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      in US Politics

      ‘More cops’: mayoral frontrunners talk tough in New York debate

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      The New York City mayoral race exploded into life on Wednesday night, as the Democratic primary debate saw candidates clash over whether to rein in or bolster the city’s beleaguered police force, and the two centrist frontrunners found themselves variously attacked as Republicans or gun-toters.Andrew Yang and Eric Adams, who are leading the polls along with Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, were the focus of their rivals during the debate, as eight candidates pitched themselves to be mayor of the biggest city in the US – a role once dubbed the “second toughest job in America”.The winner of the Democratic primary later this month is expected to triumph in the mayoral election proper in November, lending an extra frisson to proceedings. But less than three weeks before New Yorkers go to the polls, the debate offered little hope for progressives seeking systemic change.Poverty and homelessness, which have continued to blight New York City under the last eight years of a Democratic mayor, were left by the wayside as law and order became an enduring topic.After a year where tens of thousands of New Yorkers called for the police department (NYPD) to be cut in size amid protests against police brutality and racism, it was Yang, a tech entrepreneur who ran a high-profile campaign for US president last year, who took the remarkable position of calling for the NYPD to expand.“We need to go on a recruitment drive” to hire more police officers, Yang, the early leader in the race said, in a statement which is an anathema to the progressives in the Democratic party. The NYPD is already the largest police force in the country, with a budget of $6bn and a staff 36,000 officers and 19,000 civilian employees.“Defunding the police is not the right approach for NYC,” Yang said – a direct effort to distance himself from candidates who have called for money to be taken from the police budget and spent on social programs and mental health treatment.He later called for “more cops on the subways” – and said the officers should not just be a presence on platforms, but should conduct regular “visual inspections” of carriages.Adams, a former police officer who with Yang and Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner for New York City, has emerged as one of three frontrunners in the race, also staked out his position in support of the NYPD, linking crime to New York City’s recovery.“No one is coming to New York and our multibillion-dollar tourism industry if you have three-year-old children shot in Times Square,” Adams said, an apparent reference to a four-year-old child who was shot in the center of Manhattan in May.He went on to appeal to the city’s wealthiest residents.“When you look at our high-income earners, 65,000 people pay 51% of our income tax. When you speak to them [about] leaving the city, they talk about public safety.”Shootings in New York City have spiked in 2021. In the first three months of the year 246 people were shot, Gothamist reported – the highest rate for the first quarter since 2012. Murders in the city rose to 462 in 2020, according to the NYPD, an increase of 45% from 2019.Yang has spent weeks as the frontrunner, but Garcia, who has been boosted by an endorsement from the New York Times, has been gaining momentum as she bids to become the city’s first female mayor. Since 1834, when the mayor of New York City began to be chosen by popular vote, it has elected 109 leaders, every one of them a man, and only one of them, David Dinkins, a person of color.The first debate, which was held virtually in May, proved relatively civil, but with less than three weeks to go until the primary, things have begun to hot up, as candidates have spent $37m in TV advertising.“I don’t think you’re an empty vessel,” Scott Stringer, New York City’s comptroller and a progressive voice, told Yang at one point, referring to a description of the candidate given by one of Yang’s high-profile supporters.“I think you’re a Republican who continues to focus on the issues that will not bring back the economy.”Adams later noted that Yang left New York City during the coronavirus pandemic, and had not voted in several previous New York elections.“How the hell do we have you become our mayor with a record like this?” Adams said. “You can’t run from the city if you want to run the city.”Adams was attacked over his support for “stop and frisk”, the widely loathed policing tactic which proliferated under Rudy Giuliani’s mayorship and disproportionately targeted people of color.He was later challenged over his self-confessed habit of carrying a gun, which he is entitled to do as a former police officer. Adams has said he has carried a gun to church and claimed he would carry a gun as mayor to help save money on his security detail.Dianne Morales, a progressive who would cut $3bn from the police’s budget if elected, presented the case for curtailing law enforcement.“We can’t actually decouple the increase in crime, whether its gun violence or other crime, from the increased insecurities that New Yorkers have faced and encountered over the last 15 months,” Morales said.“I guarantee you that if we actually provided jobs to these young people and we actually provided economic stability to our communities then the violence that we’re witnessing would be dramatically decreased.”Lurking in the background of the debate was the near collapse of a progressive element to the mayoral race.Morales had become a favorite of progressives, but has suffered a spectacular implosion over the past week, which culminated in some members of her staff holding an unprecedented public protest against her campaign, claiming that she had failed to recognize their demands for fair pay and benefits.Stringer had won the endorsement of a number of high-profile leftwing Democrats, but lost much of his backing after he was accused of sexual assault by a woman who volunteered on one of his past campaigns. Stringer denies the allegations.That has left Maya Wiley, a former counsel to the current New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, seeking to consolidate the left-leaning vote, and in an email sent to supporters after the debate she described herself as “the progressive candidate that can win this race”.The polling, however, suggests otherwise. In the two most recent mayoral polls, however, Wiley came fifth and joint fourth, several points behind Adams, Garcia and Yang, and with much to do if she is to be elected mayor. More

