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      in US Politics

      2.7m people have signed up for $1m vaccine lottery, Ohio governor says

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      The Ohio governor, Mike DeWine, on Monday hailed the success of the state’s Vax-a-Million lottery in boosting demand for coronavirus vaccines, announcing that more than 2.7 million adult residents had registered for the chance of winning $1m in one of five weekly drawings.DeWine’s giveaway approach, however, has drawn the ire of fellow Republican state lawmakers, who are introducing legislation to shut the project down as “a frivolous use of taxpayer dollars”.The prize money comes from Ohio’s share of the $2.2tn federal Cares Act, which was signed into law in March last year.At a press conference on Monday afternoon, DeWine said he was encouraged by the take-up rate for the lottery, which is open only to those over 18 who can prove they are at least partially vaccinated before each prize draw. The first draw is on Wednesday.In addition to the adult cash draw, DeWine said 104,386 younger Ohioans aged 12 to 17 had registered for a chance to win a four-year full college scholarship.“Where we’ve seen the biggest increase is those 16 and 17 years of age,” DeWine told reporters.“One assumes that they’re very interested in getting that scholarship, they’re looking at college coming up and they’re looking to see if they can get in.”After the lottery was announced on 12 May, the number of vaccines administered in Ohio jumped by 33%. In that time, DeWine said, vaccine take-up by 16 and 17-year-olds had increased by 94%, by 46% for 18- and 19-year-olds and by 55% for those aged 20 to 55.In all, 2,758,470 of the 5.17 million eligible adults had begun the process of receiving the vaccine and registering for the draw, he added.“We’re more than happy with the results. This was just so important to our future as a state, our immediate future and our long-term future. Having more people vaccinated really allows us to get back to normal.”State representative Jena Powell, meanwhile, said she would introduce legislation to end the lottery to the Ohio house this week. She wants the money used for other initiatives such as small business recovery grants and mental health services for children.“The vaccine lottery is a frivolous use of taxpayer dollars. They have the ability to take the vaccine if they want but we shouldn’t be putting $5m of taxpayer money to [it],” she told 2News of Dayton.“I have to look at the whole picture and I know you’ve had a difficult year but we can’t make the future more difficult.” More

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      in World Politics

      Why Is Somalia’s Political Crisis So Difficult to Solve?

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      There seems to be no end in sight for the political crisis in Somalia. On February 8, the mandate of President Muhammad Abdullahi Muhammad, commonly known as Farmajo, expired without a date set for either parliamentary or presidential elections. The protests called by the opposition Council of the Presidential Candidates in the following days were met with growing repression from government forces. In April, Farmajo extended his already overdue term by a further two years, igniting violence between the security forces and anti-government militias in the streets of the capital Mogadishu.

      In response, the international community, and the US in particular, increased pressure on Somali actors to come to an agreement, causing the states of Hirshabelle, Galmudug and South West to withdraw their support for Farmajo and call for new elections. Lacking international and domestic support, on May 1, Farmajo backtracked on his extended mandate and paved the way to new elections.

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      Despite optimism around recent advances, Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, who is in charge of organizing the elections, has a complicated task ahead. Armed confrontation created further distrust between political actors, and violence could easily flare up again in the run-up to the elections. Underlying constitutional, economic and international factors continue to drive this power struggle that is undermining Somalia’s already troubled state-building efforts.

      Federal Tensions

      On September 17, 2020, the federal government and the presidents of the member states agreed on amendments to the electoral process under pressure from the UN mission to Somalia, AMISOM. The agreement fell short of implementation, raising tensions between Mogadishu and the states of Puntland and Jubaland that staunchly oppose federal rule.

      There are three contentious issues on the table. The presidents of Puntland and Jubaland, Said Abdullahi Deni and Ahmed Islam Madobe, accused President Farmajo of staffing federal and state electoral commissions with his loyalists, thereby undermining their expected neutrality. Somaliland is yet another stumbling block on the path to elections. Despite its de facto independence, the transitional constitution still assigns 57 parliamentary seats (46 in the lower and 11 in the upper house) to the region. Those seats could be decisive for the election result, so Farmajo wants the federal government to appoint Somaliland MPs, whereas Puntland and Jubaland want the chairpersons of the houses to manage the selection.

