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      Trump files lawsuit to block release of Capitol attack records

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      US Capitol attackTrump files lawsuit to block release of Capitol attack recordsEx-president challenges Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege that protects White House communications Associated Press in WashingtonTue 19 Oct 2021 04.38 EDTLast modified on Tue 19 Oct 2021 04.55 EDTDonald Trump has sought to block the release of documents related to the Capitol attack on 6 January to a House committee investigating the incident, challenging Joe Biden’s initial decision to waive executive privilege.In a federal lawsuit, the former president said the committee’s request in August was “almost limitless in scope” and sought many records that were not connected to the siege.He called it a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose”, according to the papers filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia.Bannon and other top Trump officials face legal peril for defying subpoenasRead moreTrump’s lawsuit was expected – as he had said he would challenge the investigation – and at least one ally, Steve Bannon, has defied a subpoena.But the legal challenge went beyond the initial 125 pages of records that Biden recently cleared for release to the committee.The suit, which names the committee as well as the National Archives, seeks to invalidate the entirety of the congressional request, calling it overly broad, unduly burdensome and a challenge to separation of powers. It requests a court injunction to bar the archivist from producing the documents.The Biden administration, in clearing the documents for release, said the violent siege of the Capitol more than nine months ago was such an extraordinary circumstance that it merited waiving the privilege that usually protected White House communications.Trump’s lawsuit came the evening before the panel was scheduled to vote to recommend that Bannon be held in criminal contempt of Congress for his defiance of the committee’s demands for documents and testimony.In a resolution released on Monday, the committee asserts that the former Trump aide and podcast host has no legal standing to rebuff the committee, even as Trump’s lawyer has asked him not to disclose information.Bannon was a private citizen when he spoke to Trump before the attack, the committee said, and Trump had not asserted any such executive privilege claims to the panel.The resolution lists many ways in which Bannon was involved in the lead-up to the insurrection, including reports that he encouraged Trump to focus on 6 January, the day Congress certified the presidential vote, and his comments on 5 January that “all hell is going to break loose” the next day.“Mr Bannon appears to have played a multifaceted role in the events of January 6th, and the American people are entitled to hear his first-hand testimony regarding his actions,” the committee wrote.Once the committee votes on the Bannon contempt resolution, it will go to the full House for a vote and then on to the justice department, which will decide whether to prosecute.In a letter obtained by the Associated Press, the White House also worked to undercut Bannon’s argument. The deputy counsel, Jonathan Su, wrote that the president’s decision on the documents applied to Bannon, too, and “at this point we are not aware of any basis for your client’s refusal to appear for a deposition.“President Biden’s determination that an assertion of privilege is not justified with respect to these subjects applies to your client’s deposition testimony and to any documents your client may possess concerning either subject,” Su wrote to Bannon’s lawyer.Bannon’s attorney said he had not yet seen the letter and could not comment on it.While Bannon has said he needs a court order before complying with his subpoena, the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House and Pentagon aide Kashyap Patel have been negotiating with the committee. It is unclear whether a fourth former White House aide, Dan Scavino, will comply.The committee has also subpoenaed more than a dozen people who helped plan Trump rallies before the siege, and some of them have said they would turn over documents and give testimony.Lawmakers want the testimony and the documents as part of their investigation into how a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in a violent effort to halt the certification of Biden’s election win.The committee demanded a broad range of executive branch papers related to intelligence gathered before the attack, security preparations during and before the siege, the pro-Trump rallies held that day and Trump’s false claims that he won the election, among other matters.Trump’s lawsuit says the “boundless requests included over 50 individual requests for documents and information, and mentioned more than 30 individuals, including those working inside and outside government”.The files must be withheld, the lawsuit says, because they could include “conversations with (or about) foreign leaders, attorney work product, the most sensitive of national security secrets, along with any and all privileged communications among a pool of potentially hundreds of people”.The suit also challenges the legality of the Presidential Records Act, arguing that allowing an incumbent president to waive executive privilege of a predecessor just months after they left office is inherently unconstitutional.Biden has said he would go through each request separately to determine whether that privilege should be waived.While not spelled out in the constitution, executive privilege has developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect his confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.But that privilege has had its limitations in extraordinary situations, as exemplified during the Watergate scandal, when the supreme court ruled it could not be used to shield the release of secret Oval Office tapes sought in a criminal inquiry, and after 9/11.Monday’s lawsuit was filed by Jesse Binnall, an attorney based in Alexandria, Virginia, who represented Trump in an unsuccessful lawsuit last year seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in Nevada. Trump and his allies have continued to make baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.Trump’s suit quotes from the supreme court’s 2020 ruling in a case by House committees seeking the then sitting president’s tax returns and other financial records. But that case involved courts enforcing a congressional subpoena. The high court in that case directed lower courts to apply a balancing test to determine whether to turn over the records. It is still pending.The White House spokesperson Mike Gwin said: “As President Biden determined, the constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the constitution itself.”The select committee did not have immediate comment.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsJoe BidenTrump administrationBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Bannon and other top Trump officials face legal peril for defying subpoenas

