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      in US Politics

      Just the Job: Bill Murray biblical reading seeks to bridge US partisan divide

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      Against the backdrop of a pandemic and an acrimonious election, a group of acclaimed actors were on Sunday set to stage an online reading of an appropriate religious text: the Book of Job.Groundhog Day star Bill Murray was cast as Job, the righteous man tested by the loss of his health, home and children.Staged on Zoom, the reading was aimed at Knox county, a Republican-leaning area of Ohio, and designed to spark conversation across spiritual and political divides. The structure of a reading followed by dialogue is a fixture of Theater of War Productions, whose artistic director, Bryan Doerries, went to Kenyon College in Knox county.Theater of War held its first Job reading in Joplin, Missouri, a year after a tornado killed more than 160 there in 2011. The company has performed more than 1,700 readings worldwide, harnessing Greek drama and other resonant texts.By using Job’s story “as a vocabulary for a conversation, the hope is that we can actually engender connection, healing,” Doerries said. “People can hear each other’s truths even if they don’t agree with them.”The cast headlined by Murray featured other noted actors including Frankie Faison and David Strathairn. But Matthew Starr, mayor of the Knox county town of Mount Vernon, was cast as Job’s accuser. The Republican, a supporter of Donald Trump, said he hoped the event could lead to less shouting and more listening.“God does not say that bad things aren’t going to happen but he does tell us, when they do, we’re not alone,” Starr said. “That’s the hope for me, is that we get a chance to lean into our faith, we get a chance to lean into our neighbors, we get a chance to lean into each other, our family, a little bit more.”Knox county, a community of about 62,000, lies about an hour east of the Ohio state capital, Columbus. Most in the county work blue-collar manufacturing jobs. The county is 97% white and voted for Trump by nearly three to one. An exception is Kenyon College, a small liberal arts school outside Mount Vernon. Voters there and in the village of Gambier voted eight to one for Joe Biden.Marc Bragin, Jewish chaplain at Kenyon, said he hoped the reading would help people look beyond their differences. Pastor LJ Harry said he did not believe Knox county is as divided as other places in the US. The police chaplain and pastor at the Apostolic Church of Christ in Mount Vernon said most in the area were united in their support for Trump and for law enforcement.Harry said the biggest point of contention was over mask-wearing, with many resisting Republican governor Mike DeWine’s statewide mandate. He also likened Knox county’s need for healing to that of a patient who has left intensive care but remains in a step-down unit.Harry said the message he hoped people took from the Job reading was that “God has this in control, even though it feels like it’s out of control”.In the biblical tale, God uses Job’s losses to share broader truths about suffering. The story ends with the restoration of what was taken, and more.“Our hope is not that there’s going to be a group hug at the end of the thing,” Doerries said, “or that we’re going to resolve all our political differences, but that we can remind people of our basic humanity: what it requires to live up to basic values such as treating our neighbor as ourselves.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump press secretary appears to acknowledge Biden election victory

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      White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany appeared on Sunday to admit Donald Trump lost the presidential election, a concession the president refuses to make.In an interview on Fox News, McEnany discussed runoff elections in Georgia in January which will decide control of the Senate.“If we lose these two Senate seats,” she said, “guess who’s casting the deciding vote in this country for our government? It will be Kamala Harris.”Trump refuses to concede defeat by Joe Biden, despite losing the electoral college 306-232 and trailing in the popular vote by more than 7m.He is not alone: only 27 of 249 Republicans in Congress have acknowledged Biden’s victory, according to the Washington Post.But the Democrat will be inaugurated in Washington on 20 January and Harris, a senator from California, will become vice-president.Trump has filed lawsuits seeking to overturn results in a number of states, the vast majority of which he has lost.In Georgia, the president continues to demand that Governor Brian Kemp call a special session of the state legislature, to overturn Biden’s victory.Kemp and Republican officials including secretary of state Brad Raffensperger and lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan have refused to do so.On Fox News, McEnany discussed Trump campaign lawsuits in a number of states, including Georgia. But she focused on the Senate runoffs in the southern state.If Democrats defeat sitting Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue on 5 January, the Senate will be split 50-50. A casting vote from Vice-President Harris will therefore give Democrats a tenuous hold on the chamber to add to control of the House of Representatives and the White House.“What is paramount is Georgia,” McEnany said. “Right here, right now, making sure that we hold this branch of government.” More