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      in US Politics

      Pelosi faces pressure to seize reins in investigating US Capitol attack

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      Top Democrats are making a renewed effort to press ahead with establishing a sweeping, central investigation into the 6 January attack on the Capitol in what could be the final opportunity to hold former US president Donald Trump to account for inciting insurrection.The move reflects the resolve of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to pursue a comprehensive inquiry even without bipartisan support, after Senate Republicans, fearful of what a full accounting of the violence might uncover, last week voted down legislation for a 9/11-style commission to scrutinize the attack by a pro-Trump mob.Pelosi said on a Democratic caucus call on Tuesday that she was prepared to create a House select committee with subpoena power to replace the commission as the principal investigation by Congress into the assault, according to sources familiar with the matter.The select committee was one of several options raised on the call that included empowering one existing committee, such as the House homeland security committee, to take charge of the congressional investigation, the sources said.Also suggested on the call was the possibility of returning the bill to create a 9/11-style commission back to the Senate for a second vote, while Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic caucus chair, floated the idea of the Department of Justice appointing a special counsel.Pelosi did not endorse any particular proposal, but she did categorically rule out a presidential commission created by Joe Biden, in large part because such a panel would lack subpoena authority or funding without a statutory change.Jim Clyburn, the House majority whip, was supportive of empowering the House homeland security committee to take charge, the sources said, while the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, and the assistant speaker, Katherine Clark, were non-committal.It was not immediately clear how Pelosi might proceed. But rank-and-file House Democrats have agitated for weeks for Pelosi to seize the reins and adopt her longstanding fallback plan of empanelling a select committee.Select committees – among the top weapons for congressional oversight – have long been convened on issues relating to corruption and cover-up, from the investigation into presidential campaign activity during Watergate to the Benghazi terrorist attacks.The creation of a select committee could break the logjam that has persisted for months on Capitol Hill over disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over how to embark on a full accounting of the attack that left five dead and scores injured.Proponents of the select committee received a boost last week from Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, who seemingly extended his endorsement to the proposal saying it was “better to investigate with a select committee than not investigate”.Pelosi has previously suggested that a select committee would focus on lines of inquiry likely to have been explored by the commission.That kind of mandate would mean a forensic examination into the root causes of the attack, the former president’s conduct as his supporters stormed the Capitol and threatened to hang his own vice-president, as well as any potential ties between Trump and the rioters.But its work could still be stymied by Republicans, who have repeatedly resisted any comprehensive inquiry into the attack, afraid of being found complicit ahead of the 2022 midterm elections in inciting insurrection by amplifying Trump’s lies about voter fraud.The number of Republicans downplaying or even outright denying the reality of what transpired on 6 January, for instance, has only increased in recent months; Congressman Andrew Clyde described the deadly insurrection as a “normal tourist visit” to the Capitol.Likely opposition – especially from Republican leaders in Congress – could also make any new findings be viewed through a partisan lens and cause a substantial proportion of the country to reject any conclusions that cast Trump in a negative light.The last select committee convened by Congress to investigate Benghazi devolved into a partisan affair, even before the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, admitted it had been created to damage the 2016 election chances of the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.But House Democrats have remained largely undeterred. “If Republicans won’t join us to protect our democracy, we have an obligation to do it ourselves,” said Teresa Leger Fernández, a member of the House administration committee. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Kerfuffle after drone carrying sex toy disrupts Albuquerque mayoral event