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      Steve BannonBannon and other top Trump officials face legal peril for defying subpoenasDevelopments in select committee’s move to secure Bannon’s conviction come as Trump files lawsuit blocking the release of his White House records Hugo Lowell in WashingtonTue 19 Oct 2021 03.38 EDTLast modified on Tue 19 Oct 2021 04.03 EDTSteve Bannon and other former top officials in the Trump administration are facing legal peril for defying subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, as the panel prepares to pursue criminal referrals for non-compliance.The legal jeopardy for Bannon – who is expected to be held in contempt by the committee on Tuesday – is anticipated after it emerged in a letter to his attorney, obtained by the Guardian on Monday, that he had claimed executive privilege protections on materials unrelated to the executive branch.Capitol attack panel’s message to Steve Bannon: we won’t forget about youRead moreThe House select committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, also said in the letter that even if the panel entertained the claims of executive privilege, Bannon had no basis to ignore the order since not even a president could grant him immunity from a House subpoena.The dual legal arguments in the letter, which served as Bannon’s final warning to cooperate a day before the select committee is expected to hold him in contempt of Congress, underscores the weakness of the executive privilege claim advanced by Donald Trump.The Guardian first reported that the former president would instruct his top four aides subpoenaed by the select committee – White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his deputy Dan Scavino, defense department aide Kash Patel, as well as Bannon, his former chief strategist – to defy the orders.But even though Bannon is alone in defying a subpoena after Meadows and Patel were “engaging” with the panel over the potential scope of their cooperation and Scavino was served late, the letter shows similar attempts to invoke executive privilege appear treacherous.The missive from the select committee came in response to a previous letter from Bannon’s attorney, Robert Costello, who insisted his client was precluded from complying with the subpoena until claims about executive privilege by Trump were settled in a court ruling.Thompson said in his response that he rejected the entire argument leaning on Trump and considered Bannon as having violated federal law after he “wilfully failed to both produce a single document and to appear for his scheduled deposition”.The chairman of the select committee said the executive privilege claim could not apply in Bannon’s case, because the panel had in part sought his contacts with members of Congress and the Trump campaign, which are not covered by the presidential protection.Thompson added that even if the select committee accepted that some materials demanded by the panel were shielded by executive privilege, Bannon would not be exempt from complying with a congressional subpoena.The chairman also said that the select committee believed Costello’s interpretation of a previous case involving the testimony of a Trump administration official – the former White House counsel Don McGahn – actually undermined Bannon’s argument to defy his subpoena.In the case with McGahn, said Thompson, the US district court for the District of Columbia ruled that even senior White House aides were not entitled to absolute immunity from testifying. McGahn, pursuant to that ruling, ultimately testified to Congress in July.Furthermore, the citation referring to McGahn used by Costello “makes clear that a president lacks legal authority to order an aide not to appear before Congress based on a claim of executive privilege,” Thompson said.The legal rebuttals outlined in the letter were specific to Bannon’s non-compliance. But a source close to the select committee said the same arguments would be pressed against Meadows, Scavino and Patel should they also attempt an executive privilege claim.And with a reversal in position from Bannon not forthcoming before a 6pm ET deadline on Monday, the select committee is now expected to proceed with a vote recommending the House refer him to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia for criminal prosecution.The letter outlining the select committee’s arguments was earlier reported by the Washington Post.The developing contours of the select committee’s move to secure Bannon’s conviction – which would carry a maximum penalty of a one year sentence in federal prison and up to $100,000 in fines – came as Trump filed a lawsuit blocking the release of his White House records.Trump filed a lawsuit with the DC district court to stop the National Archives from releasing records to the select committee a tranche of records, after Joe Biden’s White House counsel, Dana Remus, declined to assert executive privilege protections.The Guardian first reported that Trump would sue to block the release of records from his administration last month. Trump’s legal counsel has indicated the former president is seeking to shield about 50 documents from scrutiny.TopicsSteve BannonUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Colin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84 of Covid complications

