Category Archives: Republicans

Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is ‘not an occupying nation’

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Trump’s secretary of state makes comments on podcast to defend former administration siding more openly with Israel

Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has defended Israel’s decades-long control of the Palestinian territories by claiming that the Jewish state has a biblical claim to the land and is therefore not occupying it.

Pompeo told the One Decision podcast that his religious beliefs, US strategic interests and his view of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a “known terrorist” underpinned his support as the Trump administration’s top diplomat for the shift in US policy away from mediating a two-state solution and toward more openly siding with Israel.

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Republicans blocked gun reform laws a year before Michigan State shooting

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Democrats attempted to advance bills requiring secure storage of firearms and expanding background checks for gun buyers

Less than a year before a gunman attacked Michigan State University’s campus on Monday, killing three students and injuring five, Republican legislators in the state rejected an opportunity to change gun regulations.

In the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Michigan Democrats attempted to advance bills requiring secure storage of firearms and expanding background checks for gun buyers. Six months earlier, a shooting at Oxford high school near Detroit had also reinvigorated Democratic efforts to change Michigan gun laws. But the gun bills were blocked by Republicans, who controlled both chambers of the state legislature.

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Republican senator Tim Scott preparing presidential run – report

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Only Black Republican in Senate set to challenge Donald Trump for nomination, Wall Street Journal says

South Carolina senator Tim Scott is reportedly taking steps to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

Reporting the news, the Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources “familiar with his plans”. Jennifer DeCasper, a senior adviser, said the senator was “excited to share his vision of hope and opportunity and hear the American people’s response”.

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Biden administration forming team to study unidentified aerial objects – as it happened

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US will have its experts try to understand unknown objects, including broader policy implications, says John Kirby

“I told you so”.

That’s more or less what Republican senator Marco Rubio has to say about the three downings of unidentified objects over North American skies over the weekend:

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Biden appeals to governors for ‘less partisanship’ to help rebuild economy

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President says at White House dinner that passage of infrastructure laws is evidence of ‘some bipartisan progress’

Joe Biden appealed to Republican and Democratic governors on Saturday to continue working across political divides to improve Americans’ lives and rebuild the economy after the hardships brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking at a black-tie dinner at the White House, the president told 31 governors that the passage of laws on investing in infrastructure and domestic manufacture of semiconductors was evidence of “some bipartisan progress” among Republicans and Democrats. Vice-President Kamala Harris was also in attendance.

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Ken Paxton to pay $3.3m to ex-staffers who accused Texas AG of corruption

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State attorney general must also apologize to four former aides whose claims initiated ongoing FBI investigation

The attorney general for the state of Texas, Ken Paxton, has agreed to apologize and pay $3.3m in taxpayer money to four former staffers who accused him of corruption in 2020, igniting an ongoing FBI investigation of the three-term Republican.

Under terms of a preliminary lawsuit settlement filed on Friday, Paxton made no admission of wrongdoing to accusations of bribery and abuse of office, which he has denied for years and called politically motivated.

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US confirms ‘high-altitude object’ taken down over Alaska – as it happened

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John Kirby says defense department was tracking flying object, and Biden ordered military to ‘down’ it

Reports are now confirming that the FBI is searching Pence’s Indiana home for additional classified documents.

CNN reported that “a source familiar with the situation” is confirming that the search is taking place and in relation to classified documents.

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George Santos: puppy theft charge news follows Romney’s ‘sick puppy’ barb

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Republican at centre of string of scandals was charged in Pennsylvania with theft over purchase of puppies in 2017

The New York Republican congressman George Santos, who is at the centre of a bizarre string of scandals and who the Utah senator Mitt Romney this week called a “sick puppy”, was charged with theft in Pennsylvania in 2017 – over a purchase of “puppies”.

The scandal, reported by Politico, is not Santos’s first involving dogs and his charity, Friends of Pets United. A New Jersey veteran alleges Santos raised money for an operation for his dog, then absconded with the money.

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Most US Republicans sympathetic to Christian nationalism, survey finds

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Survey also finds that 29% of white evangelical Protestants qualify as nationalism adherents while 35% qualify as sympathizers

Two-thirds of white evangelicals and most Republicans are sympathetic to Christian nationalism, a new survey has found.

According to a national survey released on Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution, 29% of white evangelical Protestants qualify as Christian nationalism adherents while 35% qualify as sympathizers.

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Biden says he’s Republicans’ ‘nightmare’ over social spending cuts – as it happened

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Francine Prose, the novelist and Guardian US columnist, takes a look today at Republican attacks on reading in schools, particularly in Florida under Ron DeSantis, a leading (notional) contender for the presidential nomination in 2024.

For some time now, conservative groups pressured libraries and classrooms to remove certain “controversial” books from their shelves and their syllabi. These are texts that tell uncomfortable or unpopular truths about our nation’s origins, including inequality, race, history, gender, sexuality, power and class – a range of subjects that a small but vocal group of Americans would prefer to ignore or deny.