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      Finally, the issue of the district of Gedo has created a deep rift between the parties. Formally, in the state of Jubaland, government forces launched a military operation in February-March 2020 to occupy the region, which is dominated by President Farmajo’s Marehan sub-clan, sparking tensions between Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. If elections took place at this stage, Farmajo could secure the appointment of loyal MPs from the Gedo district; Jubaland’s Madobe and his allies reject this scenario.

      Behind these flashpoints, however, there are two divergent visions of Somalia’s state-building. President Farmajo envisages the return to a pre-1991 centralized state with himself in the top job. On the other side of the rift, federal member states, specifically Puntland and Jubaland, want to safeguard their far-reaching autonomy within a decentralized Somali state and, therefore, reject Farmajo’s centralization project. Such fear has grown after the president managed to install his allies at the head of the states of Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West during his tenure. On top of that, the unprecedented reelection of an incumbent could strain the balance of power between the major clans which, until now, have informally rotated the top positions of Somali federal institutions.

      Growing Stakes

      Somalia has faced similar impasses among its elites in the past. Yet this crisis is proving more difficult to solve. One reason for this is economic. Thanks to the 2012 constitutional pact and AMISOM stabilization efforts, federal institutions are no longer powerless and can tap into the economic activities that have sprung up in recent years, especially in Mogadishu. This is consolidating clan-based patronage networks in what Transparency International considers the most corrupt country of the world along with South Sudan. Consequently, the federal government has become a relevant actor in Somalia’s political economy, raising the stakes over its control.

      The most notable of these activities is the housing boom. In 2015, Mogadishu ranked second among the world’s fastest-growing cities as members of the Somali diaspora and wealthy locals built new properties in and around the capital. As there is no land tenure registry, affluent people often bribe public officials to obtain property rights and forcibly evict residents. This phenomenon has also driven severe tensions between public authorities and the local population, especially internally displaced persons.

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      The oil and gas sector represents the most lucrative opportunity in sight for the Somali rent-seeking elites. Seen as promising by experts, the sector has been reorganized in recent years under the Ministry of Petroleum and the Somali Petroleum Agency and, after the delays due to COVID-19, the first bidding round is about to end. Despite the so-called petroleum law on the distribution of revenues and powers, some outstanding issues remain on the table and the current crisis might catalyze them. Consequently, the oil and gas sector might become another key arena of competition between the federal government and member states in the coming years.

      Some relevant economic opportunities for the government also arrive from abroad. China, for example, showed its interest in Somalia given its strategic location along the Maritime Silk Road and, in turn, the Farmajo administration officialy joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2018. With the move, Somali authorities hope to attract investments in the country’s infrastructure. So far, the most visible result of the China-Somali cooperation is the fishing agreement through which Mogadishu granted fishing rights in Somali waters to a group of Chinese fishing companies in exchange for a $35,000 annual fee from each. This agreement, however, risks to upset the fragile livelihood of low-income fishing communities along the Somali coast.

      Neighborly View

      While cooperation with China has future potential, Turkey has been Mogadishu’s strongest partner for the last decade, with partnerships spanning across all sectors, from humanitarian aid to military training. Critically, Ankara has helped the government to train Somali special forces and build major infrastructural projects, like the Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu. The Turkish Albayrak Group will soon manage the capital’s seaport and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is even planning to build a spaceport for the Turkish space program on Somali territory, with an estimated investment of $350 million.

      Given its extensive influence within Somalia, Turkey proposed itself as a mediator in the current crisis, with Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu conducting shuttle diplomacy in support of the September agreement. Another Farmajo ally hesitant to take sides is Ethiopia. Despite Abiy Ahmed’s embedded alliance with Farmajo, the Ethiopian prime minister is probably aware that a direct endorsement could prove counterproductive to both the Somali president and to himself as a promoter of regional stability. On top of that, according to International Crisis Group Somalia analyst Omar Muhammad, Ethiopia is busy coping with its multiple domestic crises.

      Embed from Getty Images

      During his years in office, President Farmajo has built strong ties not only with Ankara and Addis Ababa, but also with Doha. After receiving funds from Qatar and refusing to take sides in the Gulf standoff, Farmajo deepened development cooperation with Doha and offered a concession for the Port of Hobyo to the Qatari operator, Mwani, in 2019. This is the reason why Qatar has long backed the Somali president in the current dispute.