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      Colin PowellColin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84 of Covid complicationsPowell helped to build case for 2003 invasion of IraqJoe Biden hails ‘a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity’02:36Ed Pilkington in New York@edpilkingtonMon 18 Oct 2021 17.53 EDTFirst published on Mon 18 Oct 2021 08.17 EDTColin Powell, the former US secretary of state who played a pivotal role in attempting to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday.Washington mourns death of Colin Powell as first tributes come in – liveRead morePowell, a retired four-star general who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, had been treated for Covid at Walter Reed national medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, where he died. He was fully vaccinated against coronavirus but had a compromised immune system having been treated for blood cancer.Announcing his death, his family said they had lost a “remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American”.Powell was America’s first Black secretary of state, serving in that role under George W Bush from 2001 to 2005. He rose to the heights of military and diplomatic service from relatively disadvantaged beginnings, having been born in New York City to Jamaican parents and raised in the South Bronx where he was educated through public schools before he entered the army via a college officer training program.A statement from Joe Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, said they were “deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity” and referred to Powell having “repeatedly broken racial barriers [and] blazing a trail for others”.Biden further said of Powell: “Over our many years working together – even in disagreement – Colin was always someone who gave you his best and treated you with respect. Colin embodied the highest ideals of both warrior and diplomat … having fought in wars, he understood better than anyone that military might alone was not enough to maintain our peace and prosperity … Colin led with his personal commitment to the democratic values that make our country strong.”Kamala Harris, the first female and first Black and south Asian US vice-president, said Powell was “an incredible American” who “served with dignity and grace” and she praised Powell as a trailblazing inspiration in “what he did and how he did it”.He rose to occupy the top military position in the US government as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff between 1989 and 1993. In that role he presided over military crises including the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the first Gulf war in 1990-91.But it was in the buildup to the contentious invasion of Iraq in 2003 that Powell became a household name. He was the face of the Bush administration’s aggressive attempt to get the world community to back the invasion, based on false claims of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.In February 2003, as secretary of state, Powell appeared before the UN security council and made categoric claims that the then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons. He said his intelligence was based in part on accounts of unidentified Iraqi defectors.The invasion went ahead without UN authorisation. The following year the CIA’s own Iraq Study Group released a report that concluded that Hussein had destroyed the last of the country’s weapons of mass destruction a decade previously.Powell stepped down as secretary of state in November 2004, following Bush’s re-election. He later insisted to reporters that he had tried to warn Bush of the consequences of invading Iraq, but had supported the president when the decision to proceed was taken.In a statement on Monday, Bush called Powell “a great public servant. He was such a favorite of presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice. He was highly respected at home and abroad.”Dick Cheney, Bush’s vice-president who was a leading hawk on Iraq, simply said that working with Powell during the first Gulf war had shown him “Powell’s dedication to the United States and his commitment to the brave and selfless men and women who serve our country in uniform. Colin was a trailblazer and role model for so many.”Tony Blair, who as British prime minister also backed the Iraq invasion, called Powell a “towering figure in American military and political leadership over many years. He inspired loyalty and respect … his life stands as a testament not only to dedicated public service but also a strong belief in willingness to work across partisan division in the interests of his country.”01:45After his time in government Powell remained a hugely influential commentator on US politics and public life. He grew increasingly disillusioned by the Republican party’s rightward drift.In 2008, despite party rivalries, he endorsed Barack Obama for president and later became one of Donald Trump’s leading critics.On Monday, Obama said Powell “never denied the role that race played in his own life and in our society more broadly. But he also refused to accept that race would limit his dreams,” adding that he was “deeply appreciative” that Powell had endorsed him.Trump pushed a lie that Obama had not been born in the US and, at a time when conspiracy theorists were suggesting Obama was a Muslim, Powell spoke out and said: “The correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is?’”Powell voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020 and was scathing about Republicans who remained silent or actively embraced Trump’s lies. In January he said he was so disgusted by the insurrection of Trump supporters at the US Capitol that he no longer considered himself a Republican.Powell, a prostate cancer survivor, was undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, when he contracted Covid-19. He was scheduled to receive his Covid booster last week when he first got sick. “He couldn’t go to his appointment,” Peggy Cifrino, his longtime chief of staff, told the Washington Post. “He thought he was just not feeling quite right, and he went to the hospital.”The FDA authorized boosters of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the immune-compromised and others in September, but the regulatory agency has not yet officially authorized boosters from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson. FDA advisors recommended Moderna boosters for vulnerable groups on Thursday and Johnson & Johnson boosters for those above the age of 18 on Friday.This blood cancer makes it hard to fight infections, putting patients at increased risk for coronavirus, and less likely to respond to vaccines. Dr Derry Segev, a transplant surgeon and professor of surgery and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, told the Guardian earlier this month that severely immune-compromised patients sometimes don’t respond to additional mRNA vaccines adequately.“About 50% of [transplant] patients have no detectable antibody after two doses, and the ones who do have very low levels of antibody. You add a third dose, you get another few percent ultimately back in – but still even after three doses, and we’ve published even after four doses, there are a lot of transplant patients who don’t have good antibody responses.”“There are extremely rare cases of deaths or hospitalizations among fully vaccinated individuals,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a press briefing on Monday. But she emphasized that “an unvaccinated person has a more than 10 times greater risk of dying from Covid-19 compared to a fully vaccinated person”.Peggy Cifrino, Powell’s chief of staff, told CNN he also had Parkinson’s disease.Freshman progressive Democratic New York congressman Jamaal Bowman tweeted that Powell was an inspiration to him “as a Black man just trying to figure out the world”.Melody Schreiber contributed reportingTopicsColin PowellUS militaryUS foreign policyUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Washington mourns death of ‘trailblazer’ Colin Powell as tributes pour in – live

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      Key events

      Show

      4.31pm EDT
      16:31

      Today so far

      2.18pm EDT
      14:18

      Obama praises Powell as ‘an exemplary patriot’

      1.46pm EDT
      13:46

      Biden to host two meetings with House Democrats tomorrow

      1.05pm EDT
      13:05

      Biden offers condolences following former secretary of state Colin Powell’s death

      12.11pm EDT
      12:11

      Congress in session for vital two weeks of talks on Build Back Better bills

      9.36am EDT
      09:36

      Washington mourns the loss of Colin Powell

      Live feed

      Show

      5.52pm EDT
      17:52

      Zalmay Khalilzad, the top US envoy to Afghanistan is stepping down from his role today, almost two months after the US chaotic withdrawal from the country. Khalilzad is originally from Afghanistan and served as an envoy in George W. Bush’s White House. He was tapped by Donald Trump to pursue peace negotiations with the Taliban in 2018.
      Khalilzad was expected to leave the White House after Joe Biden was elected but stayed on at the behest of Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State.
      The now-former envoy has yet to comment on his resignation on his official Twitter page, but earlier today Khalilzad shared a tribute and photo of himself and Colin Powell.

