President-elect Joe Biden denounces the violence at the Capitol, after a mob of Trump supporters storm the building. 'This is not dissent, it's disorder, it's chaos, it borders on sedition, and it must end now,' Biden said. He then called on outgoing US president Trump to publicly 'demand an end to this siege'
Protesters swarmed the Capitol on Wednesday, putting it on lockdown, as Mike Pence rebuffed Donald Trump's demand to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and the Senate's Republican leader denounced a bid in Congress to undo the election outcome.
Trump supporters overturned barriers and clashed with police on the US Capitol grounds and streamed inside the building. The demonstrations flared as lawmakers met inside to formally certify Biden's victory over Trump in November's election. Law enforcement authorities struggled to maintain order.
Biden won the election by 306-232 in the electoral college and by more than 7m ballots in the national popular vote, but Trump continues to falsely claim there was widespread fraud and that he was the victor
Continue reading...The rantings of a president unable to accept defeat have gained traction, and are embraced by a majority Republican voters as fact
Americans’ confidence in their democracy has been eroded for years by a system that has, at various junctures, delivered victory to Republican presidents who lost the popular vote, permitted industrial-scale gerrymandering of electoral maps, and is built around a Congress rigged in favour of conservative states.
Related: Trump supporters storm Capitol as McConnell warns of democracy 'death spiral' – live
Continue reading...Normally, Congress simply receives results from states and announces them to the US – but this year may include some twists
A joint session of Congress is scheduled to begin meeting on Wednesday at 1pm to finally certify Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Never in the modern political history of the United States have these proceedings been notable. For 150 years, Congress has acted in accordance with the constitution and the 1887 Electoral Count Act to simply receive election results from the states and announce them to the nation. It usually takes a couple hours on a weekday, and does not make many headlines.
Continue reading...Donald Trump should not be prosecuted once he leaves the White House no matter how much evidence has been amassed against him, the former FBI director James Comey writes in a new book.
Related: Trump call to Georgia secretary of state electrifies voters in Senate runoffs
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Shortly before polls are set to close in Georgia, Barack Obama offered this reminder to voters: if you are in line at a polling place by 7 pm ET, do not leave.
Georgia voters—If you're in line before the polls close at 7 pm, stay there. You have the right to vote, no matter how long it takes. If you have questions, call the Georgia voter protection hotline at 1-888-730-5816. Let's bring this home.
That’s all from me today. I’m handing over to my colleague Joan E Greve, who will be with you as the polls close in Georgia and throughout the evening. Here’s a rundown of the day’s biggest stories so far:
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s priorities could scupper extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder, says departing Virginia attorney
The American prosecutor seeking to put Julian Assange on trial in the US has said he is uncertain if Joe Biden’s incoming White House administration will continue to seek the extradition of the WikiLeaks co-founder.
Zachary Terwilliger, who was appointed by Donald Trump, made the comments as it was announced that he was stepping down as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Continue reading...Talk of brotherly unity rather than lessons learned dominated the Gulf Cooperation Council summit
The meeting on Tuesday between Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani was hailed as a breakthrough that brought together two feuding parties who were finally willing to resolve their differences.
But as the two leaders gathered at a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in the north-western Saudi region of Al-Ula there was no mention of concessions, or further ultimatums, such as those that had led to the rift. The detente seemed borne more of exhaustion than compromise; the talk more of brotherly unity than lessons learned, and the end to it all more about the incoming US president than regional realpolitik.
Continue reading...President-elect speaks at Atlanta rally alongside Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock
Joe Biden urged Georgia voters to surprise the nation once again by sending two Democrats to the US Senate, on the eve of a pair of critical runoff elections that will determine the balance of power in Washington and the scope of the president-elect’s ambitious legislative agenda.
Biden, speaking at a drive-in rally in downtown Atlanta alongside the Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock on Monday afternoon, did not mention Donald Trump’s increasingly brazen efforts to overturn the results of the November election, which escalated this weekend when the president pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse his defeat in the state. Instead, he focused on what Democrats could accomplish with control of the Senate.
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The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports:
David Perdue, the Georgia Republican facing a Senate runoff election on Tuesday, has twice bought a significant number of shares in a US bank shortly after meeting with financial policy makers, raising more questions about his prolific stock trading while in office.
Related: Revealed: David Perdue bought bank stocks after meeting financial officials
DC mayor Muriel Bowser urged residents to avoid downtown in the next couple of days, as the city prepares for pro-Trump demonstrations in connection to Congress’ electoral vote count on Wednesday.
