The Movement for a People’s Party believes Democrats and Republicans will always choose profits over people, and 12,000 have signed up to hear more
Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic national convention made one reference to “middle class” and one to “working families”. It never mentioned the word “poverty”.
Related: Biden feared 'ideological jihad' from Sanders after primary win
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Donald Trump is holding a rally for supporters in New Hampshire. He will speak any minute now. If you care to tune in you can here - if not, I will be blogging it here so stand by for updates.
The crowd at Trump’s NH rally just booed an announcement telling people to put on their masks
Germany chancellor Angela Merkel laughed off a question during a Friday press conference of whether she had been “charmed” by Donald Trump.
The question was in response to a statement made this week by Richard Grenell, the former US director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, who claimed Trump had smoothed over the historically strained relationship between German and the US by enchanting Merkel.
This is one of my new favourite Merkel moments. A journalist asks her about Richard Grenell's claim that Trump "charmed" Merkel. You don't need to speak German to enjoy her reaction:pic.twitter.com/RSjHSNXXtX
Continue reading...Trump portrayed Biden as a creature of the Washington swamp, beat the drum of law and order and said little about racial injustice
You write him off at your peril. Donald Trump stood at one of America’s most hallowed spaces on Thursday – the White House – and bent it to his will, just as he has bent the Republican party and swaths of America.
Related: RNC: Trump paints Biden as a 'radical' candidate and a danger to America
Continue reading...Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican party's nomination for re-election in front of the White House on Thursday night.
'This is the most important election in the history of our country,' Trump said after he 'profoundly' accepted his party's nomination.
Trump went on to excoriate the Democratic party and argue that the choice for voters is between a president who has a record of unmatched accomplishments and an opposition party and candidate eager to tear down the country.
That’s it from us tonight. Here are the key takeaways of the final night of the Republican convention:
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly plans to resign due to his health.
The Japanese outlet NHK reports:
Abe Shinzo is scheduled to hold a news conference later in the day to explain his decision.
Abe has visited a hospital twice over the past two weeks, fuelling speculation that his health has deteriorated.
Continue reading...President accepts Republican presidential nomination in event staged at White House, raising ethical concerns
Against a backdrop of a global pandemic, heightened racial tensions, and widespread unemployment, Donald Trump framed his Democratic rival Joe Biden as the real danger to the country’s safety and economic welfare in his address to the Republican convention on Thursday.
Accepting the party’s presidential nomination ahead of November’s elections, Trump argued for more than an hour that his administration had accomplished everything it had set out to do and warned that a Biden presidency could be ruinous.
Continue reading...A strong female contingent was out in force during the third day of the Republican national convention, with Trump’s advisers attempting to paint a picture of a compassionate, open-minded president in an apparent attempt to win over female voters.
Kayleigh McEnany recounted how the president called her after her mastectomy, the White House adviser Kellyanne Conway applauded Trump for putting women 'on equal footing with the men' and his daughter-in law, Lara Trump, described the Trump family as 'warm and caring'.
The president’s advisers ignored the dozens of sexual misconduct allegations against Trump (which he denies) and his history of referring to women as 'dogs' and 'fat pigs'.
Continue reading...Continuing to fan the flames of fear, on the third day of the Republican national convention the US vice president, Mike Pence, said: 'The hard truth is you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America'.
In a dark speech laden with ominous warnings about a future without Trump at the helm, and incorrect statements about the president's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, Pence vowed to 'make America great again, again'.
Vice-president does not mention Jacob Blake as he champions ‘law and order on the streets’ amid protests
In the shadow of deepening unrest in Wisconsin, Mike Pence warned darkly of the violence and mayhem that would ensue under a Democratic administration during a keynote address on the third night of the Republican national convention on Wednesday.
The vice-president, speaking from Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where the raising of the American flag during the war of 1812 inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that would later become The Star-Spangled Banner, echoed several conservative speakers in painting a dystopian portrait of America’s major cities and accusing the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, of tolerating violence and vandalism.
Continue reading...Ethical questions were raised during day two of the Republican national convention, as Donald Trump was accused of misusing trappings of his office for political purposes and using the White House as a prop.
Pardoning convicts, naturalisation ceremonies and speeches from the White House were just a few of the items on the agenda that caused concern.
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo has lavished praise upon Donald Trump in a speech to the Republican National Convention that itself is prompting questions about its legality. Pompeo delivered a recorded speech to the RNC while on an official visit to Israel, potentially breaching federal law according to Democrats. Pompeo's address celebrated Trump's decision to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, and congratulated the president for standing up to China and wiping out the Isis caliphate
Continue reading...Speakers – including three members of the president’s family – spouted falsehoods about his character and his opponent
The best courtroom dramas involve a defence lawyer who can work miracles of persuasion and, no matter how damning the evidence, convince the jury that their client is innocent.
A week after Democratic prosecutors presented their “open and shut” case against Donald Trump, the virtual Republican national convention is not only attempting to get him off the hook but argue that he deserves a medal – and four more years in the White House.
Continue reading...Trump allies and family members also used misleading claims to portray the president as the best hope for America’s future
Allies of Donald Trump shattered political norms, stirred controversy and issued misleading claims against Democrats during the second night of the Republican party’s national convention on Tuesday.