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      in US Politics

      US health secretary insists Trump has detailed vaccine rollout plan

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      US health secretary Alex Azar has insisted the Trump administration does have a plan to distribute coronavirus vaccines, after President-elect Joe Biden said he had not seen a detailed blueprint.“With all respect, that’s just nonsense,” Azar told Fox News Sunday.Azar and other officials were pressed on the Covid-19 response as the US experiences its worst outbreak since the spring while preparing to distribute a vaccine.There were 2,254 new Covid deaths in the US on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University, making the full death toll 280,979 from nearly 14.6m cases. For the first time since the early days of the pandemic, the seven-day rolling average of deaths has passed 2,000.Healthcare systems are under increasing strain. From Sunday night, large parts of the most populous state, California, will enter a lockdown that will last past Christmas.On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will consider whether to to provide emergency use authorization for a vaccine developed by Pfizer. If it does, the first round is expected to be distributed in the following 24 hours.In the first phase of distribution, vaccines will be allocated to 21 million healthcare workers and 3 million residents and staff of long-term care facilities, following guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week. Health officials estimate 40 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will be distributed by the end of December.On Friday, Biden said his team had been in touch with the Trump administration about the vaccine rollout.“There is no detailed plan, that we’ve seen anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody’s arm,” Biden said.Azar said the distribution plan was being run by the military and private sector and would use retail pharmacies, public health departments and community health centers.Dr Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific officer of the administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, told CBS’s Face the Nation he would meet Biden this week.“We really look forward to it, because actually things have been really very appropriately planned,” Slaoui said, adding that “confusion” may have arisen because the government’s plan relies on state health agencies.“I think the plans are there, and I feel confident that once we will explain it, everything in detail, I hope the new transition team will understand,” he said.Asked if Trump’s skepticism about masks and repeated downplaying of the pandemic had exacerbated its effects, Azar said the spike in cases was about behavior.“We need people to renew their commitment,” he said.On ABC’s This Week, Azar insisted the Trump administration supports masks – even after the president held a rally on Saturday night in Georgia where people mostly did not wear them. Host George Stephanopoulos also asked about the White House planning large holiday parties with up to 900 guests.“Our advice remains the same in any context, which is wash your hands, watch your distance, wear face coverings when you can’t watch your distance and be careful of those indoor settings,” Azar said.On NBC’s Meet the Press, another member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, Deborah Birx, was questioned about the contradictions between Trump’s actions and comments and public health guidance.“I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don’t work, parroting back that we should work towards herd immunity, parroting back that gatherings don’t result in super-spreading events,” Birx said. “And I think our job is to constantly say those are myths.”Asked about the holiday parties, Birx underlined that being indoors without a mask presents an opportunity to spread the virus.“You cannot gather without masks in any indoor or close outdoor situation,” she said.Birx warned that Americans must follow Covid-19 guidelines to prevent hospital overcrowding and to limit the spread of the virus, even with a vaccine on the way.“The vaccine is critical, but it’s not going to save us from this current surge,” Birx said. “Only we can save us from this current surge.”Slaoui said the most susceptible populations should see the effect of the vaccine in January or February. “But on a population basis, for our lives to start getting back to normal, we’re talking about April or May,” he told CBS.In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Slaoui endorsed Biden’s plan to require Americans to wear a mask for the first 100 days after he is inaugurated on 20 January.“I think it’s a good idea – it’s never too late,” Slaoui said. “This pandemic is ravaging the country.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump's attacks on election integrity 'disgust me', says senior Georgia Republican

