Category Archives: Democrats

Democrats suggest shifting weapons from Saudi Arabia to Ukraine

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Democrats call for suspension of transfer of Patriot missiles in wake of ‘turning point’ in relationship with Saudis

Democrats on Capitol Hill have suggested transferring US weapons systems in Saudi Arabia to Ukraine and suspending a planned transfer of Patriot missiles to Riyadh in the wake of what they call a “turning point” in Washington’s relationship with the kingdom.

Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California who is a leading supporter of a weapons freeze, said he believed that “at the very least” Congress would move to halt the transfer of Patriot missiles to the kingdom, and probably pause other defense initiatives.

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FBI was reportedly warned agents were ‘sympathetic’ to Capitol rioters – as it happened

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The Oath Keepers were mentioned repeatedly at yesterday’s January 6 hearing, and Politico reports their lawyers have attempted to make that an issue as they stand trial for seditious conspiracy – without success:

Investigators with the January 6 committee are looking into communications between a Secret Service agent and the Oath Keepers militia group, one of the most violent actors during the attack on the Capitol, NBC News reports:

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Jan 6 hearing updates: panel votes to subpoena Donald Trump – as it happened

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The bipartisan group of House lawmakers investigating the January 6 insurrection has started what is expected to be its last public hearing, where lawmakers are set to focus on Donald Trump’s actions during the attack.

Follow this blog for coverage of the hearing as it happens. A live video feed of the session will be embedded above.

The United States and Saudi Arabia are waging a war of words over the Opec+ oil production cut and Washington’s claim Riyadh has aligned itself with Russia.

The New York attorney general has warned Trump and his business are taking steps to undermine her lawsuit against them, and asked a judge to step in.

Social security recipients are getting a big increase in monthly payments – but only because inflation is so high.

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Democrats issue fresh ultimatum to Saudi Arabia over oil production

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Members of Congress raise prospect of one-year arms sales ban unless kingdom reverses Opec+ decision to cut output

Democrats in the US Congress have issued a fresh ultimatum to Saudi Arabia, giving the kingdom weeks to reverse an Opec+ decision to roll back oil production or face a potential one-year freeze on all arms sales.

The threat came as Joe Biden reiterated his pledge to take action over Riyadh’s decision last week to cut oil output by 2m barrels a day, which Democrats have said would help “fuel Vladimir Putin’s war machine” and hurt American consumers at the petrol pump.

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Next January 6 hearing to focus on warnings of violence leading up to Capitol attack – live

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Panel intends to detail how White House and Secret Service were told of potential for violence in days leading up to insurrection

President Joe Biden signaled today he is ready to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for pushing Opec+ to slash oil production.

Speaking as he was departing the White House for a trip to Colorado, Biden said, “We’re going to react to Saudi Arabia and we’re doing consultation when they come back. We will take action.”

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Sources in Russian analyst’s Trump dossier fabricated, prosecutors argue

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Igor Danchenko, who played a vital role in creating the Steele dossier, has been indicted on five counts of lying to the FBI

A Russian analyst who played a major role in the creation of a flawed dossier about former President Donald Trump fabricated one of his own sources and concealed the identity of another when interviewed by the FBI, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The allegations were aired during opening statements in the trial of Igor Danchenko, who is indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI.

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Saudi Arabia will face ‘consequences’, says Biden, amid anger at cuts in oil output

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Moves by Opec+ to reduce production seen as siding with Putin over the US just as midterms loom

Joe Biden said there “will be consequences” for Saudi Arabia after its decision last week to side with Vladimir Putin and cut oil production.

“There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done, with Russia,” the US president said in an interview on CNN. “I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be – there will be consequences.”

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Republicans oppose social spending – will it cost them in the midterms?

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In Mississippi, poverty is high and water problems blight the state. But Republicans seem adamantly against spending to help their constituents

In his four decades as mayor of Glendora, a Mississippi Delta town surrounded by creeks, fields and not much else, Johnnie B Thomas has gotten used to bad news.

He’s seen the town’s main drag grow desolate as its few businesses closed down, and the sole clinic follow suit. He’s watched storms drop trees on to houses – including his own, mortally wounding his wife. He pleaded for help as the seemingly unstoppable force that was Covid infected and killed his neighbors, a younger brother among them.

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Kevin McCarthy claimed Trump had no idea his supporters carried out Capitol attack – as it happened

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Top Republican House made claim in meeting with police officers despite ex-president having urged supporters to ‘fight like hell’

Republicans looking to win in the upcoming midterms have campaigned on high inflation and rising crime. But over the weekend, Alabama’s Republican senator Tommy Tuberville resorted to another tactic: racism.

“They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit!” Tuberville declared in a speech on Saturday.

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Democrats seek revenge after Opec+ cuts oil production ahead of midterms – live

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Three lawmakers come out with bill that essentially declares Saudi Arabia is no longer an ally of Washington

A Democratic senator has joined in on the calls to punish Saudi Arabia for backing the Opec+ cut to global oil production:

Meanwhile, John Kennedy, the Republican senator who two years ago proposed a similar measure to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for not cutting production even as global demand was crashing – thereby driving prices below the cost of production for American oil firms – today blames Biden for the Opec+ cut:

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Biden pledges support to hurricane-hit Puerto Rico: ‘All of America is with you’ – as it happened

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As Puerto Rico prepares for Joe Biden’s visit this afternoon, a grassroots collective known as Queremos Sol (we want sun) has published an open letter (in Spanish) in the La Perla online daily urging the president to not waste federal taxpayer dollars on rebuilding the storm vulnerable fossil fuel dependent grid.