      U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad
      (@US4AfghanPeace)
      I am saddened by the death of Colin Powell, a great American. It was an honor to work with him in the State and Defense Departments. May his soul rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/I8OvviseET

      October 18, 2021

      5.24pm EDT
      17:24

      Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the 6 January select committee and the National Archives. His goal is to block the release of White House documents pertaining to the January riot. His lawyers are seeking a number of things:

      They want a federal judge to invalidate the select committee’s request for documents
      Attorneys also want to avoid turning over any documents that Trump declare to be covered by executive privilege
      And to allow Trump’s lawyers to review all documents selected by the National Archive before they turn them over to the 6 January select committee

      This legal challenge comes as the select committee calls more individuals from the Trump White House to testify and provide documents related to the Capitol riot.
      To read an in-depth piece on Trump’s latest lawsuit, check out Politico’s coverage here.

      4.50pm EDT
      16:50

      Hi readers, I’m Abené Clayton blogging from the west coast.
      It’s a busy day in Washington as Congress returns from recess, Joe Biden paid an unexpected visit to an event honoring teachers and former and current share kind words about Colin Powell, who died today at the age of 84.
      I’ll keep the blog updated with more out of the Capitol and other stories of the day.

      Updated
      at 5.09pm EDT

      4.31pm EDT
      16:31

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Abené Clayton, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Former secretary of state Colin Powell died at 84 from complications of Covid-19. Powell was fully vaccinated against coronavirus, but he had previously been diagnosed with a type of blood cancer, likely putting him at increased risk of becoming severely ill from the virus.
      Joe Biden described Powell as “a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity”. The president has ordered flags at the White House and other federal government buildings to be flown at half-staff for the next few days, in honor of Powell’s life.
      Powell was remembered for his barrier-breaking career and for his involvement in the invasion of Iraq. The former general was the first Black man to serve as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and as secretary of state. But for many, Powell will be remembered for promoting incorrect claims about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 invasion. Barack Obama said of Powell, “Although he’d be the first to acknowledge that he didn’t get every call right, his actions reflected what he believed was best for America and the people he served.”
      Biden will have two meetings with House Democrats tomorrow to discuss the reconciliation package and the infrastructure bill. The meetings come as negotiations over the two bills have stalled, with moderates like senator Joe Manchin demanding a smaller reconciliation package while progressives continue to insist that $3.5tn is the bare minimum price tag they will accept.

      Abené will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      4.16pm EDT
      16:16

      Joe Biden took a few questions from reporters after delivering remarks at the White House event honoring teachers this afternoon.
      Asked how he was going to get senator Joe Manchin to agree to passing the reconciliation package, Biden said, “That’s where I’m going now.”
      The president is also expected to hold two meetings with House Democrats tomorrow to discuss the negotiations over the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package.
      Manchin has insisted upon a lower price tag for the reconciliation package, while progressives believe the current cost of $3.5tn is the bare minimum needed to address the climate crisis and improve access to affordable healthcare and childcare.

      3.58pm EDT
      15:58

      Joe Biden made a surprise appearance at a White House event honoring the 2020 and 2021 recipients of the National Teacher of the Year award.
      The event was hosted by Dr Jill Biden, who is a teacher herself at a Virginia community college, and education secretary Miguel Cardona also attended. More

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      ‘This is our last chance’: Biden urged to act as climate agenda hangs by a thread