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      A New Mexico sheriff who is running for mayor of Albuquerque was interrupted at a campaign event by a flying drone with a sex toy attached to it and a man who called him a “tyrant” while swinging his fist.The campaign group for the Bernalillo county sheriff, Manuel Gonzales, said the Democrat was unharmed and “will not be intimidated”.A video posted on Facebook shows Gonzales answering questions from the audience while standing on a stage at an events centre, when the drone bearing the sex toy starts buzzing near the stage.A sheriff’s office report said the owner of the event centre grabbed the device and that a 20-year-old, Kaelan Ashby Dreyer, also tried to grab it.The report said Dreyer then turned his attention to Gonzales, swinging his fist and calling him a tyrant. A deputy wrote that Dreyer punched Gonzales’ hands and was then removed from the event.Gonzales said at a news conference on Wednesday he believed Dreyer was with several companions and spotted someone standing on the other side of a fence who he believes was flying the drone. “It became so distracting from the sound and everything I couldn’t really get my point across,” Gonzales said.Dreyer has been charged with petty misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor resisting, evading or obstructing an officer. According to a deputy in the report, Dreyer said he did not intend to hit Gonzales but was upset at the way the sheriff answered a question and intended to swing his fist through the air.Gonzales suggested on Wednesday that the stunt with the drone might have been sent by the rival campaign of the incumbent mayor, Tim Keller, also a Democrat.Keller’s campaign condemned the stunt as “disruptive, rude and immature” and denied any involvement. “To suggest we were behind it is pathetic and the kind of desperation that has marked Manny’s troubled campaign,” Keller’s campaign manager, Neri Holguin, said.Dreyer denied he was working for Keller’s campaign and said he was not a fan of the incumbent either, the Albuquerque Journal reported. He declined to comment further. More

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      in US Politics

      US sets – and quickly suspends – tariffs on UK and others over digital taxes

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      The Biden administration announced 25% tariffs on over $2bn worth of imports from the UK and five other countries on Wednesday over their taxes on US technology companies, but immediately suspended the duties to allow time for negotiations to continue.The US trade representative, Katherine Tai, said the threatened tariffs on goods from Britain, Italy, Spain, Turkey, India and Austria had been agreed after an investigation concluded that their digital taxes discriminated against US companies.The move underscores the US threat of retaliation, first made under the Trump administration, over digital-services taxes on US-based companies including Alphabet, Apple and Facebook, that has sparked an international row over which countries should have taxing rights over some of the world’s largest companies.The US trade representative’s (USTR) office published lists of imports that would face tariffs if international tax negotiations fail to reach a solution. Goods from Britain worth $887m, including clothing, overcoats, footwear and cosmetics, would face a 25% charge as would about $386m worth of goods from Italy, including clothing, handbags and optical lenses. USTR said it would impose tariffs on goods worth $323m from Spain, $310m from Turkey, $118m from India and $65m from Austria.The potential tariffs, based on 2019 import data, aim to equal the amount of digital taxes that would be collected from US firms, a USTR official said. The news came as finance leaders from G7 countries prepare to meet in London on Friday and Saturday to discuss the state of tax negotiations, including taxation of large technology companies and a US proposal for a global minimum corporate tax. US tariffs threatened against France over its digital tax were suspended in January to allow time for negotiations.Tai said she was focused on “finding a multilateral solution” to digital taxes and other international tax issues.“Today’s actions provide time for those negotiations to continue to make progress while maintaining the option of imposing tariffs under Section 301 if warranted in the future,” Tai said.Tai faced a Wednesday deadline to announce the tariff action, or the statutory authority of the trade investigations would have lapsed.A British government spokesperson said the UK tax was aimed at ensuring tech firms pay their fair share of tax and was temporary. “Our digital services tax is reasonable, proportionate and non-discriminatory,” the spokesperson said. “It’s also temporary and we’re working positively with international partners to find a global solution to this problem.”Reuters contributed to this article More

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      in World Politics

      Is Israel’s Bite as Strong as Its Bark?

      by

      At the end of April, days before the latest conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians surged into the headlines, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a meeting in Washington with two Israelis: the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, and the Israeli ambassador to the United States. The Israelis were seeking to prevent the US from returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran from which Donald Trump had unilaterally withdrawn in 2018. 

      In an Increasingly Paranoid World, Do Allies Actually Exist?

