Category Archives: Republicans

Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine

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The Republican senator Tom Cotton refused four times on Sunday to condemn or even comment on Donald Trump’s repeated praise for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

“If you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic,” Cotton told ABC’s This Week, “I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.”

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‘Don Quixote-like quest’: Ukraine attack and easing Covid mandates leave US trucker protest on the fringe

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The convoy, which set out to ‘clog the streets’ has had too few vehicles to make an impact on traffic

Ryan Wright stood around a campfire in Lupton, Arizona, a town on the Navajo reservation where members of an American trucker convoy protest were resting for the night. As the fire flickered he discussed a conspiracy myth about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he proffered, was a distraction. “I’m not the only one that feels this way,” Wright said. “But I feel like it’s a big fat smokescreen to keep everyone distracted on what is really going on in the world.”

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Calls to expel Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene after speech at white nationalist event

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Republican leadership condemned for failing to discipline Georgia congresswoman for speaking at far-right summit

Republican leaders are facing fresh demands to expel the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, after she spoke at a conference of white nationalists and sympathisers with Vladimir Putin.

The event in Orlando, Florida, on Friday night was organised by the far-right extremist Nick Fuentes, who told attendees: “Now they’re going on about Russia and Vladimir Putin is Hitler – they say that’s not a good thing.”

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The strange Republican world where the big lie lives on and Trump is fighting to save democracy

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Welcome to the the grassroots CPAC summit, where conservatives see themselves not as dismantlers of democracy, but as saviors

On stage in a hotel ballroom glowing red, white and blue, Ron DeSantis was recalling his days in Congress and a book he wrote about America’s troubles. It was “read by about a dozen people,” the Florida governor said with rare self-deprecation.

DeSantis then told a gathering of grassroots conservatives on Thursday: “I look back at that time, it almost seems a little quaint to me because the threats we face to freedom, the threats we face to a just society, are much more pervasive than they were just 10 years ago.”

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House committee requests White House records recovered from Trump’s home

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Letter to National Archives requests files found in boxes at Mar-a-Lago that should have been turned over when Trump left office

The investigation into whether Donald Trump broke federal records laws when he took White House documents home after leaving office took another step forward on Friday when a congressional oversight committee requested the materials from the National Archives.

The letter to the archivist, from the House committee on oversight and reform, requests the content of the documents taken by Trump to Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Florida. They also asked for any records that the former US president attempted to destroy, and communications on the issue by Trump’s White House aides.

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Biden imposes sanctions on company behind Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline– live

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House speaker Nancy Pelosi is now holding a press conference on Capitol Hill, after attending the Munich Security Conference last week.

Pelosi attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin for recognizing the two self-proclaimed republics in east Ukraine and ordering troops into the region, repeatedly describing him as a “tyrant”.

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Biden to speak on Russia and Ukraine amid pressure from Congress on sanctions – live

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Joe Biden will deliver a speech this afternoon on Russia’s latest maneuvers in eastern Ukraine and America’s potential responses to Vladimir Putin’s actions.

The White House has just announced that Biden will provide an update on Russia and Ukraine at 2pm ET in the East Room.

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Joke’s on them: how Democrats gave up on rural America

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It is a diverse and complicated place poorly served by stereotypes and simplistic solutions

• This essay originally appeared in the Drift

One evening a few summers ago, I walked from my house to the county fairgrounds. It was a long July day, and the sun still hung above the hills that surround the small western Colorado town where I live. People packed the bleachers of an outdoor arena to watch a rodeo.

Shortly before the bullriding began, a rodeo clown strolled to the center of the dirt field and began his night with a joke. It went something like this:

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Tim Scott, only Black Senate Republican, hints he could be Trump running mate

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South Carolinian tells Fox News ‘Everybody wants to be on President Trump’s bandwagon, without any question’

The only Black Republican in the Senate, Tim Scott of South Carolina, has indicated a willingness to be Donald Trump’s running mate should the former president mount another White House campaign.

Asked by Fox News if he would consider joining a Trump ticket in 2024, Scott said: “Everybody wants to be on President Trump’s bandwagon, without any question.”

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What does it mean to ‘plead the fifth’ – and will Donald Trump do it?

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The ex-president has been ordered to testify in a New York fraud case. Will he invoke his constitutional right to remain silent?

Donald Trump and his two eldest children have been ordered by a New York judge to appear for a deposition within 21 days, as part of an investigation into the Trump family finances. The development presents the former US president with a dilemma: should he invoke his right to silence by pleading the fifth?

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Republicans who opposed racial justice protests hope truckers ‘clog up’ US cities

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Lawmakers including Ron Paul and Ron DeSantis say they would back disruption of a Canadian-style trucker convoy

In the wake of racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, a wave of Republican lawmakers supported legislation to punish protesters who blocked roads. Now some of those same Republicans are supporting similar tactics from conservative trucker convoys protesting against vaccine mandates.