      However, as Farmajo’s chances of staying in power are narrowing, Doha is pulling its support and looking for new candidates to back. On the other hand, in reaction to Farmajo’s pro-Qatar stance, the UAE put its weight behind the presidents of Puntland and Jubaland over the past years by providing humanitarian aid, security cooperation and investments in the ports of Bossaso and Kismayo. Abu Dhabi was also the only country openly labeling Farmajo an interim president, a statement that attracted harsh criticism from the Somali government.

      Regardless of diplomatic positioning, the economic and political support provided over the years by external powers has contributed to the current crisis. Investments increased stakes in government positions, strengthened the role of the president and his regional foes, and eventually reduced their willingness to compromise. Electoral commissions, Somaliland delegates and Gedo district remain the core stumbling blocks in the rift between Somali political actors, colliding against divergent visions of governance.

      In the background, the terrorist group al-Shabaab, already in control of around two-thirds of the country, scaled up its bombing campaign at the beginning of the electoral cycle last summer. The international community has spearheaded an important step toward elections and now has to shore up a peaceful path to elections with the help of Somali leaders. Without this crucial support, al-Shabaab is likely to take full advantage of the impasse and further complicate the country’s fragile state-building project.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

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

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      Beto O’Rourke considering run for Texas governor

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      Three years after becoming the Democrats’ breakout star in Texas and a year after a short-lived presidential run, Beto O’Rourke is weighing a campaign for governor.But amid considerable noise about the intentions of the actor Matthew McConaughey, whose political affiliations are unknown but whose ambitions are coming into focus, O’Rourke is staying quiet. The former congressman says he hasn’t ruled out anything, but isn’t saying much else.Texas Democrats are itching for an answer.“Impatience is not the word for it,” the party chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, said. “But anxious is.”A top aide to O’Rourke said the 48-year-old had not ruled out challenging the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, in 2022 – but has taken no formal steps.If O’Rourke jumped in, it would be his third straight election cycle, following his narrow loss for US Senate against Ted Cruz in 2018 and the failed White House run.A comeback could be complicated by liberal positions taken while seeking the presidency but no other Democrat would enter the governor’s race with the same ability to quickly raise massive campaign funds.There is no timeline on a decision, according to the aide, who said O’Rourke had recently finished teaching virtual classes at two Texas universities. For one he led a seminar on voting rights – as state lawmakers are set to approve a bill that would restrict polling hours and reduce options to cast a ballot.Texas is the last big battleground in a Republican campaign for voting restrictions, driven by Donald Trump’s false claims that the presidential election was stolen.O’Rourke has remained an out-front presence, following the coronavirus pandemic and February’s catastrophic freeze and blackouts that killed more than 150 people in Texas. He hasn’t let up on Abbott, who is expected to seek a third term.“These jokers can’t even keep the lights on, or the heat on, or the water on when the temperature drops. Now they want to take away our election?” O’Rourke told protesters this month at the Texas capitol.Nonetheless this is a dark moment for Texas Democrats after expectations of a 2020 breakthrough flopped. Republicans responded by muscling through measures over guns, abortion and teaching that Democrats are all but powerless to stop.Any Democrat running for governor faces long odds against the well-funded Abbott, and perhaps McConaughey. Still, O’Rourke went from virtual unknown to nearly upsetting Cruz in 2018, and relishes the role of underdog.Hinojosa said he encouraged him to consider running for governor. He said the hole at the top of the ticket is keeping others sidelined.“I told him that I thought that we needed a strong candidate for governor and he certainly fit that mold, and that, in my opinion, if anybody could beat Abbott, he could beat him,” Hinojosa said.Republicans are looking to extend their territory along the Mexico border, a Democratic stronghold that swung heavily to Trump in November. In Webb county, which includes Laredo, Sylvia Bruni, the Democratic chairwoman, said she hoped O’Rourke would run but his presidential bid could hurt his chances.O’Rourke remade his campaign after a mass shooting in his hometown of El Paso in August 2019 and made a full-throated call on national TV, saying: “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.”That kind of comment isn’t forgotten easily in Laredo, which Bruni describes tongue-in-cheek as an area where “your guns are more important than your wife”.But “no one else has surfaced”, she said. “I haven’t seen anyone out there.” More

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      in World Politics

      Biden Invests His Capital in Israel

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      Though the stale expression “political capital” has become a handy item in every pundit’s vocabulary, there was a time when the financial metaphor would have seemed jarring and paradoxical in the context of democracy. Its popularity today reflects a disturbing trend in the reasoning that governs democratic decision-making. The traditional focus on ensuring the general welfare and responding to the will of the people has been replaced by a process of cold calculation we associate with the world of finance and investment. Politics is no longer about governing. It is exclusively about winning elections, accumulating capital and living off the spoils of victory.