      READ MORE

      On April 29, Reuters reported that Blinken’s meeting with the two officials “followed talks … between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and his Israeli counterpart in which the Israeli delegation stressed their ‘freedom to operate’ against Iran as they see fit.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Freedom to operate:

      Impunity

      Contextual Note

      Israel believes in its “freedom to operate” as adamantly as some Americans do in their constitutional right to bear arms. It is difficult to understand Israel’s notion essentially of freedom to aggress in any other sense than that of seeing itself as above the law of nations. In one sense, the Israelis are right. There is no international law on the books that enforces compliance. In an era of rising populist nationalism, many leaders are tempted to claim the freedom to operate as a natural right. Only the military and economic might of the US threatens to hold some of them back. Assured of Washington’s support of any of its aggressive actions, Israel believes it has exceptional freedom to operate.

      The Israeli government made it clear in January that it would actively counter any attempt by the new Biden administration to return to the JCPOA. “Reiterating Israel’s position that it does not consider itself bound by the diplomacy, Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen said, ‘A bad deal will send the region spiralling into war,’” Reuters reported. Is this a bluff or a sinister threat? Or both? No one should feel surprised, given Israel’s aptitude to flex its muscles whenever it feels threatened and every US administration’s habit of regularly inclining to Israel’s will.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Every observer of the ongoing drama in the Middle East should be wondering whether it makes any sense at all to be asking such questions. The spiraling war in the Middle East Cohen evokes would not resemble in scale or catastrophic consequences the kind of skirmish that last month’s 11-day conflict over the Israel-Gaza border turned out to be. Iran is a large and powerful oil-producing nation that does not yet possess nuclear weapons but has extensive resources. It has significant potential allies in Asia, including China, though it would be utterly unlikely that in the event of a shooting war between Israel and Iran, China would allow itself to be drawn into a military conflict.

      Israel, of course, has the advantage of being a nuclear power, though no one acknowledges that in official circles. That non-acknowledgment has conveniently spared Israel the duty of taking a position on non-proliferation. As its government refuses, in Cohen’s telling, to be “bound by the diplomacy” while at the same time expecting the United States to support even its most aggressive initiatives taken in the name of self-defense, Israel’s threat of a spiraling war should offer a lot of people cause for concern.

      Most observers believe that everything will depend on the role the US may or may not accept to play if there is an eventual conflict. In its first few months, the Biden administration has, perhaps artfully, disguised its deeper inclinations. At the same time, it has given some people the impression of being rudderless. That has added to the overwhelming uncertainty that makes prognostication about future events in the region a particularly delicate exercise. But given the stakes — according to Israel, a possible third world war — it may be time to address the underlying problems.

      Israel appears to be invoking the logic of MAD (mutually assured destruction) that reigned during the Cold War. But what was true of the US and the Soviet Union is difficult to imagine applying to a state the size of Israel.

      Despite Israel’s belief in its “freedom to operate,” the idea that it could unilaterally start a war with Iran simply because it didn’t like the deal the US agreed to is on its face absurd. It would be tantamount to declaring war on the US simply because the Americans failed to respect Israel’s wishes. This degree of geopolitical absurdity illustrates the specific kind of diplomatic hyperreality Israel has successfully cultivated, thanks in large part to the pattern of accommodation exhibited by every recent US administration.

      Al Jazeera published its own version of the Reuters’ piece from April, reprinting most of its substance before adding some remarks of its own. After expanding its commentary on the various threats and hypotheses, including Cohen’s vision of  “spiralling into war,” it adds this troubling conclusion: “The source declined to say how Blinken and his aides responded.” As with so many of President Joe Biden’s real intentions, on both domestic and foreign policy, and his capacity to deliver on promises and commitment, the pundits for the moment are condemned to wait and see. 

      Historical Note

      Despite the current vacuum of power in Israel itself, likely to be provisionally resolved by a new coalition government, all of the nation’s current and future leaders — including the military — are opposed to the idea of the US revitalizing the JCPOA. But does Israel still have the clout to influence US policy? Donald Trump solidified the belief among the Israelis that the US is capable of betraying its own interests to please Israel. It played the same game reasonably successfully with Barack Obama, who consistently vowed to defend Israel’s interests. But it couldn’t prevent Obama from promoting and signing the JCPOA in 2015.