Last year, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, signed an anti-rioting law that stiffened penalties for protesters who blocked roads and even gave some legal protection to drivers who ran them over. It went so far that in September a federal judge struck down the law, ruling it unconstitutional.

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Trump interior secretary Zinke broke ethics rules and lied, watchdog finds – live

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While lawmakers were unable to come to a consensus on a sanctions bill for Russia this week, it looks like we may have some movement on the issue here:

The interior department’s inspector general said in a report made public today that Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary under Donald Trump, misused his position to advance a development project in his Montana hometown and lied to an agency ethics official about his involvement.

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Jury finds New York Times did not defame Sarah Palin – live

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Robert Califf’s appointment as the new head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was confirmed today, but the process was not as straightforward as the Biden administration first thought.

Senator Joe Manchin, a Virginia Democrat, urged senators to oppose Califf’s appointment earlier this week, saying he bears “a great deal of responsibility” for many of the US opioid overdose deaths in the years since Califf’s first stint as FDA commissioner under the Obama administration.

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Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Very real risk’ US democracy won’t exist in 10 years

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Efforts by Republicans to restrict voting rights could result in return to Jim Crow era, says progressive in New Yorker interview

The progressive New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes the Republican-led pressure on political systems is so great that there is “a very real risk” democracy will cease to exist in the US within a decade.

The leftist Democratic politician derided efforts by Republican legislatures around the country to restrict voting rights as the “opening salvos” in a war on democracy, which she said could result in a return to the Jim Crow-era disenfranchisement of racial minorities.

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‘She paved the way for Trump’: will Sarah Palin stay in the Republican spotlight?

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Palin’s return to the headlines – for her defamation trial and flouting Covid rules – is a reminder to many that her ascent in 2008 was a pivotal moment in US politics

Removing a white face mask as she took the witness stand behind a Plexiglass shield, Sarah Palin likened herself to the biblical David taking on the mighty Goliath of American media, the New York Times newspaper.

The 58-year-old’s appearance in a Manhattan courtroom this week was a far cry from her heyday on the campaign trail, whipping up crowds with incendiary rhetoric as a US vice-presidential candidate in 2008.

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‘Disgusting’: Republican Senate hopeful condemned over ‘showdown’ TV ad

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Jim Lamon’s ad depicts ‘shootout’ with Democrats including Mark Kelly, senator whose wife Gabby Giffords was shot in deadly attack

A Republican Senate primary candidate in Arizona has been condemned for a “disgusting” campaign ad in which he shoots at lookalike actors portraying Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the incumbent Arizona senator Mark Kelly.

Jim Lamon, an energy executive, shared the ad on Twitter, saying it would be aired at this year’s Super Bowl.

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The Soup Nazi on Marjorie Taylor Green’s gazpacho police: ‘I knew I was in trouble’

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Larry Thomas, the actor behind the Seinfeld character, gives his take on the viral gaffe: ‘You can’t write this shit’

The extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who previously alerted the US to the dangers of space lasers, issued a new warning to the American people on Thursday: the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has unleashed “gazpacho police” to spy on Greene’s colleagues in Congress.

It is, of course, possible that a clandestine network bent on the regulation of cold soup operates deep under the Capitol cafeteria. But Greene was presumably confusing “gazpacho” with the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.

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Romney won’t criticise niece for calling Trump lies and Capitol riot ‘legitimate political discourse’

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Senator says he has texted with ‘terrific’ Ronna McDaniel, RNC chair who oversaw censure of Cheney and Kinzinger

Mitt Romney and his niece, Ronna McDaniel, exchanged texts after the Republican National Committee she chairs called Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat and the Capitol riot “legitimate political discourse”.

Romney, the Utah senator, 2012 presidential nominee and only Republican to twice vote to convict Trump at his impeachment trials, told reporters on Monday he “expressed his point of view”.

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Scholz and Biden warn Russia would pay ‘high price’ for Ukraine invasion – as it happened

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Joe Biden issues stark advice to Americans in Ukraine: ‘Leave’

Secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, speaking alongside the EU High Representative, Josep Borrell, said the US and its allies in Europe are acting “in unity” in response to Russian aggression and a potential conflict with Ukraine.

Blinken vowed “real and profound consequences should Russia choose to continue aggression”.

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Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and Trump ally, to step down from Meta board

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Thiel, a major donor to the Republican party, was seen by critics as part of the reason why Facebook did not censor Trump

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, is stepping down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, after 17 years.

Thiel, Facebook’s longest-serving board member and a major donor to the Republican party, plans to focus on backing Donald Trump’s allies in the November midterm elections, according to the New York Times. He recently donated $10m each to the Senate campaigns of Blake Masters, who is running for a seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running in Ohio. Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel’s family office and Vance used to work at one of Thiel’s venture funds.

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