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      Living metaphors play on comparison between two disparate orders of reality. Dead metaphors fester in their own world as meaningless rhetorical artifacts. Attempting to analyze US President Joe Biden’s strategy of refusing to comment on Israel’s disproportionately violent campaign of “self-defense,” New York Times journalists Annie Karni and David E. Sanger propose this explanation: “Mr. Biden’s tactic was to avoid public condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Gaza — or even a public call for a cease-fire — in order to build up capital with Mr. Netanyahu and then exert pressure in private when the time came.” In this case, the metaphor is so definitively dead the authors don’t bother with the epithet “political” and simply call it “capital.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Political capital:

      According to the New York Times, the advantage one hopes to obtain from offering a gift to someone known to be selfish, greedy and disrespectful

      Contextual Note

      US media have made a major effort in recent days to make sense of the strategic logic behind Biden’s behavior at the height of the crisis that some now believe has been resolved by a ceasefire. Of course, nothing at all has been resolved, even if the fireworks have come to a provisional halt. The media, as usual, focus on identifying winners and losers. They present a scorecard and retrospectively imagine the strategy that governed the play of the actors. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Western media continue to view what is clearly a deep, complex and enduring historical crisis not for what it is, but as a game being played by leaders on both sides seeking to reinforce their image and consolidate political capital with their base. In this reading, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim was to cling to power after losing an election. The adversary, Hamas, reacted with the sole motivation of reaffirming its position as the most resolute defender of the Palestinian cause, all for the sake of obtaining electoral advantage both in Gaza and the West Bank. The analysis contains a grain of truth but appeared more as a random factor in a much bigger geopolitical drama than as the basis of a serious account of the events.

      What journalists call political capital today was once expressed by the notion of “goodwill,” a term borrowed from business vocabulary that includes the idea of customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty. Like so much else in the English language, goodwill itself has been transformed by the trend to financialize our thinking about everything under the sun.

      The authoritative Shorter Oxford Dictionary (SOD) gives this primary definition of goodwill: “Virtuous, pious, upright position or intention.” Investopedia begins with this definition: “Goodwill is an intangible asset that is associated with the purchase of one company by another.” The SOD does include another definition of goodwill in use as early as 1571: “the possession of a ready-formed connexion of customers” used to evaluate “the saleable value of a business.” Investopedia sees goodwill as an asset before citing its virtuous status in the eyes of customers. The SOD puts virtue first, customers second and “saleable value” (= asset) last. Goodwill began its history as a virtue and ended up as a proprietary asset.

      Historical Note

      Political capital has definitely replaced political goodwill as an operational concept in modern political thinking. Kenya may be the last English-speaking country to continue to use the metaphor of political goodwill in preference to capital. In an editorial dated May 15, 2020, the Times of San Diego referred to goodwill as something real but now associated with the historical past. “It was not so long ago that we experienced a time of goodwill in our national political life, with Jimmy Carter promising never to lie… Now all that has changed,” adding, “we have lost what had been an open window to the fresh air that characterized the late 1970s.”

      There are two related semantic principles underlying this historical shift that reveal a lot about how society itself has changed, precisely in the decade that followed Carter’s presidency. The first concerns the shift in social culture itself from an ability to focus on collective interest that has been replaced by a narcissistic obsession with individual competitive advantage. The second concerns the trend toward the financialization of all human activities and attributes.

      The 1980s witnessed the triumph of the transformative Thatcher-Reagan ideological coalition. The ideas associated with government “of the people, by the people and for the people” found themselves suddenly radically subordinated to theoretical principles purportedly derived from the logic of free market capitalism. The idea of goodwill has always had a collective connotation. It was never about an asset or property, but a state of mind shared by the public. In 2007, Robert Kuttner in The New York Times complained that George W. Bush’s warmongering “squandered the global goodwill that has long been the necessary complement to America’s military might.” Goodwill was an asset shared by the nation and its people.

      Kuttner correctly noted that Bush’s Middle East adventures both broke the solidarity of goodwill and squandered its value as a collective asset. In 2004, Chris Sullentrop, writing for Slate, noticed how, at the same time goodwill was disappearing from the media’s vocabulary, Bush himself relentlessly insisted on the idea of political capital. “Now the most common usage of ‘political capital,’” according to Sullentrop, “means the power that popularity confers on a politician, or something like that. ‘Political capital’ is shaping up to be the first buzzword of the second Bush administration.”