The Democratic mayor said at a press conference today, “We will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents or cause destruction in our city.”
[Bowser] urged calm Monday as some 340 National Guard troops were being activated while the city prepared for potentially violent protests surrounding Congress’ expected vote to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
According to a U.S. defense official, [Bowser] put in a request on New Year’s Eve to have Guard members on the streets from Jan. 5-7th, to help with the protests. The official said the D.C. National Guard members will be used for traffic control and other assistance but they will not be armed or wearing body armor. ...
Continue reading...In an hour-long phone call on Saturday, Donald Trump pressed Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there in the election the president refuses to concede.
Related: Healthcare to the electoral college: seven ways 2020 left America exposed | Robert Reich
Continue reading...Harris says her model will be Biden’s role as veep to Obama but the president-elect’s age means speculation about an eventual elevation to the Oval Office is intense
American vice-presidents occupy what can be one of the most powerful positions in all of the federal US government and yet it can also be one of the least powerful. Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris is going to soon find out where her tenure will land.
Continue reading...Contests will decide control of Senate and how far Biden can reach on issues such as pandemic, healthcare, taxation and environment
Campaigning continued in Georgia on Saturday in two Senate runoff elections which will define much of Joe Biden’s first term in office.
Related: Biden wants to fill federal court seats – but he needs to win the Senate first
Continue reading...Republicans join Democrats to push through bill against Trump’s strong objections
Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the US Senate on Friday took the atypical rebellious step of overriding his veto for the first time in his presidency.
The Senate pushed through a bill on defense spending against Trump’s strong objections – just 20 days before he leaves office.
Continue reading...Joe Biden is expected to receive Secret Service protection with a new team that is more familiar to him and replacing some agents amid concerns that they may be politically allied with Donald Trump.
Continue reading...The cover-up has to stop – and with it, the huge sums in aid for a country with oppressive policies towards Palestinians
Every recent US administration has performed a perverse ritual as it has come into office. All have agreed to undermine US law by signing secret letters stipulating they will not acknowledge something everyone knows: that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal.
Part of the reason for this is to stop people focusing on Israel’s capacity to turn dozens of cities to dust. This failure to face up to the threat posed by Israel’s horrific arsenal gives its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a sense of power and impunity, allowing Israel to dictate terms to others.
Continue reading...Democrats and Republicans are deploying their big guns for the state’s runoff elections that will decide who controls the Senate
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will travel to Georgia to campaign for next week’s high-stakes Senate runoff elections, it was announced on Wednesday, as Donald Trump called on the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, to resign.
Continue reading...At a coronavirus briefing, the president-elect warned distribution ‘is falling far behind’ and vowed to ramp up vaccination efforts
Joe Biden has lambasted the Trump administration’s vaccine rollout, warning that distribution “is falling behind, far behind”, hours after Kamala Harris received her first dose of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine live on television as part of officials’ ongoing efforts to show the public that the vaccinations are safe.
“A few weeks ago the Trump administration suggested that 20 million Americans could be vaccinated by the end of December,” Biden said, at a Covid-19 briefing in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday. “With only a few days left in December, we have only vaccinated a few million so far.”
Continue reading...President-elect’s formative years of going toe-to-toe with the USSR on arms control hint at how he may deal with Putin
It was 1988, near the end of the cold war, when then-senator Joe Biden made yet another visit to the Soviet Union for talks on arms control. By that time, he felt comfortable enough in Moscow to bring a guest into the room: his teenage son.
“Would you mind my son, Hunter Biden, sitting in and listening? The gentleman is interested in international affairs and diplomacy,” he said, according to Victor Prokofiev, the Soviet foreign ministry interpreter at the meeting.
Continue reading...New Ross reinvented itself as a shrine to the Kennedy clan. Can towns linked to Biden, the most Irish American president since JFK, do the same?
After its factories died and its port withered, New Ross, a town perched by the River Barrow in south-east Ireland, decided in the 1990s to tap a unique asset: John F Kennedy.
The US president’s great-grandfather had sailed from the quays of New Ross to America during the 1840s famine, leaving behind a modest homestead that JFK twice visited, including a few months before his assassination in 1963. Like many Americans, not least the current US president-elect, Joe Biden, Kennedy was proud of his Irish connections and keen to re-emphasise the links.
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