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Ex-Twitter exec details ‘homophobic and antisemitic’ abuse over handling of Hunter Biden story

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Yoel Roth testifies before congressional committee that Elon Musk’s release of company’s internal records led to harassment

A former Twitter executive testified on Wednesday that he was forced to leave and sell his home following a campaign of “homophobic and antisemitic” harassment over the company’s handling of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.

Yoel Roth, the former head of safety at Twitter, made the comments while speaking to a committee in the newly Republican-controlled House of Representatives, at a hearing convened to scrutinize the social network’s handling of a 2020 report on Joe Biden’s son.

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George Santos is a ‘sociopath’, fellow New York Republican congressman says

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Nick LaLota is one of a growing number of people from both parties to call on Santos to quit over made-up résumé and investigations

George Santos is a “sociopath” who thrives on negative attention, another New York Republican congressman said.

“He’s a sociopath,” Nick LaLota told CNN on Wednesday, after Santos’s confrontation with Mitt Romney at Joe Biden’s State of the Union address made headlines the night before.

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Republicans grill ex-Twitter executives over handling of Hunter Biden story

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Company temporarily restricted New York Post article in 2020 about contents of the abandoned computer of Joe Biden’s son

US lawmakers held a combative hearing on Wednesday with former senior staffers at Twitter over the social media platform’s handling of reporting on Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

The proceedings set the stage for the agenda of a newly Republican-controlled House, underscoring its intention to hone in on longstanding and unsubstantiated allegations that big tech platforms have an anti-conservative bias.

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‘You don’t belong here’: Romney and Santos in tense State of Union exchange

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Controversial Republican congressman confronted by senator and former presidential candidate on floor of House

Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union address on Tuesday but the Republican congressman George Santos still managed to grab some headlines, over an apparently tense exchange with Mitt Romney, the senator from Utah and former Republican presidential nominee.

“He shouldn’t be in Congress,” Romney later told reporters.

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‘Hot air’: Marjorie Taylor Greene in State of the Union balloon stunt

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Republican extremist appears to reference Chinese surveillance dirigible by parading halls of Congress with white balloon

Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared to tee up a State of the Union stunt on Tuesday, patrolling the halls of Congress with a large white balloon in reference to Republican criticism of Joe Biden over his handling of a flight over US territory by a Chinese surveillance dirigible.

“Just an innocent white balloon everybody,” the Georgia extremist said, hours before Biden’s address to Congress, attempting to keep aloft the balloon saga which ended when it was shot down off the Carolinas on Saturday.

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Biden set to highlight economic gains in State of the Union address – live

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How Republicans are responding to the State of the Union address will offer a preview into what message the party will sell to voters in the 2024 presidential election. Republicans are already making media appearances on their chosen conservative news networks.

Elise Stefanik, House Republican Conference chair and rising GOP star from New York state whose staunch defense of Donald Trump helped her get a House seat, set up over 300 House Republican interviews with local media outlets, according to this morning’s Politico Playbook.

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Biden prepares for State of the Union as US collects Chinese balloon debris – as it happened

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Former US vice president Mike Pence was expected to visit South Carolina today, as the signals grow louder that he’ll make his own run for the White House in 2024 as a rival to the former boss he’s essentially fallen out with, Donald Trump. But that visit has been postponed.

Fresh reports say that Pence has decided to delay his trip to the crucial primary state because his oldest daughter, Charlotte Pence Bond, has gone into labor in California. The ex-veep and his wife, Karen Pence, headed for California instead and will reschedule the trip to South Carolina.

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Trump documents: Congress offered briefing on records kept at Mar-a-Lago

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Closed-door session could provide insight into the sensitivity of the documents Trump retained and possibility of indictments

US officials have offered to provide a closed-door briefing to congressional leaders about their review of about 300 classified-marked documents retrieved from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year, sources familiar with the matter said.

The precise nature of the briefing remains unclear. The offer from the justice department and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) was described as unofficial on Sunday and no date had yet been set, though the briefing could come as soon as this week.

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Ted Cruz wants two-term limit for senators – and a third term for himself

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Texas senator says he ‘never said I’m going to unilaterally comply’ with his own proposed restriction

Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to limit US senators to two terms in office, thereby removing from Washington “permanently entrenched politicians … totally unaccountable to the American people”.

On Sunday, however, he said he saw no problem with running for a third term himself.

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Buttigieg backs Biden 2024 run but poll says most Americans don’t

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Poll shows 60% of Democrats want someone else as 2024 nominee and nearly 50% of Republicans want someone other than Trump

Nearly 60% of Democrats and nearly 50% of Republicans want someone other than Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be their party’s nominee for president in 2024, a new poll showed on Sunday.

A key member of Biden’s cabinet, however, insisted Biden’s record in office was more important than any “generational argument” for change.

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