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      Climate crisis‘This is our last chance’: Biden urged to act as climate agenda hangs by a threadFailure to pass legislation to cut emissions before the UN summit in Glasgow could be catastrophic for efforts to curb global heating Oliver Milman in New York and Lauren Gambino in WashingtonMon 18 Oct 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 18 Oct 2021 16.25 EDTWith furious environmental activists at the gates of the White House, and congressional Democrats fretting that a priceless opportunity to tackle catastrophic global heating may be slipping away, Joe Biden is facing mounting pressure over a climate agenda that appears to be hanging by a thread.Biden’s allies have warned that time is running perilously short, both politically and scientifically, for the US to enact sweeping measures to slash planet-heating emissions and spur other major countries to do the same. Failure to do so will escalate what scientists have said are “irreversible” climate impacts such as disastrous heatwaves, floods, wildfires and a mass upheaval of displaced people.The climate disaster is here – this is what the future looks likeRead moreThe administration’s multitrillion-dollar social spending package, widely considered the most comprehensive climate legislation ever put forward in the US, must survive razor-thin Democratic majorities in Congress and, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has vowed, pass in time for crucial UN climate talks in Scotland that begin in about two weeks.Embedded in the measure are plans to dramatically cut carbon emissions warming the planet and fueling climate disasters, a potentially historic set of policies that Pelosi has said would serve as “a model for the world”. But the 31 October deadline for passing the spending package and a smaller companion infrastructure bill appears increasingly ambitious as negotiations drag on between the White House, Democratic leaders and a pair of centrist holdouts in the Senate.The prospect of the world’s leading economic power arriving in Glasgow with no domestic policy to cut emissions will make it harder to convince other major emitters, primarily China, to do more at a time when governments are collectively failing to avert unlivable global heating.“They will look ridiculous if they show up with nothing,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, told Guardian. “It would be bad for US leadership, bad for the talks and disastrous for the climate. Just disastrous.“The vast majority of Senate Democrats understand this is our last chance to act,” Whitehouse continued. The bill includes a program of payments and penalties to ensure utilities phase out fossil fuels from America’s electricity supply, a huge expansion in tax credits for clean energy and new restrictions on methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is emitted from oil and gas drilling. The legislation would slash US emissions by about 1bn tons by 2030, bringing Biden within striking distance of his target of cutting America’s emissions in half by this point.Whitehouse also revealed that the president’s administration “will not oppose” a new price on carbon emissions being added to the bill, following negotiations with Senate Democrats. “We have a very good chance of getting that,” he said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the talks.The carbon fee, which would initially be set at $15 per ton of emissions before rising rapidly upwards over the course of several years, has long been a favored policy of economists and some moderate Republicans as a way to encourage polluters to switch to cleaner energy but has latterly been disregarded by activists and progressives.However, these measures will have to garner the vote of every Democrat in the Senate to pass, with Joe Manchin, a centrist from West Virginia, skeptical of the size and scope of the $3.5tn spending proposal. Manchin, a major recipient of donations from the coal industry, has said it “makes no sense” to pay utilities to phase in solar and wind power.Manchin is reportedly set to block the clean electricity program, which forms the main muscle of the climate package. This could prove a hugely consequential blow to the effort to constrain dangerous global heating. “This is high on the list of most consequential actions ever taken by an individual senator,” tweeted the climate campaigner Bill McKibben. “You’ll be able to see the impact of this vain man in the geologic record.”Whitehouse admitted it was unclear what Manchin will ultimately do but that he was confident that “there’s a window in which negotiations with Joe can produce a bill to reduce emissions enough so we are not in danger’s way.”Democrats are working feverishly to trim the $3.5tn proposal to about $2tn, in order to win the votes of centrists without losing the support of progressives. Among the many pressing questions Democrats must answer as they hurtle to meet their end-of-the-month deadline is how bold to go on climate.“There’s a lot of talk recently about what progressive lawmakers need to be willing to cut – what we have to be willing to negotiate on?” Senator Ed Markey, a lead proponent of the Green New Deal, said on a call with reporters this week. “Well, we can’t negotiate with deadly wildfires. They don’t negotiate. We cannot negotiate with massive hurricanes. They don’t negotiate. We can’t negotiate with floodwaters, sea level rise and drought and temperature rise. We can’t negotiate how much these climate-fueled disasters are costing us, tens of billions of dollars so far this year.“It’s time for us to stop talking about what is politically feasible, and start talking about what is scientifically necessary – we cannot compromise on science,” he said. Failure to pass the legislation would be disastrous for the US and the global community, the US climate envoy, John Kerry, said in an interview with the Associated Press.“It would be like President Trump pulling out of the Paris agreement, again,” he warned.The Build Back Better plan will put America on track to meet its goals, but it must not be the only action congress takes to combat the climate crisis, said congresswoman Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat and chair of the House select committee on the climate crisis. More federal action is needed to meet the scale of the emergency, she said.“Even if we pass the Build Back Better Act as it is, that doesn’t get us to net-zero by 2050, which is the goal,” she said in an interview. Pointing to the latest climate research and a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that declared a “code red” for humanity, she added: “We are going to have to do more.”While Biden can do little about the machinations of the Senate, the president has come under growing criticism that his own actions have not matched his rhetoric. Biden, who has said that the “nation and the world are in peril” from a “code red” climate emergency, has reincorporated the US to the Paris climate agreement and sought to restore some of the environmental rules axed by Donald Trump.But his administration has also approved a flurry of new oil and gas drilling permits on public lands, urged oil-producing countries to ramp up production to help lower gasoline prices and declined to stop major fossil fuel projects such as Line 3, an oil pipeline expansion in Minnesota that has sparked violent clashes between police and those protesting against its construction. “I think [the administration] has missed an enormous opportunity to join the battle against those behind the problem – the fossil fuel industry,” said Whitehouse. Simmering resentment at the president exploded outside the White House last week, with four consecutive days of protests resulting in nearly 300 climate activists being arrested and removed by police. On Thursday, a banner was unfurled reading “We need real solutions, not false promises”, with protesters calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency and halt a slew of proposed pipelines and drilling projects – a report released by Oil Change International has found that 21 major fossil fuel projects under review by the administration would cause the emissions equivalent of 316 new coal-fired power plants if they went ahead.“We felt we had someone who had our back and then he [Biden] wavered,” said Joye Braun, a campaigner at the Indigenous Environmental Network who traveled from South Dakota for the protests. “He made a lot of promises to us, as Indigenous people, that he’s not following through on. To allow something like Line 3 makes no damn sense.”Climate scientists have echoed the need for urgency. The world is on course for nearly 3C of heating by the end of the century, which would bring punishing impacts to people around the globe. Precipitously steep emissions cuts need to occur immediately to avoid this turmoil, scientists say.“Unless we have greater progress on CO2 cuts we are faced with a miserable outcome,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University. “A world above 2C is not a pretty one. This reconciliation bill isn’t enough and it’s discouraging to see the Biden administration still approving fossil fuel projects. That should be very much in our past.”In recent days, the White House and Democrats have sought to temper expectations that Democrats would reach a deal before the summit – and that a failure to meet their deadline would hurt Biden’s credibility as a global leader in the fight against climate change.“None of our objectives for the president’s climate agenda begins or ends on November 1 and 2, or the week after,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week. “Whether our agenda has passed or not is not going to be the defining factor.”The stars may not be aligned long to address climate breakdown. Democrats, having waited a decade for this opportunity, could lose control of Congress in midterm elections next year to a Republican party still unwilling to confront, or even acknowledge, the crisis. The prospect of not acting for another decade is almost unthinkable.“We can’t fail again,” said Whitehouse. “We just can’t.”TopicsClimate crisisJoe BidenBiden administrationUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsCop26newsReuse this content More