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      Donald Trump’s attacks on Republican officials in Georgia and insistence his defeat by Joe Biden must be overturned are disgusting, the Republican lieutenant governor of the southern state said on Sunday.
      “It’s not American,” Geoff Duncan told CNN’s State of the Union. “It’s not what democracy is all about. But it’s reality right now.”
      The president staged a rally in Valdosta, Georgia on Saturday night. He began his speech, which lasted more than 90 minutes, by falsely claiming he won the state, which in fact he lost by around 12,000 votes in a result certified by Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger more than two weeks ago.
      “They cheated and they rigged our presidential election, but we will still win it,” Trump falsely insisted. “And they’re going to try and rig this [Senate] election too.”
      Two Georgia Republicans face 5 January runoffs which will decide control of the Senate. On Sunday evening, Kelly Loeffler will debate Rev Raphael Warnock, her Democratic challenger. Amid controversy over stock trades made by both Republicans during the Covid-19 pandemic, David Perdue has declined to debate his challenger, Jon Ossoff.
      In Valdosta, the president invited Perdue and Loeffler on to the stage. Neither reiterated his baseless claims about election fraud, Perdue coming closest by saying: “We’re going to fight and win those seats and make sure you get a fair and square deal in Georgia.”
      As Perdue spoke, the crowd chanted: “Fight for Trump!”
      Some suggest Trump’s assault on the presidential election could depress Republican turnout.
      “I think the rally last night was kind of a two-part message,” Duncan told CNN. “The first part was very encouraging to listen to the president champion the conservative strategies of Senators Loeffler and Perdue, and the importance of them being re-elected.
      “The second message was concerning to me. I worry that … fanning the flames around misinformation puts us in a negative position with regards to the 5 January runoff. The mountains of misinformation are not helping the process. They’re only hurting it.”
      CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Duncan: “At a certain point, does this disgust you?”
      “Oh, absolutely it disgusts me,” Duncan said.
      In Valdosta, Trump read from a prepared list of nonsensical evidence he said highlighted his victory. This included arguing that by winning Ohio and Florida he had in fact won the entire election, and also that winning an uncontested Republican primary was proof he beat Biden in November.
      Trump lost the electoral college 306-232 and trails in the popular vote by more than 7m. His campaign has launched legal challenges in various states. The majority have been rejected or dropped. The campaign filed a new lawsuit in Georgia on Friday.
      Trump vented fury at Republican governor Brian Kemp, a one-time ally who he called from the White House on Saturday to demand the Georgia result be overturned.
      “Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing,” Trump told supporters, adding: “For whatever reason your secretary of state and your governor are afraid of Stacey Abrams.”
      Abrams, a staunch voting rights advocate who Kemp beat for governor in 2018, helped drive turnout and secure the state for Biden, the first Democrat to win it since 1992.
      On Sunday, Duncan was asked if Kemp would do as Trump asks, and call a special session of the state general assembly to appoint its own electors for Trump, a demand one critic called “shockingly undemocratic”.
      “I absolutely believe that to be the case that the governor is not going to call us into a special session,” Duncan said.
      In an angry intervention earlier this week, Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling said of Trump’s attacks on Kemp, Raffensperger and other Republicans: “Someone’s gonna get hurt, someone’s gonna get shot. Someone’s gonna get killed. And it’s not right. It has all gone too far.”
      Duncan said “we’ve all all of us … got increased security around us and our families [but] we’re going to continue to do our jobs. Governor Kemp, Brad Raffensperger and myself, all three voted and campaigned for the president, but unfortunately he didn’t win the state of Georgia.”
      Duncan sidestepped a question about the wisdom of holding a rally where many attendees did not wear masks, as coronavirus cases surge. But he did call Biden’s request that Americans to wear masks for 100 days “absolutely a great step in the right direction”.
      On Saturday, the Washington Post found only 27 of 249 congressional Republicans were willing to acknowledge Biden’s victory. Duncan did so.
      “On 20 January Joe Biden’s going to be sworn in as the 46th president and the constitution is still in place,” Duncan said. “This is still America … as the lieutenant governor and as a Georgian I’m proud that we’re able to look up after three recounts and be able to see that this election was fair.”
      Raffensperger told ABC’s This Week: “We don’t see anything that would overturn the will of the people here in Georgia.”
      It was “sad, but true”, he added, that Trump had lost.
      “I wish he would have won. I’m a conservative Republican and I’m disappointed but those are the results.”
      In Valdosta, Trump did seem at points to recognise the end is near. With reference to policy on Iran and China, he described “what we would have done in the next four years”. He also said that if he thought he had lost the election, he would be “a very gracious loser”.
      “I’d go to Florida,” he said. “I’d take it easy.” More

