Category Archives: US Politics

Congress to take up bill to avert rail strike as Biden and unions clash – live

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Progressives in Georgia are leaving nothing to chance with just one week to go before polls close in the state’s Senate runoff election.

A coalition of progressive groups has launched a massive canvassing effort for the Democratic party since election day, when neither Democrat Raphael Warnock nor Republican Herschel Walker were able to win enough support to avoid a runoff.

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Record early voting in runoff for Georgia Senate seat

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Monday the largest in-person early voting day as Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker neck and neck before 6 December election

The number of people casting early ballots in the runoff election for one of Georgia’s seats in the US Senate has already broken records since the process began on the weekend, with some counties posting staggeringly long wait times at early voting sites during the first days of early voting.

Reports on Monday’s turnout varied from more than 250,000 voters to more than 300,000 on the first day of statewide early operation of the polls. Some counties began earlier.

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Congress expected to impose contract on US railroad workers to avert strike

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Citing ‘catastrophic’ risk to US economy, Nancy Pelosi announces impending vote to bind unions to September negotiations

The US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has announced that her fellow members of Congress plan to vote this week on imposing a new contract for railroad workers to avert a looming labor strike.

Pelosi made the announcement late on Monday afternoon just after Joe Biden called on Congress to intervene to prevent a strike, a possibility if an agreement between the freight rail industry and unions is not made by 9 December.

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Jewish conservatives condemn Trump for meeting antisemite Nick Fuentes

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Mike Pence, Chris Christie and several Republican senators were also critical, to varying degrees, of former president

Several Republican lawmakers and prominent Jewish conservatives have condemned Donald Trump for meeting with white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, in a rare distancing from the ex-president.

Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and several Republican senators were critical, to varying degrees, of Trump, who has come under fire after dining with Fuentes last week.

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Hakeem Jeffries’ likely elevation set to please US pro-Israel groups

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Democrat set to succeed Nancy Pelosi maintains ties to Aipac and others but could be challenged by critics in his own caucus

Hakeem Jeffries might be about to make history but some critics fear that on one issue, at least, he will be on the wrong side of it.

The progressive New York congressman widely expected to lead the Democrats in the US House of Representatives will be the first person of color to head either party in the chamber. Jeffries’ election as House minority leader in the new Congress in January would also see the baton pass to a new generation of Democratic leaders as the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, 82, steps aside.

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Republican officials in Arizona county refuse to certify midterm results

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Some officials who embrace voter fraud theories held out despite no evidence of anything wrong with the count earlier this month

Republican officials in a rural Arizona county refused on Monday to certify the results of the 2022 midterm election, despite no evidence of anything wrong with the count from earlier this month.

Some officials who have embraced voter fraud theories held out, defying a state deadline and setting the stage for a legal battle.

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Congress returns after holiday break to face lengthy to-do list – as it happened

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Here’s more on Arizona’s election controversy, from the Hill.

Maricopa residents can cast a ballot at any of the county’s vote centers, so poll workers print customized ballots on demand to match one of more than 12,000 ballot styles, depending on where a voter lives.

But after previously testing the printers, county officials say they began hearing at 6:30 a.m. on Election Day that some machines were printing ballots too light for tabulators to read.

Republican supervisors in Mohave County said last week that they will sign off Monday but wanted to register a protest against voting issues in Maricopa County.

In Cochise County, GOP supervisors demanded that the secretary of state prove vote-counting machines were legally certified before they will approve the election results.

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Donald Trump ‘shied away from criticising Nick Fuentes’

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Advisers wanted ex-president to distance himself from white supremacist with whom he dined but Trump feared alienating supporters – insiders

Donald Trump repeatedly refused to disavow the outspoken antisemite and white supremacist Nick Fuentes after they spoke over dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort, rejecting the advice from advisers over fears he might alienate a section of his base, two people familiar with the situation said.

The former US president was urged publicly and privately to denounce Fuentes in the aftermath of the dinner, which included the performer Ye, previously known as Kanye West, who has also recently been propagating antisemitic remarks.

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White House health officials: up-to-date vaccines key to move on from Covid

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Fauci and Jha comments come amid campaign to encourage public to get the new coronavirus boosters as well as flu shots

White House public health officials offered cautious optimism that Americans could begin to move on from coronavirus, but cautioned that keeping immunity vaccination up-to-date and combating scientific disinformation remained key for the country to successfully emerge from the three-year Covid-19 pandemic.

“If you look at where we were a year ago at this time, when [coronavirus variant] Omicron started to surge, we were having 800,000 to 900,000 infections and 3,000 to 4,000 deaths [a day]. Today, we had less than 300 deaths. Yesterday, we had 350 deaths, and…anywhere from 27,000 to 45,000 cases” Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the US president, said.

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Republican says Trump ‘empowering’ extremists by having dinner with white supremacist

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‘It’s very troubling,’ says Arkansas governor who condemned Trump’s meeting with anti-semite Nick Fuentes

The Republican governor of Arkansas on Sunday joined a chorus of criticism of Donald Trump for having dinner with American white supremacist and anti-semite Nick Fuentes, accusing the former US president of effectively “empowering” such extremists.

“It’s very troubling and it should not happen,” Asa Hutchinson told CNN’s State of the Union show on Sunday morning, becoming the most senior Republican politician to condemn the meeting.