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      Malcolm Turnbull on Murdoch, lies and the climate crisis: ‘The same forces that enabled Trump are at work in Australia’

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      Australian politicsMalcolm Turnbull on Murdoch, lies and the climate crisis: ‘The same forces that enabled Trump are at work in Australia’ Systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social, has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, the former PM writesMalcolm TurnbullSun 17 Oct 2021 16.41 EDTLast modified on Sun 17 Oct 2021 17.09 EDTThe United States has suffered the largest number of Covid-19 deaths: about 600,000 at the time of writing. The same political and media players who deny the reality of global warming also denied and politicised the Covid-19 virus.To his credit, Donald Trump poured billions into Operation Warp Speed, which assisted the development of vaccines in a timeframe that matched the program’s ambitious title. But he also downplayed the gravity of Covid-19, then peddled quack therapies and mocked cities that mandated social distancing and mask wearing.Trump’s catastrophic management of the pandemic resulted in election defeat in November 2020. It says a lot about the insanity of America’s political discourse that the then presidential nominee Joe Biden had to say, again and again: “Mask wearing is not a political statement.”Australia’s ambition on climate change is held back by a toxic mix of rightwing politics, media and vested interests | Kevin Rudd and Malcolm TurnbullRead moreFrom our relative safety and sanity, Australians looked to America with increasing horror. If the Covid-19 disaster was not enough, the callous police murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 ignited a wave of outraged protest against racism in the US and around the world. And then events took another sinister turn.Anticipating defeat, Trump had been busy claiming the election would be rigged by the Democrats. He predicted widespread voter fraud, setting himself up for an “I wuz robbed” case if the result went against him. He had done the same in 2016.As it happened, Biden won convincingly. Trump and the Republican party launched more than 60 legal challenges to the result. Their failure did not stop the misinformation campaign.Relentlessly, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and the rest of the rightwing media claque claimed Biden had stolen the election. A protest march was scheduled in Washington for 6 January 2021, the day Congress was scheduled to formally count the electoral college votes and confirm Biden’s win. The protest was expressly designed to pressure Congress, and especially the then vice-president, Mike Pence, to overthrow the decision of the people and declare Trump re-elected.They assembled in their thousands. Trump wound them up with a typically inflammatory address, culminating in a call to march on the Capitol. The mob proceeded to besiege and break into the home of US democracy. They surged through the corridors, threatening to hang Pence and the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Several security guards were killed, as was one of the insurgents. Luckily, none of the legislators were found by the mob, although several appeared to have encouraged them in the lead-up to the assault.It was nothing less than an attempted coup, promoted and encouraged by the president himself and his media allies like Murdoch who, through Fox News, has probably done more damage to US democracy than any other individual.Vladimir Putin’s disinformation campaigns have sought to exacerbate divisions in western democracies and undermine popular trust in their institutions. By creating and exploiting a market for crazy conspiracy theories untethered from the facts, let alone science, Murdoch has done Putin’s work – better than any Russian intelligence agency could ever imagine possible.That is why I supported the former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s call for a royal commission into the Murdoch media, which does not operate like a conventional news organisation but rather like a political party, pushing its own agendas, running vendettas against its critics and covering up for its friends.Murdoch empire’s global chief Robert Thomson to front questions at Australian Senate inquiryRead moreIn April I reinforced these points in an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter, as I had to the Australian Senate’s inquiry into media diversity. Of all the endorsements, none was more significant than that of James Clapper, the former US director of national intelligence, who said Fox News was “a megaphone for conspiracies and falsehoods”.We have to face the uncomfortable fact that the systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social – what Clapper calls the “truth deficit” – has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, and none more so than the US itself. Thanks to this relentless diet of lies, a quarter of all Americans and 56% of Republicans believe Trump is the true president today.Biden is leading a more traditional and rational administration. The friends and allies Trump had outraged around the world are breathing a sigh of relief. The US has rejoined the Paris agreement on climate change and Biden is seeking to lead the world with deeper, faster cuts to emissions.But the same forces that amplified and enabled Trump are still at work in the US and here in Australia. In April the Murdoch press bullied the New South Wales government into reversing its decision to appoint me chairman of a committee to advise on the transition to a net zero emission economy. My “crime” was to not support the continued, unconstrained expansion of open-cut coalmining in the Hunter Valley. In the crazed, rightwing media echo chamber so influential with many Liberal and National party members, the primary qualification to advise on net zero emissions is, apparently, unqualified support for coalmining.As though we hadn’t had enough demonstration of the Murdochs’ vendetta tactics, right on cue on 2 May Sky News Australia broadcast a “documentary” designed to disparage me and Rudd as being, in effect, political twins separated at birth. As a job, I am told it gave hatchets a bad name. But the message was clear to anyone inclined to hold Murdoch to account: step out of line and you will be next.And while politicians are accountable, the Murdochs are not. Their abuse of power has been so shameful that James Murdoch has resigned from the company. His brother, Lachlan, however, is thoroughly in charge and apparently more rightwing than his father. Yet he has chosen to move back to Australia with his family, fleeing the hatreds and divisions of America that he and his father have done so much to exacerbate.As bushfires raged in the summer of 2019-20 I hoped that this red-raw reality of global warming would end the crazy, politicised climate wars in Australia. Well, it didn’t. The onset of the pandemic served to distract everyone, although the irony of following the virus science while ignoring the climate science seems to have been lost on too many members of the Australian government.Australia is more out of step with its friends and allies than it has ever been. All of our closest friends – the US, the UK, the EU, Japan and New Zealand – are now committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.On 18 May the International Energy Agency released a new report on how the world can, and must, reach net zero.For the first time this expert agency, always regarded as sympathetic to the oil and gas sectors, demanded that investment in new oil, gas and coal projects cease and that we make a rapid shift to renewables and storage. They described how this would enable us to have more, and cheaper, electricity.02:13To coincide with this report (of which the Australian government had full prior notice), Scott Morrison chose to announce that his government would invest $600m to build a new gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley. The energy sector, the regulators, the NSW government and other experts were united in saying the power station was not needed – $600m wasted. To the rest of the world, increasingly puzzled by Australia’s fossil-fuel fetish, it must have looked like a calculated “fuck you” to the global consensus demanding climate action.More Australians than ever are worried about the climate crisis, annual survey suggestsRead moreTo those concerned about the lack of leadership on climate, Morrison says his five predecessors all lost their job, one way or another, because of climate policy. He is determined not to let the right wing of the Coalition do to him what it did to me. Before June he would point to the instability in the National party and warn how a shift on climate could trigger a party room revolt, led by Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan and others, to overthrow Michael McCormack. That has now happened, and Joyce made his case for change on the basis of McCormack not doing more to oppose Morrison’s edging towards a net zero commitment.So Morrison is determined not to lead on climate; he wants business and other governments to take the lead and for events to take their course so that the transition to zero emissions happens without any discernible action from the Australian government at all. In the meantime he will continue to use support for coal as a totemic issue to rally working-class voters in mining areas.Scott is long on tactics and very short on strategy. With climate, he underlines my biggest concern about his government: that it will be successful at winning elections but do little in office. And with Barnaby back as deputy prime minister, he has another excuse to do nothing.
      This is an edited extract from the new foreword to A Bigger Picture by Malcolm Turnbull (Hardie Grant Books, available now in paperback)
      TopicsAustralian politicsMalcolm TurnbullAustralian mediaNews CorporationScott MorrisonUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpextractsReuse this content More