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      in Elections

      'If I lost, I'd be a very gracious loser': Trump pushes false fraud claims in Georgia – video

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      Donald Trump campaigned for two Republican senators in Georgia on Saturday, at a rally that some in the party feared could end up hurting their chances by focusing on his efforts to reverse his own election defeat. In his first rally appearance since he lost to Joe Biden, Trump repeated baseless claims of widespread fraud in the presidential election. The crucial January runoff will determine which party controls the Senate
      Trump rails against election result at rally ahead of crucial Georgia Senate runoff More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden's economic team beats Trump's goon squad – but it faces a steep challenge | Robert Reich

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      “It’s time we address the structural inequalities in our economy that the pandemic has laid bare,” President-elect Joe Biden said this week, as he introduced his economic team.It’s a good team. They’re competent and they care, in sharp contrast to Trump’s goon squad. Many of them were in the trenches with Biden and Barack Obama in 2009, when the economy last needed rescuing.But reversing “structural inequalities” is a fundamentally different challenge from reversing economic downturns. They may overlap – last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high at the same time Americans experienced the highest rate of hunger in 22 years. Yet the problem of widening inequality is distinct from the problem of recession.Recessions are caused by sudden drops in demand for goods and services, as occurred in February and March when the pandemic began. Pulling out of a recession usually requires low interest rates and enough government spending to jump-start private spending. This one will also necessitate the successful inoculation of millions against Covid-19.By contrast, structural inequalities are caused by a lopsided allocation of power. Wealth and power are inseparable – wealth flows from power and power from wealth. That means reversing structural inequalities requires altering the distribution of power.Franklin D Roosevelt did this in the 1930s, when he enacted legislation requiring employers to bargain with unionized employees. Lyndon Johnson did it in the 1960s with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, which increased the political power of Black people.Since then, though, not even Democratic presidents have tried to alter the distribution of power in America. They and their economic teams have focused instead on jobs and growth. In consequence, inequality has continued to widen – during both recessions and expansions.For the last 40 years, hourly wages have stagnated and almost all economic gains have gone to the top. The stock market’s meteoric rise has benefited the wealthy at the expense of wage earners. The richest 1% of US households now own 50% of the value of stocks held by Americans. The richest 10%, 92%.Why have recent Democratic presidents been reluctant to take on structural inequality?First, because they have taken office during deep recessions, which posed a more immediate challenge. The initial task facing Biden will be to restore jobs, requiring that his administration contain Covid-19 and get a major stimulus bill through Congress. Biden has said any stimulus bill passed in the lame-duck session will be “just the start”.Second, it’s because politicians’ time horizons rarely extend beyond the next election. Reallocating power can take years. Union membership didn’t expand significantly until more than a decade after FDR’s Wagner Act. Black voters didn’t emerge as a major force in American politics until a half-century after LBJ’s landmark legislation.Third, reallocating power is hugely difficult. Economic expansions can be a positive-sum game because growth enables those at the bottom to do somewhat better even if those at the top do far better. But power is a zero-sum game. The more of it held by those at the top, the less held by others. And those at the top won’t relinquish it without a fight. Both FDR and LBJ won at significant political cost.Today’s corporate leaders are happy to support stimulus bills, not because they give a fig about unemployment but because more jobs mean higher profits.“Is it $2.2tn, $1.5tn?” JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon said recently in support of congressional action. “Just split the baby and move on.”But Dimon and his ilk will doubtless continue to fight any encroachments on their power and wealth. They will battle antitrust enforcement against their giant corporations, including Dimon’s “too big to fail” bank. They’re dead set against stronger unions and will resist attempts to put workers on their boards.They will oppose substantial tax hikes to finance trillions of dollars of spending on education, infrastructure and a Green New Deal. And they don’t want campaign finance reforms or any other measures that would dampen the influence of big money in politics.Even if the Senate flips to the Democrats on 5 January, therefore, these three impediments may discourage Biden from tackling structural inequality.This doesn’t make the objective any less important or even less feasible. It means only that, as a practical matter, the responsibility for summoning the political will to reverse inequality will fall to lower-income Americans of whatever race, progressives and their political allies. They will need to organize, mobilize and put sufficient pressure on Biden and other elected leaders to act. As it was in the time of FDR and LBJ, power is redistributed only when those without it demand it. More

