78. Who says America is no country for old men?
      Defeating Big Government Socialism: Saving America’s Future is published in the US by Center Street

      Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell is published in the US by Harper
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      Steve Bannon admitted Trump ‘would lie about anything’, new book says

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      Steve Bannon admitted Trump ‘would lie about anything’, new book saysBannon, according to Jonathan Lemire’s Big Lie, said Trump lies ‘to win whatever exchange he [is] having at that moment’ The former White House strategist Steve Bannon has publicly claimed Donald Trump does not lie. But according to a new book, Bannon told aides: “Trump would say anything, he would lie about anything.”‘Game over’: Steve Bannon audio reveals Trump planned to claim early victoryRead moreThe former president lies “to win whatever exchange he [is] having at that moment”, Bannon said.Bannon is quoted in The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020, by Jonathan Lemire, White House bureau chief for Politico and a host for MSNBC. The book will be published on 26 July. The Guardian obtained a copy.Lemire’s title refers to Trump’s lie, supported by Bannon, that his 2020 election defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud. That lie fueled the attempt to overturn the election that culminated in the deadly Capitol attack of 6 January 2021.A far-right gadfly and provocateur, Bannon managed Trump’s winning campaign in 2016 then spent less than a year in the White House before being fired.A source for numerous books about Trump – even saying he believed Trump had early stage dementia – he returned to the 45th president’s inner circle to play a central role in his attempt to stay in power.This week, Mother Jones published audio recorded three days before polling day in which Bannon told associates Trump planned to “just declare victory” on election night.Trump did not do so but Bannon continued to work to keep the president in power.Lemire reports that Bannon promised January 6, the day when congress certifies electoral college results and therefore “an obscure date, known only by a few political junkies … would [come to] be ‘known the world over’”.On January 6, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” and to march on the Capitol. Authorities have linked nine deaths to the riot that followed. More than 870 people have been charged, some with seditious conspiracy.Bannon’s role in Trump’s attempt to stay in power, including links to far-right groups including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, is of central interest to the House January 6 committee.Bannon refused to comply with a subpoena. He has since offered to testify but jury selection in his trial for contempt of Congress – a charge which can carry jail time – is scheduled for Monday.Bannon escaped another brush with the law at the very end of Trump’s presidency, when Trump pardoned his former adviser in a case of alleged fraud.As president, Trump was famously happy to lie. One count from the Washington Post found he did so 30,573 times in his time in power.Regardless, in 2018, Bannon made headlines by telling ABC News Trump did not lie.Bannon suffers setback as judge rejects delaying contempt of Congress trialRead moreTold Trump “has not always told the truth”, Bannon said: “I don’t know that” and also said claims Trump lied were “another thing to demonise him”.His host, Jonathan Karl, asked: “The president’s never lied?”Bannon said: “Not to my knowledge, no.”But Lemire writes that “even for Bannon, Trump was something new. The chief strategist told me that Trump ‘was not looking to win a news cycle, he was looking to win a news moment, a news second.’“An at-times shell-shocked Bannon would relay to aides that ‘Trump would say anything, he would lie about anything to win that moment, to win whatever exchange he was having at that moment.’“Entire campaign proposals had to be written on the fly, policy plans reverse engineered, teams of aides immediately mobilised to meet whatever floated through Trump’s head in that moment to defend his record, put down a reporter, or change a chyron on CNN.”TopicsBooksDonald TrumpSteve BannonUS politicsnewsReuse this content More