      Just before leaving office, Obama broke with another tradition by abstaining from using the US veto on a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding a halt to Israeli’s construction of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. To counterbalance the effect of the affront, two months earlier, the lame duck president signed off on a historic and astonishingly generous promise of military aid for Israel to the tune of $38 billion over 10 years.

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      Daniel Sonnenfeld, writing for The Media Line, an American website specialized in coverage of the Middle East, offers his update on the state of negotiations around a revitalized JCPOA. “While all the signatories have expressed their desire to see the deal revived, American allies in the Middle East have voiced concerns about this intention. Most notable is Israel, which opposed the deal strongly when it was first signed in 2015,” he writes. This sentence is remarkable for the carefully crafted reference Sonnenfeld makes to a group of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia. Calling them “American allies” avoids evoking either the stigma associated with the autocratic Arab regimes, the most prominent of which has dramatically exercised its “freedom to operate” by murdering and dismembering a Washington Post journalist.

      By the end of his article, Sonnenfeld resigns himself to concluding that, despite Israel’s objections, the US will return to the JCPOA. He cites Dr. Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, who affirms that “Israel has ‘no chance’ at changing the US approach to the deal.” Unlike the Israeli officials threatening to throw the region and into a catastrophic war, Sonnenfeld sees no prospect of the Israelis carrying out such a move or even challenging the Biden administration’s decisions on the matter. Instead, citing Zimmt again, he describes a future diplomatic ballet in which Israel will simply “focus on ‘formulating agreements with the Americans about what comes next.’”

      Since the end of the 11-day conflict in May, things have dramatically changed for both the Israelis and Palestinians. As The New York Times reports, the latter now feel they “are part of the global conversation on rights, justice, freedom, and Israel cannot close it down or censor it.” Even The Times has taken a solid interest in their plight. Israel is struggling to close the chapter on Benjamin Netanyahu’s seemingly perennial premiership. Joe Biden has an open field in front of him to clarify some of the complex issues in the Middle East. The world is waiting to see how he handles it.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 213 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘This was not a riot, this was a massacre’: Biden honors victims of 1921 violence – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      4.40pm EDT
      16:40

      ‘This was not a riot, this was a massacre,’ Biden says in Tulsa

      4.29pm EDT
      16:29

      Biden tells Tulsa race massacre survivors: ‘Now your story will be known in full view’

      4.23pm EDT
      16:23

      Biden delivers remarks in Tulsa to commemorate race massacre anniversary

      2.38pm EDT
      14:38

      Biden arrives in Tulsa to meet with race massacre survivors and deliver remarks

      2.04pm EDT
      14:04

      Biden issues proclamation to mark LGBTQ+ Pride Month

      1.41pm EDT
      13:41

      “Tragic and devastating” – WH spox

      Live feed

      Show

      5.22pm EDT
      17:22

      The Biden administration has suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were issued in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
      Just two weeks before Biden was inaugurated, the Trump administration had actioned the right to drill in the expansive, delicate tundra that is home to migrating waterfowl, denning polar bears and herds of Porcupine caribou. The move drew fierce opposition from Alaska Native activists and environmental groups – who lobbied Biden to quickly claw back the 1.5m acre of the refuge that has been opened up to fossil fuel production.
      Here’s more background on the Trump administration’s move:

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      Joe Biden’s speech in Tulsa has now concluded, and that’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Biden delivered remarks in Tulsa to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the city’s race massacre. The president emphasized the importance of acknowledging the lives and livelihoods lost in the massacre, which resulted in the death of at least 300 African Americans and the destruction of 35 blocks of Black real estate. “For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness,” Biden said. “My fellow Americans, this was not a riot, this was a massacre.”
      Biden met with the three living survivors of the massacre before delivering his speech. All three survivors – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle – are over 100 years old. Biden acknowledged them in his remarks, saying, “Now your story will be known in full view.”
      Ahead of the trip, the Biden administration announced a series of initiatives aimed at narrowing the country’s racial wealth gap. The administration pledged to take action to address racial housing discrimination and use its purchasing power to direct an additional $100bn to small disadvantaged business owners.
      Biden will meet tomorrow with Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito to discuss a potential compromise on infrastructure. The meeting comes a week after Republicans outlined their latest offer, which called for spending $928bn on infrastructure over the next eight years, far less than what Biden has proposed.
      Biden issued a proclamation to mark the start of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. “This Pride Month, we recognize the valuable contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals across America, and we reaffirm our commitment to standing in solidarity with LGBTQ+ Americans in their ongoing struggle against discrimination and injustice,” the president said in his proclamation.