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      in US Politics

      Obama: Democrats need 'universal language' to appeal to moderate voters

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      Barack Obama has underlined his belief that Democrats should moderate campaign messaging in order to reach voters turned off by slogans including “Defund the Police”, telling a literary group: “If I spoke the language of James Baldwin as he speaks it on the campaign stump, I’m probably not gonna get a lot of votes in Iowa.”
      Baldwin, a leading 20th-century African American intellectual and the subject of the Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary I Am Not Your Negro, “didn’t have to go out and get votes”, Obama said in interview extracts released by PEN America, which will give the former president its 2020 Voice of Influence award next week.
      Obama also said he thinks there is an opportunity for more expansive racial dialogue in the US. But his remarks may add to controversy which welled up this week when he said candidates using “snappy” slogans such as Defund the Police risked alienating voters otherwise broadly sympathetic to liberal aims.
      Defund the Police became a rallying cry on the left this summer, amid national protests for racial justice following the killing by Minneapolis police of George Floyd, an African American man, and similar incidents in Atlanta, Kenosha and elsewhere.
      Some senior Democratic party figures, including South Carolina congressman James Clyburn, have claimed the call to Defund the Police contributed to disappointing results in Senate, House and state races.
      Obama is promoting A Promised Land, his memoir of his rise to the White House and first few years in office. Speaking to Snapchat this week, he added his voice to the chorus.
      “I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘Defund the Police’ but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it – which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done,” he said.
      “The key is deciding: do you want to actually get something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with?”
      In his remarks to PEN America, which will be streamed on Tuesday, Obama contrasted discussions of race in the context of “politics and getting votes” with “truth-telling and the prophetic voice”. Politicians, he said, often need to speak a “universal language” as a way to reach voters resistant to more pointed discourse about racial injustice.
      But he also allowed that the racial upheavals of 2020, coupled with generational change, may herald an era in which race can be discussed in the political realm in less nuanced terms.
      “What I think has changed – and we saw this this summer – is, because of people’s witness of George Floyd, because of what seems like a constant stream of irrefutable evidence of excessive force against unarmed Black folks, that I think white America has awakened to certain realities that even 20 years ago they were still resistant to.
      “That creates a new opening for a different kind of political conversation.”
      PEN America will also give an award, for courage, to Darnella Frazier, a young woman who filmed the killing of Floyd.