      Sullentrop cites multiple examples in Bush’s discourse. In 2001, the president, newly elected (by the Supreme Court), explained: “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” Really? Is spending one’s public reputation — to say nothing of blood and treasure in the Middle East — a feature of presidential style? When Time magazine asked Bush, “What did you learn about being president from watching your father?” he answered, “I learned how to earn political capital and how to spend it.” There are many other examples. If for Americans “time is money,” for post-Reagan Americans, goodwill (earned or unearned) is also money.

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      In 2008, Barack Obama insisted that he was on a mission to restore America’s goodwill. But after eight years of Bush, the very idea of goodwill had lost all its ancient connotations of being “virtuous” and “upright.” It was now reduced to the simplistic idea of marketing the nation’s image to the rest of the world. By continuing most of Bush’s policies, from maintaining his tax breaks for the rich to prosecuting Bush’s wars and even expanding them to new regions, Obama’s efforts at creating goodwill could only remain superficial and cosmetic. That bothered no one in Washington, since the reigning ideology, formerly focused on seeking politically coherent solutions to complex problems, had converted to an ideology based on the newly adored laws of branding and marketing.

      Some saw Donald Trump’s triumph in 2016, built around his guiding principle, “America First,” as a shift away from even the need to spread goodwill. In reality, his hyper-narcissistic ideology was an extension of the same trend that had replaced the notion of virtuous action by that of accumulated assets.

      And what about Joe Biden’s plan to order to “build up capital with Mr. Netanyahu and then exert pressure in private when the time came”? It sounds like a joke. Playing the accomplice to someone else’s criminal actions cannot produce political capital. Al Jazeera quotes Nader Hashemi, a Middle East expert at the University of Denver: “[T]he more Israel is coddled, supported, sustained, the more belligerent and intransigent Israel becomes to making any concessions.” Bibi Netanyahu is not done with managing America’s foreign policy.

      *[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

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      in US Politics

      Liz Cheney won’t link Trump’s election lies to restrictive Republican voting laws

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      The Republican pariah Liz Cheney has repeatedly refused to admit a link between Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud and restrictive voting laws being introduced in Republican states, telling an interviewer on Sunday night she will “never understand the resistance to voter ID”.“There’s a big difference between that and a president of the United States who loses an election after he tried to steal the election and refuses to concede,” said the Wyoming representative ejected from party leadership for opposing the former president.Laws tightening regulations on voter ID, voting by mail and even giving water to those waiting on line to vote have been passed or are close to passage in states from Georgia to Texas and beyond.Because of their disproportionate impact on minority voters – many of whom vote Democratic – Democrats including Joe Biden have compared such laws to Jim Crow segregation in southern states from the civil war to the civil rights era.Most in a Republican party under Trump’s grip reject such claims. Cheney has ranged herself against Trump but when pressured by Axios on HBO interviewer Jonathan Swan, she stayed in lockstep with her party.To Cheney’s remark about resistance to voter ID laws, Swan countered: “Even the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, said … when this bill was started that the momentum was when Rudy Giuliani was testifying that the Georgia election was a sham.”Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, pursued the electoral fraud lie through an array of cases in states won by Biden, the vast majority thrown out of court.“Four hundred-some voting bills have been introduced,” Swan said, “90% by Republicans, supported by the Republican National Committee. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after the election, this has happened.”Cheney said: “I think everybody should want a situation and a system where people who want to vote and ought to have the right to vote, vote, and people that don’t shouldn’t. And again I come back to things like voter ID.”Actual instances of voter fraud or attempted voter fraud are few and far between. Some involve Trump voters. Nonetheless, state Republican parties have pursued strict laws while in Arizona the GOP has gone so far as to conduct a highly controversial recount in the most populous county.“But what problems are [these laws] solving?” Swan asked. “What are all these states doing?”“Well,” said Cheney, “each state is different.”Swan asked what the problem was in Georgia, or Texas, or Florida.“I think you’ve got to look at each individual state law,” Cheney said.Swan said: “But you can’t divorce them from the context. Come on.”Cheney said: “But I think what we can all agree on is that what is happening right now is really dangerous.”Swan said: “I can agree with that.”Cheney switched back to her preferred subject – Trump’s refusal to concede defeat, which led to the deadly attack on the Capitol by his supporters on 6 January, over which more than 400 people have been charged, while Republicans in Congress oppose a 9/11-style investigation.“I think about 2000,” said the daughter of Dick Cheney, who became vice-president to George W Bush after a tight election that year.“I think about sitting on the inaugural platform in January of 2001 watching Al Gore. We’d won. I’m sure he didn’t think he had lost. We had fought this politically very, very intense battle. And he conceded. He did the right thing for this nation.“And that is one of the big differences between that and what we’re dealing with now and the danger of Donald Trump today.” More