“As you know, the absence of electricity after Hurricane Maria caused thousands of deaths. Now, two weeks after Hurricane Fiona, several deaths related to the lack of electricity have been documented. To a large extent, these deaths could have been prevented.

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She’s Georgia’s great blue hope – but can Stacey Abrams win a crucial race?

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Georgia in focus: Despite being hailed as architect of Georgia’s political transformation, Abrams is still an underdog in her rematch with Brian Kemp

Stacey Abrams was a high school senior the first time she was invited to the Georgia governor’s mansion. It was for a ceremony honoring the state’s class valedictorians, and Abrams was her school’s top academic achiever. At the time, her family did not own a car, so Abrams and her parents rode the bus from their working-class suburb to the stately mansion in downtown Atlanta.

When they arrived, Abrams recalls a guard emerging from the security booth. Eyeing the bus, he told them: “This is a private event. You don’t belong here.” Never mind that her invitation was tucked into her mother’s handbag or that her name was second on the list of invitees.

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Uvalde families stand with Beto O’Rourke amid Republican silence on gun reform

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Families of those killed in May school shooting support Democrat in race against Texas governor Greg Abbott

A small photo of Jacklyn Casarez, one of the children killed during the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in May, graced the front of a greeting card held by Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who visited a Rio Grande Valley park Friday morning before the one and only staged debate with incumbent governor Greg Abbott.

“Maybe you don’t consider yourself a political person,” Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was also killed in the 24 May shooting at Robb elementary, said Friday during a pre-debate news conference.

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Pelosi reportedly resisted Democrats’ effort to impeach Trump on January 6 – as it happened

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For all the supreme court’s pomp and ceremony, a new poll finds Americans increasingly are holding it in low regard.

According to Monmouth University, a majority of Americans find it out of touch with their beliefs:

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Senate passes short-term deal to avoid government shutdown – as it happened

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Top Democrat says he hopes to finalize deal to fund government until mid-December by the end of today

With a speech on the Capitol steps, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy was stumping again today for his party’s Commitment to America platform and plans for “firing Nancy Pelosi”.

McCarthy last week debuted the plan, which offered a broad if vague outline of what the party would do should they take Congress’s lower chamber in the 8 November midterms:

Kevin McCarthy’s pitiful display this morning is only further proof that the MAGA cult in his conference has him in a chokehold. House Republican Leaders spent their morning detached from reality: bragging about their dangerous, extreme, unpopular agenda to ban abortion in all fifty states, send prescription drug costs soaring and steal your right to choose your leaders. Truthfully, a desperate press conference is about par for the course for an uninspiring and incoherent politician like the Minority Leader, whose only real accomplishment to date is typing up a radical right-wing wish list that sends a clear message to the American people that House Republicans have gone off the deep end.

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Biden takes aim at food insecurity with first hunger conference in 50 years – as it happened

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Biden releases national hunger and nutrition strategy, which includes a slate of goals to help end food insecurity

Biden is going into the main pillars of the national hunger and nutrition strategy released on Tuesday, which includes a slew of goals to help end food insecurity, give people more information and options to eat more healthily, and help folks take up regular physical activity.

Unfortunately, the goals are more a call to action, as Congress has ended Covid-era policies like the universal free school meals program and the expanded child tax credits which had massively reduced food insecurity and child poverty in the US.

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January 6 committee postpones Wednesday hearing over hurricane – as it happened

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Panel cites threat of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, and says the ‘investigation goes forward’

As the January 6 committee enters what is likely to be the home stretch of its investigation, a new poll has found it hasn’t meaningfully shifted beliefs about what happened that day.

Monmouth University finds that around four in 10 Americans hold Donald Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol, slightly less than in late June, while three in 10 believe the election was stolen from him, a figure that’s moved little since November 2020.

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Senate advances funding bill to avert shutdown after Manchin measure scrapped

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Both parties opposed the measure on energy permits, which critics said would gut environmental protections

The US Senate has voted to advance a funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown, after a tense standoff over a controversial energy-permitting provision proposed by the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin ended with its withdrawal.

A procedural vote on Tuesday to move forward with the funding bill succeeded easily, 72-23, after Democrats announced that the West Virginia senator’s proposal, which faced opposition from both parties, would be stripped from the final legislation. It was clear that, with Manchin’s plan included, Democrats were falling far short of the 60 votes needed to proceed, as most Republicans objected to it.

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Former January 6 committee staffer says texts show evidence of ‘attempted coup’ – live

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Denver Riggleman tells 60 Minutes that texts from Mark Meadows amounted to a ‘roadmap to an attempted coup’

The supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade allowed states to curtail abortion rights completely, potentially transformed the midterms and, as Maya Yang reports, complicated access to other medicines in unexpected ways:

A few weeks after the supreme court’s 24 June decision to overturn the nationwide abortion rights established by Roe v Wade, the pharmacy chain Walgreens sent Annie England Noblin a message, informing her that her monthly prescription of methotrexate was held up.

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US intelligence resumes national security review of Mar-a-Lago documents – as it happened

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Joe Biden says attacks Republicans’ midterms agenda, saying real goal is to ban abortion nationwide

The Trump-appointed World Bank president David Malpass is under fire for deflecting on the question of humans causing climate change, and Axios reports the Biden administration is mulling an effort to remove him.

Appointed in 2019, Malpass, a Republican, worked in the Treasury under Trump and also at global financial crisis-casualty Bear Stearns. While Axios reports Biden officials have long been suspicious of him, the uproar began when Malpass replied, “I don’t even know -- I’m not a scientist and that is not a question,” when asked at an event on Tuesday if he believed climate change is manmade.

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