      A recent poll by political strategist Douglas Schoen, previously an adviser to Michael Bloomberg, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, found that Democrats should drop references to Defund the Police if they want to be competitive in the next midterm elections, in 2022.
      “The data says to me that if the Democrats go the progressive route they can lose the House and the Senate overwhelmingly in 2022,” Schoen told the New York Post. “The incoming Biden administration has to understand that unless they take a moderate path, that is a likely potential outcome for the Democrats.”
      Asked if Biden’s victory was a “mandate” for centrist or progressive policies, 62% of respondents to Schoen’s poll said centrist. The survey also found that Defund the Police hurt the party in down-ballot races, as 35% of voters said the issue made them “less likely to vote for Democrats” while 23% said it made them more likely.
      Obama’s comments have not found support among leading progressives. Legislators including Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush were quick to reject his comments to Snapchat.
      “It’s not a slogan,” tweeted Bush. “It’s a mandate for keeping our people alive.” More

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      in US Politics

      Just 26 of 249 Republicans in Congress willing to say Trump lost, survey finds

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      Only 26 of 249 Republicans in Congress are willing to admit Joe Biden won the presidential election, a survey found on Saturday.The election was called for Biden on 7 November, four days after election day. The Democrat won the electoral college by 306-232 and leads in the popular vote by more than 7m ballots.But Trump has refused to concede, baselessly claiming large-scale voter fraud in battleground states. The survey of Republicans in the House and Senate was carried out by the Washington Post, a paper Trump promptly claimed to read “as little as possible”.The president also said he was “surprised so many” in his party thought he had been beaten, promised “we have just begun to fight” and asked for a list of the politicians he called “Rinos”, an acronym for “Republicans in name only”.Two congressmen, Mo Brooks of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, told the Post Trump won. Gosar said he would never accept Biden as president, telling the paper there was “too much evidence of fraud”.In fact, there is no evidence of voter fraud anywhere near the scale Trump alleges in any of the key states in which he is pursuing legal redress, so far winning one lawsuit but losing 46.Attorney general William Barr, a staunch Trump ally, said this week there was no evidence of fraud on the scale the president claims. Trump was reported to be close to firing Barr from his post. The president has also lashed out at an official he did fire, elections security chief Chris Krebs, who said the vote was the most secure in US history.Trump was due to travel to Georgia on Saturday, to support senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The two Republicans face runoffs on 5 January that will decide control of the Senate. Polling is tight and many observers suggest Trump’s intransigence could damage Republican turnout.Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia since 1992, beating Trump by more than 10,000 votes. Loeffler and Perdue have joined the president in attacking the Republican officials who ran the election in the state and certified its results.The Post said it had obtained video of Perdue telling donors Biden won.“We can at least be a buffer on some of the things that the Biden camp has been talking about,” he reportedly said, a weighty remark in light of widely reported obstruction of Biden’s transition planning.The Post said it “contacted aides for every Republican by email and phone asking three basic questions: who won the presidential contest, do you support or oppose Trump’s continuing efforts to claim victory and if Biden wins a majority in the electoral college, will you accept him as the legitimately elected president.“The results demonstrate the fear that most Republicans have of the outgoing president and his grip on the party,” the paper said, “despite his new status as just the third incumbent to lose re-election in the last 80 years. More than 70% of Republican lawmakers did not acknowledge the Post’s questions.”Most Republicans seem committed to saying nothing: 12 of 52 senators and 14 of 197 representatives have recognised Biden’s win, the Post said, but only eight Republicans were prepared to voice support for Trump’s strategy of refusing to concede and seeking to overturn the result.Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy, who leads the House minority, have dodged questions.“Let’s wait until [we see] who’s sworn in,” McCarthy said on Thursday, when asked about tactics under a Biden administration.Last week Roy Blunt of Missouri, the senator who chairs the committee responsible for the inauguration, seemed to acknowledge reality – but then retreated.“We are working with the Biden administration, likely administration, on both the transition and the inauguration,” Blunt told CNN, adding: “The president-elect will be the president-elect when the electors vote for him.”The Post said Blunt did not answer its questions.The electoral college will meet on 14 December. Its votes will then be sent to Congress, which will meet in joint session to declare a winner on 6 January – the day after the Georgia runoffs. More