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      Police records show threats to kill lawmakers in wake of Capitol attack

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      Washington’s Metropolitan police department recorded threats to lawmakers and public facilities in the wake of the 6 January attack on the Capitol, according to documents made public in a ransomware hack on their systems this month.The documents also show how, in the month following the Capitol attack, police stepped up surveillance efforts, monitoring hotel bookings, protests in other jurisdictions, and social media for signs of another attack by far-right groups on targets in the capital, including events surrounding the inauguration of Joe Biden as president.The revelation of the seriousness of the threats comes amid Republican opposition to forming a 9/11-style commission to investigate the January attack, which saw the Capitol roamed by looting mobs hunting for politicians and involved the deaths of five people.The police documents were stolen and published by the ransomware attack group Babuk, and some were redistributed by the transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets, from whom they were obtained by the Guardian. Various outlets last week published stories based on the data showing intelligence indicating that far-right Boogaloo groups planned to attack various targets in the capital.But another collection of documents labeled “chiefs intelligence briefings” shows a broad, cross-agency effort in the days following the attack on the Capitol to identify suspects, monitor and apprehend far-right actors, and anticipate further attacks on Washington around events like the inauguration of Joe Biden and the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.In the aftermath of the riot, the attention of police and other law enforcement agencies was focused on far-right activity on social media platforms, and especially on a group calling itself Patriot Action for America.One 13 January bulletin said that the group had been “calling for others to join them in ‘storming’ state, local, and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event POTUS is removed as president prior to inauguration day”.The bulletin also noted that the agency was facing broader challenges in monitoring far-right actors on social media websites, saying that “with the shutdown of Parler it has been a challenge to track down how activities are being planned”, and that they continued to “see more users on Gab and Telegram following the de-platforming of many accounts on more conventional social media companies”.The bulletin mentions a “possible second suspect” in the placement of pipe bombs near the DNC and RNC, who was “observed on video scouting/taking photographs in advance of the placement”, who “took a metro to the East Falls church stop and took a Lyft from there”.On 12 January, a bulletin noted that a supreme court agent had noticed “two vehicles stopped beside each other” outside the court building, and that in one an older white male was “videotaping the Capitol fence line and the court”, and in the other a passenger was “hanging out the window in order to videotape the court”.A 22 January bulletin mentions that in Pennsylvania a man was arrested after “transmitting interstate threats to multiple US senators of the Democratic party”, having stated that he was “going to DC to kill people and wanted to be killed by the police”. When Pennsylvania state police apprehended him “he was in possession of a rifle, two handguns, and a large quantity of ammunition”.A later bulletin described an incident in which a man with an illegal firearm was arrested after asking for directions to the “Oval Office”, and another man’s van was searched after he was observed sitting in the vehicle while parked outside the supreme court justice Sonya Sotomayor’s house.The same day’s bulletin mentioned that Metropolitan police were cooperating with Capitol police in investigating “a number of threats aimed at members of Congress as the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump nears”.The threats continued for weeks after the attack.Almost a month later, a bulletin reported that “an identified militia group member” in Texas was claiming that if their “operation failed at the US Capitol”, there was a “back-up plan” involving the group “detonating bombs at the US Capitol during the State of the Union”.The group was not named but was described as “a large organization allegedly with members from every state, which included individuals who were former military and law enforcement”.The documents also reveal how law enforcement agencies secured the cooperation of private companies, from ride-share companies to hotels.A bulletin includes the claim that “FBI [is] working with Lyft and Uber to identify riders to and from the protest locations”.The same bulletin carries detailed figures on reservations in hotels across the capital leading up to the inauguration on 20 January, which was secured by an unprecedented mobilization of law enforcement and the national guard.Two days later, another bulletin said that “MPD’s intelligence division has conducted extensive outreach with security directors of area hotels”, who they asked to be “vigilant for evidence of suspicious activity and firearms possession by hotel guests”. 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      Lock him up! Why is repeat offender Donald Trump still a free man?