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      The courts have a new chance to block Texas’s abortion law. They must take it | Laurence Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jeffrey Abramson and Dennis Aftergut

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      OpinionUS supreme courtThe courts have a new chance to block Texas’s abortion law. They must take itLaurence H Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jeffrey Abramson and Dennis AftergutSB 8 not only stripped Texan women of their rights under Roe v Wade, it made a mockery of the US constitution and the supremacy of the federal courts Sun 17 Oct 2021 06.24 EDTLast modified on Sun 17 Oct 2021 06.25 EDTSadly, predictably and appallingly, on October 14, a three judge panel of the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit has allowed Texas’s “Bounty-Hunter” anti-abortion law to go back into effect while the court considers the case on the merits. Every day that the fifth circuit panel’s unlawful order keeps the statute in operation brings irreversible injury to women in Texas. US Attorney General Merrick Garland has properly decided to seek emergency relief from the US supreme court.The justice department is right to accuse the State of Texas of seeking to destroy not only abortion rights but also the foundation of our constitutional Republic. In a nation whose history is fraught with battles between states’ rights and national sovereignty, the case of United States v Texas raises issues basic to our national compact.Texas set the current controversy in motion by passing SB8, an anti-abortion law that legislators knew was unconstitutional. In doing so, they violated what Chief Justice Marshall explained two centuries ago was the bedrock of our young nation’s rule of law – that our constitution reigns supreme.“Senate bill 8 (SB8) flouts that principle,” Monday’s DoJ brief in the fifth circuit reads. The law does that “by blatantly violating constitutional rights and severely constraining judicial review of its unconstitutional restrictions.” That “sets this case apart.”Put bluntly, Texas has sought not only to virtually eliminate women’s rights under Roe v Wade, but also to reduce our Constitution’s supremacy to a relic. Those twin dangers are why the stakes are high in the suit by the United States to enjoin the Texas anti-abortion statute. And that’s why the October 14 Fifth Circuit order keeping the law in effect is so troubling.This case stands on a very different footing from the one that a conservative 5-4 supreme court rejected on September 1 on procedural grounds. With the United States now suing, there is plenty of precedent for the federal government to come into court challenging a state law before it is enforced, and a state cannot hide behind sovereign immunity as a defense. The cases that the fifth circuit cited on Friday as reasons for refusing to block SB8 were entirely inapplicable because they have no relevance to a suit brought by the United States to force a recalcitrant state to obey the constitution. Texas’s reason for not arguing SB8’s constitutionality is obvious. The supreme court has affirmed many times since Roe v Wade in 1973 that states cannot prohibit abortions before the fetus is viable and capable of surviving outside the womb. Viability occurs at about the 24th week of pregnancy.Nonetheless, Texas’s law makes all abortions illegal, without exceptions for rape or incest, once fetal cardiac activity can be detected – usually around six weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period.The fact that the law is enforced by vigilantes’ private civil suits rather than by government prosecutions only aggravates its unconstitutionality. It is a Texas law that opens Texas courts to these bounty-hunting lawsuits. Since 1948, it has been settled law that individuals may not use state courts to deprive others of constitutional rights.On Wednesday, 6 October, in a 113-page opinion, with some of the strongest language ever heard from a federal judge, US district court Judge Robert Pitman blocked Texas from enforcing this near-total ban on abortions. Judge Pitman’s opinion explained that Texas concocted a transparent “scheme” to “end run” the constitution. The court laid out the elaborate “machinations” Texas devised to avoid a court doing anything about a clearly unconstitutional law.Judge Pitman also documented cases of women – sometimes minors – suffering “grievous wrong”, as they are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies or travel, if they can afford it, to another state to access their constitutional rights: “The court can only speculate as to the hardships” these women have “had to endure”.Having temporarily reinstated SB 8, the Fifth Circuit noted that it will expedite review of the merits of Judge Pitman’s decision. That could affect the supreme court’s consideration of emergency relief to the United States. Whether now or later, this case will land on the court’s docket. Even justices who disagree with Roe v Wade should recognize the dire implications of letting any state deliberately design a blatantly unconstitutional statute in such a way that no court can block its enforcement until it’s too late to prevent the statute from doing irreparable harm by deterring people from exercising their rights.In the 1950s, states tried to disregard supreme court decisions interpreting the constitution when they engaged in a concerted effort to thwart desegregation orders. Then, too, the United States government interceded against the states. When the Arkansas governor Orval Faubus attempted to block desegregation, the supreme court, in Cooper v Aaron, unanimously and emphatically reaffirmed the supremacy of the constitution and federal law.The court declared: “No state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war against the constitution without violating his undertaking to support it.” All nine justices joined in declaring: “If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery.”That would be the result if Texas could destroy the constitutional rights of women before any court could enjoin its devious scheme. To ensure the constitution remains the supreme law of the land, and to protect all rights it guarantees, the fifth circuit and the supreme court must uphold Judge Pitman’s injunction.
      Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University Professor emeritus and a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School. Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Jeffrey Abramson is Professor of Law and Government at the University of Texas, Austin. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor
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      Manchin hits back at Sanders criticism in fight over Biden investment plan

