Senior state officials have commented on the postponement of Blinken’s trip to China after a Chinese spy balloon was discovered over the US yesterday, noting that conditions were no longer right for Blinken’s travel.
From Reuters’ reporter Hümeyra Pamuk:
Continue reading...The Golden State will struggle to stop mass shootings and protect citizens until uniform federal laws on firearms are signed
The recent mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay have brought devastation, outrage and shock to Californians. As the state grieves the loss of 19 residents, one question continues to arise: how could this happen in the state with some of the strongest gun laws in the US?
California’s gun laws include bans on the military-style assault weapons and large-capacity magazines that have been used in many mass shootings. It is one of just two states, along with New Jersey, to receive an “A” rating from the gun safety group Giffords, based on the strength of its firearm regulations.
Continue reading...Trump’s situation is more perilous because of his reluctance to cooperate and his suspected obstruction of justice
Donald Trump’s retention of classified-marked documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort is distinguished in the eyes of the justice department from that of Joe Biden or Mike Pence as a result of one particularly crucial difference: suspected obstruction of justice.
Legal experts believe the situation for the former US president is more perilous than others swept up in the scandal because of his reluctance to cooperate at key moments in the investigation and his unwillingness to proactively search his properties for marked documents after becoming aware that he possessed such papers.
Continue reading...The House voted along party lines as it ousted Democratic representative Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee while Democrats defended her.
The vote was divided 218 to 211, CBS reports. One GOP member voted “present.”
“This debate today, it’s about who gets to be an American? What opinions do we get to have, do we have to have to be counted as American?… That is what this debate is about, Madam Speaker. There is this idea that you are suspect if you are an immigrant. Or if you are from a certain part of the world, of a certain skin tone or a Muslim.
Well, I am Muslim. I am an immigrant, and interestingly, from Africa. Is anyone surprised that I’m being targeted? Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy?” she said.
“A blatant double standard is being applied here. Something just doesn’t add up. And what is the difference between Rep. Omar and these members? Could it be the way that she looks? Could it be her religious practices?” he said.
Continue reading...Minnesota Democrat accuses Republicans of trying to silence her because she is Muslim and vows to ‘advocate for a better world’
Republicans voted to expel Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar from the House foreign affairs committee on Thursday as punishment for her past remarks on Israel. Democrats objected, saying the move was about revenge after Democrats removed far-right extremists in the last Congress.
A majority of 218 GOP lawmakers supported Omar’s expulsion from the committee, which is tasked with handling legislation and holding hearings affecting America’s diplomatic relations. One Republican lawmaker voted “present”.
Continue reading...President’s personal attorney reveals justice department ‘planned search’ of home in Rehoboth
Meanwhile in the Senate, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are frustrated that they have not been briefed on the national security implications of all the classified documents that have turned up in Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Mike Pence’s hands.
The sentiment expressed by Democrat Jon Tester today, according to NBC News, is a common one:
Continue reading...Planned search followed 13-hour review of president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, in January
Joe Biden’s personal lawyer said on Wednesday the FBI was conducting a planned search of the president’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, as part of its investigation potential mishandling of classified information.
“Today, with the president’s full support and cooperation, the Department of Justice is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware,” the lawyer, Bob Bauer, said in a statement.
Continue reading...Leaked tax records suggest subsidiaries of international gas field contractors continued to make millions after the coup
In the two years since a murderous junta launched a coup in Myanmar, some of the world’s biggest oil and gas service companies continued to make millions of dollars from operations that have helped prop up the military regime, tax documents seen by the Guardian suggest.
The Myanmar military seized power in February 2021 and according to the United Nations special rapporteur on Myanmar, it is “committing war crimes and crimes against humanity daily”. More than 2,940 people, including children, pro-democracy activists and other civilians have been killed, according to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
US oil services giant Halliburton’s Singapore-based subsidiary Myanmar Energy Services reported pre-tax profits of $6.3m in Myanmar in the year to September 2021, which includes eight months while the junta was in power.
Houston-headquartered oil services company Baker Hughes branch in Yangon reported pre-tax profits of $2.64m in the country in the six months to March 2022.
US firm Diamond Offshore Drilling reported $37m in fees to the Myanmar tax authority during the year to September 2021 and another $24.2m from then until March 2022.
Schlumberger Logelco (Yangon Branch), the Panama-based subsidiary of the US-listed world’s largest offshore drilling company, earned revenues of $51.7m in the year to September 2021 in Myanmar and as late as September 2022 was owed $200,000 in service fees from the junta’s energy ministry.
Continue reading...Former president repeatedly invokes constitutional right against self-incrimination in New York footage from late last summer
Video released on Tuesday showed Donald Trump answering questions from the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, in a deposition in a civil fraud case late last summer.
Questioned about his financial affairs, the former president repeatedly invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination – part of a refusal to answer he repeated more than 400 times.
Continue reading...FBI agents conducted a voluntary search of an office formerly used by Joe Biden in Washington DC after classified materials were discovered there, CBS News reports.