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      A sudden fall from power always comes hard. King Alfred was reduced to skulking in a Somerset bog. A distraught Napoleon talked to coffee bushes on St Helena. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia hung around the haberdashery department of Jolly’s in Bath. Uganda’s Idi Amin plotted bloody revenge from a Novotel in Jeddah. Only Alfred the Great made a successful comeback.All of which brings us to Donald Trump, currently in exile at his luxury club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Whingeing amid the manicured greens and bunkers of his exclusive golf course, the defeated president recalls an ageing Bonnie Prince Charlie – a sort of “king over the water” with water features. Like deposed leaders throughout history, he obsesses about a return to power.Yet as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell moves to kill off a 9/11-style national commission to investigate the 6 January Capitol Hill insurrection, the pressing question is not whether Trump can maintain cult-like sway over Republicans, or even whether he will run again in 2024. The question that should most concern Americans who care about democracy is: why isn’t Trump in jail?The fact he is not, and has not been charged with anything, is a genuine puzzle – some might say a scandal, even a conspiracy. Trump’s actual and potential criminal rap sheet long predates the Capitol siege. It includes alleged abuses of power, obstruction of justice, fraud, tax evasion, Russian money-laundering, election tampering, conflicts of interest, hush-money bribes, assassination – and a lot of lies.Let’s take these allegations one at a time. District of Columbia investigators say they have charged 410 people over the Capitol breach. Some could be tried for plotting to overthrow the US government – a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison – or even for murder, given that five people died. Yet Trump, who urged supporters at a Washington rally that day to “fight like hell” to stop Congress certifying his election loss, is not among them. He has not even been questioned over his indisputably pivotal role.For sure, Trump was impeached – but he declined to appear before Congress, and Republican toadies made a mockery of the process, voting to acquit him of inciting insurrection. In March, DC attorney Michael Sherwin said federal investigations involving Trump are still under way. “Maybe the president is culpable,” he mused. But updates about this key aspect of the affair are unaccountably lacking.Letitia James, New York’s attorney-general, last week confirmed a criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Trump’s business empire. This inquiry is running in tandem with another criminal investigation into the Trump Organisation by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance. Alleged false accounting and tax irregularities appear to be the main focus.Yet these long-running investigations lack tangible results. Nor do they appear to be examining potentially more politically illuminating allegations such as Trump’s dealings with Vladimir Putin and Russia’s oligarchs, money-laundering via the New York property market, and the past role of disgraced Deutsche Bank. While claiming it’s all a “witch-hunt”, Trump may be happy for these limited inquiries to drag on indefinitely.Why, meanwhile, has Trump not already been arraigned on charges of obstruction of justice and abuse of power? Exactly two years ago, special counsel Robert Mueller cited 10 instances of the then president allegedly obstructing investigations into collusion between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. They included his firing of the FBI director, James Comey, and an attempt to sack Mueller himself.Mueller plainly indicated there was a case to answer, but said he was unable to bring indictments. “A president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office,” he said. Even if that is legally correct, Trump is no longer in office. Merrick Garland, William Barr’s thankfully less Uriah Heep-ish successor as attorney-general, should be all over this. Why isn’t he?Trump’s well-attested attempts to induce Georgia state officials to manipulate November’s election count in his favour were a crime, Fulton County prosecutors suggest. If so, why the delay? Charge him! Add to the rap sheet allegations of the ex-president corruptly channelling US taxpayer and foreign funds into his hotel and resort businesses.Trump, who promised to ‘drain the swamp’, waddled knee-deep in sleaze. So charge him!“Special interest groups likely spent more than $13 million at Trump properties” in order to gain access and influence, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an independent watchdog, reports. This typified an administration “marked by self-interest, profiteering at the highest levels, and more than 3,700 conflicts of interest”.In short, Trump, who promised to “drain the swamp”, waddled knee-deep in sleaze. So investigate and charge him!Trump has much to answer for internationally, too. The UN says the assassination he ordered last year, without just cause, of an Iranian general, Qassem Suleimani, was an unlawful act – possibly a war crime. And if all that is not enough, then consider – from a moral if not a legal standpoint – the thousands of avoidable Covid-19 deaths attributable to Trump’s denialism, stupidity and reckless incompetence.It’s truly strange that in a land of laws, Trump still walks free, strutting around his fancy-pants golf course, holding $250,000 a head fundraisers, evading justice, encouraging sedition, and daily blogging divisive bile about a stolen election. The Big Kahuna peddles the Big Lie. What other self-respecting country would allow it?The dismaying answer may be that to lock him up – the fate he wished on Hillary Clinton – would be to risk another insurrection. That’s the last thing Joe Biden and America’s wobbly democracy needs. But letting him get away with it harms democracy, too. In office, Trump ruled by lawlessness and fear. In exile, fear keeps him beyond the reach of the law. More