In speech after speech, a collection of Trump’s family members, allies, rightwing campaigners and swing-state farmers portrayed the president as the best hope for America’s future.
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Where’s the GOP condemnation for an extremist, conspiracy theory candidate?
Guardian reporter Julia Carrie Wong, who has reported extensively on the QAnon conspiracy theory, notes that there is an interesting historical precedent for what Republican politicians could do when an extremist candidate is running for office as part of their party, as QAnon supporter congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene is now doing.
The David Duke season of Slow Burn provided a really interesting and timely counterexample of how a national party *can* react when a fringe extremist is running for office. Both Reagan (former president) and HW Bush (current president) ran TV ads against Duke in 1989. https://t.co/e1YpyqULxH
By contrast, Trump has praised Greene, tacitly endorsed the false & antisemitic conspiracy theory she supports, and now invited her to the White House. Meanwhile, his chief of staff has given her campaign money. https://t.co/EGAkQk0YeY
Thunderstorms might disrupt Melania Trump’s Rose Garden speech tonight
This is Lois Beckett, taking over our live politics coverage from our west coast office in California, where wildfires across the state have displaced more than 100,000 people, and smoke and particles from the fires have made the air unhealthy to breathe for millions of other residents. (You can follow our wildfires live coverage here.)
JUST IN: Severe thunderstorm watch for entire DC area thru 11p. Most likely time for storms, passing from northwest to southeast, between 6 and 10p. A few storms may produce damaging winds. We'll monitor and update as necessary.
Updates: https://t.co/QC9KsWX1Oy pic.twitter.com/bnK2Xc6YWo
Donald Trump Jr has attacked Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on the opening night of the Republican National Convention, calling his father's rival 'the Loch Ness monster of the swamp' and 'Beijing Biden'. Trump Jr joined girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle in making the case for his father's reelection on the event's first of four nights
President’s allies and family issued dark warnings of what’s at stake in the election, and an array of misleading claims
Republicans have used the first night of their national convention to issue dark warnings about the future of America, arguing that re-electing Donald Trump is the only way to save the country from falling into socialism, economic ruin, violence and anarchy.
Monday night’s theme was officially the “land of promise,” but the collection of speeches offered an almost apocalyptic vision of what’s at stake in November’s elections, and a dizzying array of misleading claims.
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During Donald Trump’s address to the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, he referred to Barack Obama and someone in the gathered ranks can be heard shouting out what sounds like: “Monkey”.
That is how it’s being initially reported. You can hear the audience laughing. Trump continues for a moment, then smirks and says: “Let’s be nice”, continues for another moment, then chuckles, points into the audience and says: “That can only happen in North Carolina.”
When President Trump mentioned Obama, someone from the crowd shouted, “Monkey!” and the president relished in it.
Disgusting.
Do you approve of this @ThomTillis? pic.twitter.com/vOxAmRJByZ
More on lawsuits facing the Trump organization – New York state Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit investigating whether Trump inflated the valuations of certain assets.
New York’s Democratic attorney general asked a court Monday to enforce subpoenas into an investigation into whether President Donald Trump and his businesses inflated assets on financial statements.
Attorney General Letitia James filed a petition in state trial court in New York City naming the Trump Organization, an umbrella group for the Republican president’s holdings, as a respondent along with other business entities. The filing also named Eric Trump and Seven Springs, a New York estate owned by the Trump family.
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Here’s a rundown of Sunday’s events. We’ll be back tomorrow for all Monday’s news.
More a campaign-style press announcement than traditional news conference, Trump abruptly ends the proceedings after taking only three questions, including one from One America News Network.
The US president insisted today’s announcement, which comes one day after he accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at” the FDA of deliberately slowing coronavirus vaccine and therapy development, “has nothing to do with politics” despite its conspicuous timing on the eve of the Republican national convention.
Continue reading...Four years ago the party’s ticket included two former governors. This year it features fringe figures who flirt with the far right
The Libertarian party nominated two respected former state governors for president and vice-president in 2016, and enjoyed its most successful election performance ever, winning nearly 4.5m votes.
To many, it seemed that the Libertarians were a genuinely relevant third party in US politics, which is overwhelmingly dominated by Republicans and Democrats. But in 2020, the party, which advocates for small government and civil liberties, has gone in a wildly different direction.
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state will give voters a chance to correct missing signatures and other clerical errors so their absentee ballots can be counted in anticipation of a wave of mail-in voting for the November election.
Election officials are expecting an even bigger flood of mail-in votes in November than for the June primary, after which results were delayed for six weeks.
Cuomo said late Friday he’d sign yet temporarily tweak legislation that calls for notifying voters about such problems and provides for fixing them.
Under the version that passed the Legislature last month, the voter would have seven business days to file a form to fix the problem after a notice was mailed, in many situations.
The Associated Press has more from Portland, Oregon, where protesters against police brutality and structural racism clashed again with federal agents and law enforcement officers overnight. Such confrontations were the subject of a Trump tweet this morning, in which the president once again expressed his willingness to send in the national guard:
About 200 people marched to a police precinct station on yet another night of violence for Oregon’s largest city.
Demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks at officers and pointed lasers at them, damaging police cars and causing minor injuries for several officers, Portland police said.
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