The search of the Penn Biden Center was carried out with Biden’s agreement in November of last year, after the secret documents dating from Biden’s time as vice president under Barack Obama were first discovered. The search was not publicly announced, and CBS News cited two sources familiar with the investigation in reporting it.
Santos hired Charles Lovett as his chief of staff. Lovett served as Santos’s campaign manager and worked for six months as a field organizer for the Ohio Republican Party, according to LegiStorm. He also served as political director for Ohio Republican Josh Mandel’s unsuccessful primary bid for Senate. He has not worked on the Hill previously. Viswanag Burra, Santos’s operations director, spent less than a year as special operations director for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and recently worked as executive secretary for the New York Young Republican Club.
His communications director, Naysa Woomer, appears to have the most Hill experience. She worked for three Republican members between 2014 and 2018 before moving to Massachusetts to be the communications director for the state Republican Party and then as a communications specialist for the state Department of Revenue.
Continue reading...New York Republican congressman under investigation over his largely made-up résumé and current campaign finance filings
The Republican congressman George Santos has temporarily withdrawn from two House committees to which he was appointed by party leaders despite a spiraling scandal over his largely made-up résumé and investigations of his bizarre past behavior and current campaign finance filings.
Santos told fellow Republicans of his decision at a closed-door party meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning.
Continue reading...Two EMTs and a firefighter also fired as lawmakers call for meeting with president and investigation into Nichols’ death continues
A sixth officer involved in the death of Tyre Nichols has been removed from duty, police said, as an influential group of Black elected officials has called for a meeting with Joe Biden to discuss police reform.
Officer Preston Hemphill, who is white, was relieved of duty and put on what is known as administrative leave, Memphis police major Karen Rudolph said on Monday, according to multiple reports.
Continue reading...People in underserved medical communities in states that ban abortions may be more likely to attempt self-managed abortions
Top doctors in the US warn that surgeons should be prepared to treat more patients with complications from self-managed abortions and forced pregnancy after the overturning of Roe v Wade.
In a recent opinion piece published in the BMJ, 17 experts from medical centers and universities including the University of Chicago, Duke Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania urged surgeons to be prepared to treat medical consequences related to a person’s inability to access an abortion.
Continue reading...Shou Zi Chew will face legislators amid concerns over the social media app’s alleged collusion with Beijing in accessing user data
As the US legislative battle over TikTok continues to escalate, Shou Zi Chew, the chief executive of the video-sharing app, will make his first appearance before Congress to testify next month.
Chew will testify before the House energy and commerce committee on 23 March, Republican representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers confirmed in a statement on Monday, as scrutiny of the Chinese-owned app over data privacy concerns grows.
Continue reading...Moves spur Trump into attacking Florida governor during low key events over the weekend in Iowa and New Hampshire
America’s 2024 presidential race is showing signs of kicking into gear amid reports that Florida’s rightwing Republican governor Ron DeSantis is now laying the groundwork for a White House bid as Donald Trump finally hit the campaign trail.
DeSantis’s moves even spurred Trump into attacking him directly as the former US president held relatively low key events over the weekend in the key early voting states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Continue reading...Two officers allegedly handcuffed Jose Ortega Gutierrez and took him to an ‘isolated’ location where they beat him unconscious
Two Florida police officers are facing armed kidnapping and battery charges for allegedly assaulting a homeless man after handcuffing him without reason, and taking him to an “isolated” location where they beat him unconscious.
The news has emerged as America is grappling with a reckoning over abusive policing in the US following the beating to death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee. Video of the beating of the 29-year-old Black motorist shocked the US and the world when it was released on Friday. Five officers have been charged with his murder.
Continue reading...Injuries not life-threatening after soldier fires at migrant in the shoulder as he was attempting to detain migrant
A Texas national guard soldier has shot and wounded a migrant in the shoulder along the US-Mexico border.
According to Texas military records reviewed by the Military Times and the Texas Tribune, the soldier fired at the migrant on 15 January as he was attempting to detain the migrant.
Continue reading...System whereby government classifies 50m documents a year threatens national security and democracy, says Jameel Jaffer
Donald Trump was caught with classified documents and Democrats were outraged. Joe Biden was caught with classified documents and Republicans were outraged. Mike Pence was caught with classified documents and it became clear that there might be a bigger problem here.
America has a crisis of “overclassification”, critics say. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington has been overzealous in defining government secrets. Politicians and officials can too easily fall foul of this secrecy-industrial complex but the biggest losers are the American people denied democratic accountability.
Continue reading...Julian Khater pleaded guilty to using chemical spray to attack the Capitol police officer who died on 7 January
A man who admitted using chemical spray to assault Brian Sicknick on January 6, a day before the Capitol police officer died, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in a Washington court on Friday.
Julian Khater, 33, from Pennsylvania, was also fined $10,000.
Continue reading...Attorney Ben Crump is holding a press conference alongside Tyre Nichols’s family, where he has compared the swift indictment and arrest of five Black police officers for Nichols’s death to the comparatively slow response to other high-profile killings of Black men.
“This is not the first time that we saw police officers committing crime and engaging in excessive brutal force against Black people in America who were unarmed, but yet we have never seen swift justice like this,” Crump said.
Continue reading...