      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.09pm EDT

      4.55pm EDT
      16:55

      Joe Biden has just announced that he will tap Kamala Harris to lead the administration’s efforts to strengthen national voting rights.
      Biden described the recent Republican efforts in dozens of states to limit access to the ballot box as “un-American”.
      The president pledged he would “fight like heck with every tool at my disposal” to pass the For the People Act, Democrats’ expansive election reform bill, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
      Biden also appeared to criticize two moderate Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, referencing “two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends”. Manchin has said he opposes the For the People Act.

      4.40pm EDT
      16:40

      ‘This was not a riot, this was a massacre,’ Biden says in Tulsa

      Joe Biden underscored the importance of recognizing the devastating impact that the Tulsa race massacre had on Black lives and livelihoods.
      At least 300 African Americans were killed in the 1921 massacre, and about 35 blocks of Black real estate in the Greenwood neighborhood were destroyed.
      “For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness,” Biden said. “But just because history is silent it doesn’t mean that it did not take place. While darkness can hide much, it erases nothing.”
      The president added, “My fellow Americans, this was not a riot, this was a massacre.”

      Updated
      at 4.47pm EDT

      4.29pm EDT
      16:29

      Biden tells Tulsa race massacre survivors: ‘Now your story will be known in full view’

      Joe Biden noted that he is the first US president to ever visit Tulsa to commemorate the anniversary of the 1921 race massacre that killed at least three hundred African Americans.
      “The events we speak of today took place 100 years ago – and yet I’m the first president in 100 years ever to come to Tulsa,” Biden said, emphasizing the need to “acknowledge the truth of what took place here”.

      CBS News
      (@CBSNews)
      President Biden addresses three survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre: “You are the three known remaining survivors of a story seen in the mirror dimly. But no longer. Now, your story will be known in full view.” https://t.co/0kXzNfudf0 pic.twitter.com/ESpeEFGbel

      June 1, 2021

      The president specifically acknowledged the three living massacre survivors with whom he met today – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle.
      “You are the three known remaining survivors of a story seen in the mirror dimly – but no longer,” Biden said. “Now your story will be known in full view.”

      Updated
      at 4.49pm EDT

      4.23pm EDT
      16:23

      Biden delivers remarks in Tulsa to commemorate race massacre anniversary

      Joe Biden is now delivering remarks on the 100th anniversary of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
      Before launching into his prepared remarks, the president walked into the audience to speak to two young girls sitting toward the front of the crowd.
      Returning to the mic, Biden explained, “I just had to make sure the two girls got ice cream when this is over.”

      ABC News
      (@ABC)
      Ahead of remarks in Tulsa, Pres. Biden leaves the stage to talk to two young girls in the audience: “I just had to make sure the two girls got ice cream when this is over.” https://t.co/8tsvN79IHC pic.twitter.com/TmCPLPRMf5

      June 1, 2021

      4.03pm EDT
      16:03

      Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the city’s race massacre.
      According to a White House pool report, there are about 200 people in attendance for Biden’s speech, including civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
      The speech comes immediately after Biden met with the three living survivors of the massacre – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle – all of whom are over 100 years old.

      Updated
      at 4.08pm EDT

      3.35pm EDT
      15:35

      Joe Biden is now meeting with the three living survivors of the Tulsa race massacre, according to the latest White House pool report.
      Those survivors are Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle. They are all between the ages of 101 and 107.
      The three survivors testified two weeks ago at a House subcommittee hearing on the need to financially compensate massacre survivors and their descendants.
      “I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home,” Fletcher told House members. “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre every day.”

      3.30pm EDT
      15:30

      Ed Pilkington

      It is one of the extraordinary elements of the 1921 catastrophe that survivors are still alive. Three individuals are active today who as children experienced the horror of white sadism perpetrated on that day.
      The oldest of the trio, Mother Viola Fletcher, just turned 107. At a recent event in Tulsa, she walked unassisted to the podium and recalled what happened to her as a seven-year-old girl.
      “I still remember all the shooting and running,” she said. “People being killed. Crawling and seeing smoke. Seeing airplanes flying, and a messenger going through the neighbourhood telling all the Black people to leave town.”
      Then Fletcher stopped speaking. Even after 100 years, the memories of that day still have the power to overwhelm her.