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      Workers matter and government works: eight lessons from the Covid pandemic

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      Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned. So consider this a first draft.1. Workers are always essentialWe couldn’t have survived without millions of warehouse, delivery, grocery and hospital workers literally risking their lives. Yet most of these workers are paid squat. Amazon touts its $15 minimum wage but it totals only about $30,000 a year. Most essential workers don’t have health insurance or paid leave. Many of their employers (including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, to take but two examples) didn’t give them the personal protective equipment they needed.Lesson: Essential workers deserve far better.2. Healthcare is a basic rightYou know how you got your vaccine without paying a dime? That’s how all healthcare could be. Yet too many Americans who contracted Covid-19 got walloped with humongous hospital bills. By mid-2020, about 3.3 million people had lost employer-sponsored coverage and the number of uninsured had increased by 1.9 million. Research by the Urban Institute found that people with chronic disease, Black Americans and low-income children were most likely to have delayed or foregone care during the pandemic.Lesson: America must insure everyone.3. Conspiracy theories can be deadlyLast June, about one in four Americans believed the pandemic was “definitely” or “probably” created intentionally, according to the Pew Research Center. Other conspiracy theories have caused some people to avoid wearing masks or getting vaccinated, resulting in unnecessary illness or death.Lesson: An informed public is essential. Some of the responsibility falls on all of us. Some of it on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms that allowed misinformation to flourish.4. The stock market isn’t the economyThe stock market rose throughout the pandemic, lifting the wealth of the richest 1% who own half of all stock owned by Americans. Meanwhile, from March 2020 to February 2021 80 million in the US lost their jobs. Between June and November 2020, nearly 8 million fell into poverty. Black and Latino adults were more than twice as likely as white adults to report not having enough to eat: 16% each for Black and Latino adults, compared to 6% of white adults.Lesson: Stop using the stock market as a measure of economic wellbeing. Look instead at the percentage of Americans who are working, and their median pay.5. Wages are too low to get by onMost Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So once the pandemic hit, many didn’t have any savings to fall back on. Conservative lawmakers complain that the extra $300 a week unemployment benefit Congress enacted in March discourages people from working. What’s really discouraging them is lack of childcare and lousy wages.Lesson: Raise the minimum wage, strengthen labor unions and push companies to share profits with their workers.6. Remote work is now baked into the economyThe percentage of workers punching in from home hit a high of 70% in April 2020. A majority still work remotely. Some 40% want to continue working from home.Two lessons: Companies will have to adjust. And much commercial real estate will remain vacant. Why not convert it into affordable housing?7. Billionaires aren’t the answerThe combined wealth of America’s 657 billionaires grew by $1.3tn – or 44.6% – during the pandemic. Jeff Bezos, with $183.9bn, became the richest man in the world. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, added $11.8bn to his $94.3bn fortune. Sergey Brin, Google’s other co-founder, added $11.4bn. Yet billionaires’ taxes are lower than ever. Wealthy Americans today pay one-sixth the rate of taxes their counterparts paid in 1953.Lesson: To afford everything the nation needs, raise taxes at the top.8. Government can be the solutionRonald Reagan’s famous quip – “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” – can now officially be retired. Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” succeeded in readying vaccines faster than most experts thought possible. Biden got them into more arms more quickly than any vaccination program in history.Furthermore, the $900bn in aid Congress passed in late December prevented millions from losing unemployment benefits and helped sustain the recovery when it was faltering. The $1.9tn Democrats pushed through in March will help the US achieve something it failed to achieve after the 2008-09 recession: a robust recovery.Lesson: The federal government did not just help beat the pandemic. It also did more to keep the nation afloat than in any previous recession. It must be prepared to do so again. More