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      DemocratsManchin hits back at Sanders criticism in fight over Biden investment planVermont senator chides Manchin over lack of support for billProgressive-centrist impasse holds up Biden’s reform agenda Edward HelmoreSat 16 Oct 2021 10.07 EDTLast modified on Sat 16 Oct 2021 10.09 EDTInternal party warfare between progressive and moderate Democrats over Joe Biden’s $3.5tn tax-and-spending package has burst dramatically into the open after Vermont senator Bernie Sanders launched a thinly veiled attack on West Virginia senator Joe Manchin in an op-ed published in the centrist Democrat’s home-state newspaper.Is Hunter Biden’s art project painting the president into an ethical corner?Read moreSanders, writing in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, described opponents of the legislation as “every Republican in Congress as well as the drug companies, the insurance companies, the fossil fuel industry and the billionaire class”.He added that opponents of the bill support a status quo “in which the very rich get richer while ordinary Americans continue to struggle to make ends meet”.Joe Biden’s proposed legislation is an ambitious package on policies such as free education, the climate crisis and healthcare provision that its proponents liken to the domestic reforms of the 1960s Great Society and the 1930s New Deal.However, it has run up against opposition from a group of centrist and conservative Democrats – often spearheaded by Manchin – who balk at its price tag and some of the programs it embraces.Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont, said polls showed “overwhelming support for this legislation”.“Yet, the political problem we face is that in a 50-50 Senate we need every Democratic senator to vote yes. We now have only 48. Two Democratic senators remain in opposition, including senator Joe Manchin,” he said.The other senator Sanders was referring to is Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.The column provoked swift pushback from Manchin. “This isn’t the first time an out-of-stater has tried to tell West Virginians what is best for them, despite having no relationship to our state,” he said a tweet.Last month, Manchin said he would not vote for the bill, called the Build Back Better plan, that he characterized again on Friday a “reckless expansion of government programs”.The exchange comes as the full spending package looks increasingly unlikely to pass in its current form, and the progressive-centrist impasse has paralyzed Biden’s domestic reform agenda and action to match his administration’s commitment to combatting climate change.Central to the dispute between Sanders and Manchin is the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP), a $150bn program within the spending bill, designed to speed the conversion of US electric power generation from fossil fuels to renewable energy.Manchin’s home state is the second largest producer of coal, after Wyoming, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and Manchin has argued that utilities should not receive federal funds for an energy transition they are already making.Manchin is also chairman of the Senate energy and natural resources committee, and holds power over energy components in the bill. He has indicated he aims to reduce the $3.5tn price tag of the spending bill to $1.5tn.But simply dropping the clean energy provision from the proposed legislation would come as major embarrassment to the administration ahead of Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow next month, where Biden will be in the spotlight over matching verbal commitment to climate initiatives with legislative action.In taking the fight to West Virginia, Sanders is redoubling pressure on his party colleague.In comments to reporters last week, Sanders said: “The time is long overdue for him to tell us with specificity – not generalities, but beyond generalities, with specificity – what he wants and what he does not want, and to explain that to the people of West Virginia and America.”From ringside, the White House continues to express its commitment to a compromise solutions to get the economic package, even if it does not reach its full measure of spending.“I’m convinced we’re going to get it done. We’re not going to get $3.5tn. We’ll get less than that, but we’re going to get it,” Biden said Friday.White House Press secretary Jen Psaki described the impasse as an example of “democracy working.”“When it comes down to it, no bill is perfect,” Psaki said on a podcast. “It’s not going to be everything that Joe Biden wants, it’s not going to be everything Joe Manchin wants.”TopicsDemocratsJoe BidenUS CongressUS domestic policyUS politicsBernie SandersnewsReuse this content More