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January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpability

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Final report by House select committee is scheduled for release in December – but fixation on Trump has opened a rift on the panel

The House January 6 select committee’s final report into its investigation is expected to focus heavily on Donald Trump’s involvement in the Capitol attack and his potential culpability, opening a rift on the panel weeks before its scheduled release in the middle of December.

The nature of the final report – alongside criminal referrals to the justice department – is expected to be the defining legacy of the investigation that brought into sharp relief Trump’s efforts to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win and return to the White House for a second term.

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Early voting begins in Georgia Senate runoff after state supreme court ruling

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Court allows early voting on a Saturday as polling shows Democrat Raphael Warnock with a lead over Herschel Walker

Thanks to a Georgia supreme court ruling, a week of early voting on Saturday began in nearly two dozen counties in the state for a contentious runoff between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican opponent Herschel Walker.

Recent polling commissioned by AARP shows Warnock with a four point lead over the Donald Trump-endorsed Walker ahead of the December 6 election.

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What can Democrats push through Congress in the lame-duck session?

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Legislation on the debt ceiling, civil liberties and elections is still possible before Republican House majority kicks in

As a new era of divided government looms in the US, Democrats are rushing to complete a lengthy legislative to-do list that includes landmark civil liberties legislation, a routine but critical spending package and a bill to prevent another January 6.

There are only a handful of working days left before the balance of power in Congress shifts and Democrats’ unified control of government in Washington ends. In January, Republicans will claim the gavel in the House, giving them veto power over much of Joe Biden’s agenda.

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Elon Musk says he will back Trump rival Ron DeSantis in 2024 if he runs for president

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Billionaire says he prefers ‘someone sensible and centrist’ but that he had been disappointed by the Democrats so far

Elon Musk has said he would support Donald Trump’s arch rival, Ron DeSantis, in 2024 if the Florida governor were to run for president.

“Yes”, Musk said in a tweet when asked if he would support DeSantis in 2024, after suggesting he had not found his ideal candidate among Democrats.

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Crime coverage on Fox News halved once US midterms were over

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Just a week after elections, number of weekly segments focused on crime slashed in half on Rupert Murdoch’s flagship network

In the weeks leading up to the US midterm elections, the message from Fox News was clear: violent crime is surging, cities are dangerous hellscapes and Democrats are responsible.

With the vote over, however, the rightwing news channel appeared to decide things weren’t that bad after all, and decreased its coverage of violent crime by 50% compared with the pre-election average.

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Lauren Boebert accused of hypocrisy over prayers for LGBTQ+ club shooting

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Far-right Republican congresswoman has record of anti-LGBTQ+ statements that advocates call ‘dangerous’

LGBTQ+ advocates in the US have criticized the far-right Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert as a hypocrite in light of her past anti-LGBTQ+ statements after she offered prayers to the victims of the recent Club Q mass shooting in Colorado Springs.

The shooting at the LGBTQ+ club that left five dead took place on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. ACLU-Colorado’s senior policy strategist and trans activist Anaya Robinson called Boebert’s condolences “disingenuous”, and blamed incendiary comments about the community for such tragedies.

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Ticketmaster’s Taylor Swift chaos triggers US Senate antitrust hearing

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Several politicians voice concerns about dominance of ticket sales company after botched release for singer’s tour

A US Senate antitrust panel will go ahead with a hearing on the lack of competition in the country’s ticketing industry after Ticketmaster’s problems last week managing the sale of Taylor Swift tickets.

Tickemaster’s parent company, Live Nation, has blamed presale problems for Swift’s Eras tour – the pop superstar’s first US tour in five years – on “unprecedented demand” and an effort to keep out bots run by ticket scalpers.

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Biden administration ‘dragged feet’ on Mohammed bin Salman immunity ruling

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Legal experts raise questions about run-up to granting immunity in civil case involving murder of journalist

When the Biden administration filed a legal brief last week calling for the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case involving the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it said it was strictly a legal determination that did not reflect its views on the “heinous” killing.

“In every case, we simply follow the law. And that’s what we did,” Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, later said.

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Herschel Walker accuser comes forward with fresh relationship claims

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Woman who says she was pressured into abortion by Republican Senate hopeful presents unseen letters, audio and diary entries

The second woman to allege that she was pressured into having an abortion by Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee in Georgia’s hotly contested US Senate race, on Tuesday presented previously unseen letters, audio recordings and pages of her personal diary that she said were evidence of their relationship, which he has denied.

At a press conference in Los Angeles organized by her lawyer, Gloria Allred, the anonymous woman known only as Jane Doe came forward anew with a raft of fresh materials. She said she was doing so because when she first aired her allegations last month “and told the truth, he denied that he knew that I existed”.

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US supreme court allows Congress to view Trump’s tax returns

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Order ends committee’s three-year battle to receive returns former president has long refused to release

The US supreme court will allow a congressional committee to receive copies of Donald Trump’s tax returns, ending a three-year battle by the Democratic-led body to see the documents the former president has famously refused to release since his first White House bid.

The court did not accompany its decision with any public comment, but it rejected Trump’s plea for an order that would have prevented the treasury department from giving six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses to the House ways and means committee.

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