Category Archives: US Politics

Trump tells Iowans to ‘get over’ school shooting at campaign event

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Former president made the comment 36 hours after one student was killed and seven people wounded during the first day of school

Donald Trump told an audience at a campaign event on Friday in Iowa to “get over” a deadly shooting at a high school in the state a day earlier.

After offering sympathy and emotional support for the victims of the shooting in Perry, Iowa, and their families, Trump said at the event in Sioux Center: “It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”

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Fired-up Biden shows gloves are off in January 6 anniversary speech

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In address near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, US president tore into Donald Trump like never before, including calling him a ‘loser’

This time it’s personal. On Friday Joe Biden tore into his predecessor Donald Trump as never before. He brimmed with anger, disdain and contempt. He apparently had to stop himself from swearing. So much for “when they go low, we go high” – and plenty of Democrats will be just fine with that.

If Biden was seeking to jolt his half-conscious 2024 re-election campaign into life, this may have done the trick. The palpable loathing of Trump took a good 10 or 20 years off him. Keep hating like this and he might do a Benjamin Button all the way to election day.

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Biden attacks Trump as grave threat to democracy in rousing 2024 speech

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On eve of January 6 anniversary, US president condemns likely rival and warns voters ‘democracy is on the ballot’ in November

A day before the third anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Joe Biden delivered a pointed speech to warn voters against re-electing Donald Trump, criticizing the likely Republican presidential nominee as a fundamental threat to democracy in an attempt to shape the dynamics of the 2024 election.

“Today we’re here to answer the most important of questions: is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said. “Today, I make this sacred pledge to you: the defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.

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Republicans seek to override Ohio governor’s veto of trans rights bill

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Mike DeWine defied his party on gender-affirming care for youths and now legislature is set to reconvene early to push law through

A legislative showdown is brewing in Ohio after Governor Mike DeWine split from his party to veto a bill that would impose substantial new restrictions on the lives of trans children.

The bill, HB 68, prohibits doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans youths. It also blocks transgender female student athletes from participating in girls’ sports.

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Trump asks US supreme court to review Colorado ruling removing him from 2024 ballot

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Colorado supreme court issued ruling on Tuesday but in anticipation of appeal stayed it until 4 January

Donald Trump appealed to the US supreme court on Wednesday to undo the Colorado ruling that removed him from the ballot in the western state under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, for inciting an insurrection.

“In our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in their Wednesday filing. They also said the Colorado supreme court’s ruling “if allowed to stand, will mark the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate”.

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Biden to jump-start 2024 campaign with focus on fight for democracy

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Biden-Harris campaign, in a conference call with reporters, said they aim to draw sharp contrast between US president and Trump

Ailing in opinion polls, Joe Biden will aim to jump-start his re-election campaign in the coming week with events designed to symbolise the fight for democracy and racial justice against Donald Trump.

The Biden-Harris campaign announced the plans in a conference call with reporters that mentioned Trump by name 28 times in just 24 minutes, a sign of its determination to draw a sharp contrast between the US president and his likely Republican challenger.

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Bob Menendez faces fresh corruption allegations involving Qatar

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Democratic senator offered gifts in return for making positive comments about Gulf state, superseding indictment says

Bob Menendez, already the subject of sensational charges concerning the acceptance of illicit cash, gold bars and a Mercedes Benz car, faces new corruption allegations, outlined in a superseding indictment made public on Tuesday.

The New Jersey Democratic senator has already pleaded not guilty on charges involving interests linked to Egypt. He is now accused of corruption involving Qatar, although he does not face new charges.

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Harvard Corporation condemns ‘racist vitriol’ directed at Claudine Gay and says she ‘acknowledged missteps’ – as it happened

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The Democrats are, unsurprisingly, laying into Republican House majority leader Steve Scalise for his endorsement of Donald Trump today.

Even before his endorsement, Scalise was among the many House Republicans who have cast doubt on the validity of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and supported the Trump campaign’s failed effort to get the supreme court to interfere in the vote result four years ago.

MAGA House Republicans keep showing America they’ve turned the House into little more than an arm of Donald Trump’s campaign – so it’s no surprise Steve Scalise, who called himself ‘David Duke without the baggage,’ is joining the parade of House extremists backing Trump’s bid. Scalise’s top priority has always been pushing Trump’s unpopular agenda: He voted against certifying the 2020 election, is hellbent on banning abortion nationwide, and worked with Trump to try to rip away Americans’ health care. Scalise’s endorsement is the latest proof that while the House GOP is unable to accomplish anything on behalf of the American people, they are laser-focused on advancing Trump’s MAGA agenda and ripping away freedoms.

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Biden offers optimistic new year’s message as Trump lashes out

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President touts US job gains and says his resolution is ‘to come back’ while ex-president repeats unproven election rigging claims

The likely candidates in the 2024 presidential match-up issued two starkly different new year messages to voters, with Joe Biden striking a note of cheerful optimism as his almost certain challenger Donald Trump, and Trump lashing out in a social media post laden with lies and conspiracy theories.

The president and first lady Jill Biden, vacationing in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, offered a New Year’s message touting US job gains and the performance of the US economy during his administration – a message that voters have so far refused to accept.

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Trump gaining ground among Latino voters, poll shows

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Ex-president ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, wiping out Biden’s lead among crucial voting bloc

A new poll indicates former US president Donald Trump is gaining ground among Latino voters, wiping out incumbent Joe Biden’s lead among the crucial, but diverse, voting bloc.

A USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump was ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, compared to Biden’s 34%, signaling a slump since 2020, when Biden garnered 65% of the approval from Latino voters.

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Former aides warn of ‘running out of time’ to prevent Trump re-election

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Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah Griffin insist Trump’s behavior would be worse if he wins second term

The re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 could “end American democracy as we know it”, according to three women who worked for him in the White House during his chaotic term in office.

All three gave testimony to the US House committee investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as the 6 January 6 Capitol attack staged by his supporters. And they warned in an unprecedented television interview on Sunday that time was short to prevent a second Trump administration in which they insist his behavior would be much worse.

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US-Mexico border crossings in December set monthly record high

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Over 300,000 people were on track to cross as Biden makes urgent efforts to curb migrant flows that have become political liability

More than 300,000 people were on track to cross the US-Mexico border in December without authorization and are being processed by American immigration officials, a tally that sets the latest monthly record, according to government figures obtained by CBS.

The number of crossings, averaging roughly 8,400 apprehensions a day by US border agents, comes amid urgent efforts by the Joe Biden White House to curb migrant flows that have become a domestic political liability for him as he seeks re-election in 2024.

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Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from ruling on Trump’s 2024 eligibility, Raskin says

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Democrat speaks on supreme court stepping in to adjudicate Maine and Colorado rulings that removed Trump from ballots

Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from ruling on Donald Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 presidential election, a prominent Democrat said Sunday, warning that the leading Republican candidate is seeking to become a “political martyr” as he pursues a second presidency.

Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin was speaking ahead of the nation’s highest court stepping in to adjudicate recent state rulings in Maine and Colorado that struck the former president from the general election primaries under the US constitution’s 14th amendment insurrection clause.

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Maine secretary of state targeted in ‘swatting’ call after removing Trump from ballot

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Shenna Bellows is latest politician to be victim of fake emergency call to police with the intent they will show up at a residence

A fake emergency call to police resulted in officers responding Friday night to the home of Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, just a day after she removed Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the US constitution’s insurrection clause.

She becomes the latest elected politician to become a target of swatting, which involves making a phone call to emergency services with the intent that a large first responder presence, including Swat teams, will show up at a residence.

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How 2023 became the year Congress forgot to ban TikTok

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Momentum seemed to be on their side of US lawmakers this year to stop 150 million Americans from using TikTok. What happened?

Banning TikTok in the US seemed almost inevitable at the start of 2023. The previous year saw a trickle of legislative actions against the short-form video app, after dozens of individual states barred TikTok from government devices in late 2022 over security concerns. At the top of the new year, the US House followed suit, and four universities blocked TikTok from campus wifi.

The movement to prohibit TikTok grew into a flash flood by spring. CEO Shou Zi Chew was called before Congress for brutal questioning in March. By April – with support from the White House (and Joe Biden’s predecessor) – it seemed a federal ban of the app was not just possible, but imminent.

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Trump 2024 trials in limbo as supreme court becomes entangled

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Potential trial delays mean the former president could spend less time in courtroom and more time on the campaign trail

When Donald Trump was indicted in multiple criminal cases this summer, the conventional wisdom was that the former US president could spend vast amounts of time during the height of the 2024 presidential campaign stuck in courtrooms for back-to-back trials in New York, Florida and Washington.

But the reality is that with the federal 2020 election interference case on hold pending appeals, and repeated delays pushing the classified documents case behind schedule by several months, for instance, Trump may find himself in courtrooms far less than expected.

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Prosecutors urge court to reject Trump’s immunity claims in election subversion case

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Special counsel Jack Smith says in filing that suggestion Trump cannot be held accountable for crimes ‘threatens the country’

Special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Saturday to reject former president Donald Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, saying the suggestion that he cannot be held to account for crimes committed in office “threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation” of the country.

The filing from Smith’s team was submitted before arguments next month on the legally untested question of whether a former president can be prosecuted for acts made while in the White House.

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Virginia senator Tim Kaine condemns Biden’s arms transfer to Israel

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On Saturday, Kaine joined chorus of Democrats criticizing Biden for going around Congress and demanded an explanation

Virginia senator Tim Kaine has added his voice to a rising chorus within the Democratic party questioning the Biden administration’s legislatively unconstrained transfer of US munitions to Israel.

In a news release on Saturday, the Democratic senator – a member of the Senate armed services committee – said weapons transfers must come under congressional oversight.

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Democratic long-shot candidates to debate in New Hampshire – without Biden

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Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips will appear on stage together on 8 January, two weeks before state’s primary

The lonely political vigil of long-shot Democratic presidential candidates Marianne Williamson and Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips will be transformed on to the debate stage early next month in New Hampshire – without Joe Biden, who is neither on the state ballot nor agreeable to any debate interaction with competitors.

The debate between self-help author Williamson and Phillips is set to be held at the New England College on 8 January, and moderated by Josh McElveen, former political director of radio station WMUR, two weeks before the state holds its primary.

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US supreme court under pressure to rule swiftly on states’ Trump ballot bans

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Court faces pressure to rule on Maine and Colorado’s decisions preventing ex-president from appearing on presidential ballots

A decision by Maine’s secretary of state to prevent former president Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s presidential election ballot will now probably end up before the US supreme court. Maine’s move follows a similar decision in Colorado this month.

There is mounting pressure on the conservative-leaning judicial body to swiftly rule on Maine and Colorado’s application of section 3 of the 14th amendment prohibiting anyone who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. But neither decision will be the last ballot eruption in an already convulsive election which is likely to see a rematch of Trump versus Joe Biden.

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