      3.13pm EDT
      15:13

      Joe Biden is now touring an exhibit on the 1921 race massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

      Karine Jean-Pierre
      (@KJP46)
      .@POTUS touring the Tulsa Race Massacre Exhibit at Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. pic.twitter.com/bKlD5XlJRQ

      June 1, 2021

      The president will soon deliver remarks at the center to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the massacre, which killed at least 300 African Americans. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden ‘finishing the job’ my administration started, Obama says

      by

      Joe Biden is “finishing the job” begun by Barack Obama, the former president told the New York Times in an interview released on Tuesday.“I think that what we’re seeing now, is Joe and the administration are essentially finishing the job,” Obama said. “And I think it’ll be an interesting test.“Ninety per cent of the folks who were there in my administration, they are continuing and building on the policies we talked about, whether it’s the Affordable Care Act or our climate change agenda and the Paris [climate deal], and figuring out how do we improve the ladders to mobility through things like community colleges.”Obama also considered why in 2016, after his eight years in power, so many voters plumped for a hard-right successor in Donald Trump.“It’s hard to just underscore how much the bank bailouts just angered everyone, including me,” Obama said, of the remedy for the 2008 financial crisis he helped lead.“And then you have this long, slow recovery. Although the economy recovers technically quickly, it’s another five years before we’re really back to people feeling like, ‘OK, the economy is moving and working for me.’“… Let’s say a Democrat, a Joe Biden, or Hillary Clinton had immediately succeeded me, and the economy suddenly has 3% unemployment, I think we would have consolidated the sense that, ‘Oh, actually these policies that Obama put in place worked.’“The fact that Trump interrupts essentially the continuation of our policies, but still benefits from the economic stability and growth that we had initiated, means people aren’t sure. Well, gosh, unemployment’s 3.5% under Donald Trump.”Obama also mused about Biden’s much-discussed ability to reach voters, particularly in post-industrial midwestern states, who voted Obama then switched to Trump.“By virtue of biography and generationally,” Obama said, his vice-president, who is 78 and was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, “can still reach some of those folks”.“People knew I was left on issues like race, or gender equality, and LGBTQ issues and so forth,” Obama said. “But I think maybe the reason I was successful campaigning in downstate Illinois, or Iowa, or places like that is they never felt as if I was condemning them for not having gotten to the politically correct answer quick enough, or that somehow they were morally suspect because they had grown up with and believed more traditional values.”In fact Obama famously stirred controversy in 2008 when he said such voters “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”.The New York Times interviewer Ezra Klein did not raise those remarks.Obama continued: “I could go to the fish fry, or the [Veterans of Foreign Wars] hall, or all these other venues, and just talk to people. And they didn’t have any preconceptions about what I believed. They could just take me at face value.”The former president noted the drastic effects on such states of the collapse of local newspapers and the proliferation of misinformation via rightwing and social media.“If I went into those same places now,” Obama said, “or if any Democrat who’s campaigning goes in those places now, almost all news is from either Fox News, Sinclair news stations, talk radio, or some Facebook page. And trying to penetrate that is really difficult.“It’s not that the people in these communities have changed. It’s that if that’s what you are being fed, day in and day out, then you’re going to come to every conversation with a certain set of predispositions that are really hard to break through. And that is one of the biggest challenges I think we face.”According to recent polling, 53% of Republicans – and 25% of Americans – accept Trump’s lie that his defeat by Biden was the result of electoral fraud, while 15% of Americans believe the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that a cabal of child-murdering cannibals controls the US government.“If you have a conversation with folks,” Obama said, “you can usually assuage those fears. But they have to be able to hear you. You have to be able to get into the room. And I still could do that back in 2007, 2008. I think Joe, by virtue of biography and generationally, I think he can still reach some of those folks. But it starts getting harder, particularly for newcomers who are coming up.”Obama also said a successful Biden administration “will have an impact” on a deeply polarised political landscape in which Republican states are restricting voting among communities of color and making it easier to overturn results, while Republicans in Congress block a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.“Does [success for Biden] override that sort of identity politics that has come to dominate Twitter, and the media, and that has seeped into how people think about politics?” Obama asked. “Probably not completely. But at the margins, if you’re changing 5% of the electorate, that makes a difference.” More