Category Archives: US Politics

Environmental leaders urge Democrats to drop deregulation bill

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Environmentalists call foul as pro-fossil-fuel senator Joe Manchin backs addition to defense act to fast-track energy projects

Joe Biden and the Democratic party’s climate credentials will be severely undermined if controversial legislation to fast-track energy projects is latched on to a must-pass defense bill, environmental leaders have warned.

Progressive lawmakers and hundreds of climate, public health and youth groups are urging the Democratic leadership to stop the latest attempt by Joe Manchin, the West Virginia fossil-fuel-friendly senator, to force through legislation that would weaken environmental protections and expedite permits and construction of pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure while restricting public input.

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Trump Organization found guilty of tax fraud – live

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More on the Jan 6 committee’s announcement about upcoming criminal referrals.

Committee chairman Bennie G Thompson told reporters today that the committee has decided to make at least one criminal referral.

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Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud, New York jury finds

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Twelve-person jury returns guilty verdict against former president’s company after being sent out on Monday to deliberate

A jury in New York has convicted the Trump Organization of criminal tax fraud in a major blow for the former president.

Although Donald Trump was not personally on trial, prosecutors insisted he was fully aware of the 15-year scheme in which they said executives were enriched by off-the-books perks to make up for lower salaries, reducing the company’s tax liabilities.

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January 6 officers and relatives snub top Republicans at gold medal ceremony

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Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy denounced as ‘two-faced’ by Brian Sicknick’s mother at Congressional Gold Medal event

Senior Republicans Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy were snubbed by law enforcement leaders and a fallen officer’s family at Tuesday’s Congressional Gold Medal award ceremony for Capitol police who defended against the 6 January attacks.

The pair were denounced as “two-faced” by the mother of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after a mob of Donald Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol building and forced politicians to flee for their lives.

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US vice-president Kamala Harris will swear in Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass

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The ceremony will be a nod to the barriers broken by the two most powerful women in California politics and beyond

US vice-president Kamala Harris will swear in Karen Bass as Los Angeles mayor, marking the historic election of the first Black woman to lead the second largest city in the country.

The swearing-in ceremony on Sunday will bring together two elected leaders who have repeatedly broken barriers in California politics and beyond. In 2020, Harris became the first woman, first Black person and first Asian person to be US vice- president. In 2008, as a California state assemblymember, Bass became the first Black woman to serve as the speaker of any US state legislature; she was elected to represent Los Angeles in the US congress in 2010 and later became chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

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Democrat Raphael Warnock holds narrow poll lead in crucial Georgia Senate runoff – live

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Two years ago, Georgia was the state that decided control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. This year, its importance will be slightly diminished – but that doesn’t mean the results of Tuesday’s run-off election between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker won’t be closely watched.

Democrats won enough seats in last month’s midterm elections to control Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, but only by a margin so slim they’ll need vice-president Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes on legislation Republicans don’t support. But if Warnock wins, the Democrats will control the chamber outright, and the influence of senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who repeatedly acted as spoilers for some of Joe Biden’s policy proposals over the past two years, will be lessened.

The supreme court at 10am eastern time will hear arguments in a case over whether Colorado’s anti-discrimination law violates the free speech rights of a web designer because she only wants to create wedding pages for heterosexual couples.

Joe Biden, fresh off welcoming French president Emmanuel Macron to Washington, hosts the congressional ball at 6.30pm.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 2.30pm.

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Will the ‘cool, calm, collected’ Hakeem Jeffries change when in power?

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Some believe Black lawmakers adapt to leadership by becoming more moderate – others disagree

Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries first emerged in the mid-2000s as a former corporate lawyer homegrown from central Brooklyn. With his focus on criminal justice reform and housing affordability, he was seen as a progressive of the moment who took on the existing Democratic machine in New York.

Now, as the newly-elected successor to House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Jeffries has graduated from state politics to the national stage with the opportunity to make an impression on American politics for years to come.

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Hakeem Jeffries ‘stops talking’ when asked what he thinks of Kevin McCarthy

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McCarthy seeking votes to be speaker when Republicans take over the House next year party

In his first major interview since being elected the first Black leader in Congress, the New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries was asked what he thought of Kevin McCarthy, the Californian now seeking the votes to be speaker when Republicans take over the House next year.

“We serve in Congress together,” Jeffries said.

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DeSantis and Pence lead Republican wave – of presidential campaign books

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The GOP flopped in the midterms but its White House hopefuls still hope to find readers – and conservative group bulk-buyers

In one of the clearest signs that the 2024 Republican presidential primary will feature rivals to Donald Trump, a host of likely candidates have released or will soon release books purporting to outline their political visions.

Such books often sell poorly, but that is rarely their point. They are markers of ambition. To judge from the political bookshelves, after midterm elections in which many Trump-endorsed candidates suffered humiliating losses, the former president will not be the only declared candidate for long.

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Newt Gingrich warns Republicans that Joe Biden is winning the fight

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Former speaker who led charge against Bill Clinton raises eyebrows with column heralding Democrat’s first-term success

Republicans must “quit underestimating” Joe Biden, the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich said, because the president is winning the fight.

Writing on his own website, Gingrich said: “Conservatives’ hostility to the Biden administration on our terms tends to blind us to just how effective Biden has been on his terms.

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Joe Biden condemns antisemitism following Kanye West’s remarks: ‘Silence is complicity’ – as it happened

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Biden alludes to Republican politicians, saying ‘our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides’

It looks like Florida’s legislature will press ahead with a plan to allow Ron DeSantis to continue serving as the state’s governor, while he pursues his expected run for the White House.

An Associated Press report Friday adds credence to the idea floated by Republicans last month, and reported in this blog, to repeal Florida’s so-called “resign to run” rule.

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Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voices

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Predominantly white New Hampshire reportedly could be scheduled later with South Carolina tipped to move up to first

Democrats are poised to shake up the way in which they nominate presidential candidates, after Joe Biden said the primary process should better represent the party’s non-white voters.

Biden has reportedly told Democrats that Iowa, the state that has led off the Democratic voting calendar since 1976, should be moved down the calendar, with South Carolina instead going first.

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Republicans delete tweet that appears to support Kanye West after he praises Nazis

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House judiciary committee account contained cryptic post - ‘Kanye. Elon. Trump’ – that seemingly expressed support for Ye

Leading Republicans in the US Congress have deleted a tweet that seemingly expressed support for Ye, a rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Since October, a Twitter account run by Republicans on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee has contained a cryptic post that said: “Kanye. Elon. Trump” – apparently claiming Ye, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and former president Donald Trump as their own.

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Rural Arizona county certifies midterm results after judge orders vote

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The Cochise county board of supervisors voted 2-0 to approve the results after threat of lawsuits

A rural Arizona county finally certified its election results on Thursday after a judge ordered the county’s board of supervisors to do their jobs just a couple of hours earlier.

The Cochise county board of supervisors voted 2-0 to approve the midterm results, allowing the statewide canvass of the election to continue as planned on 5 December. A third member of the board who had spearheaded the effort to delay certification, Tom Crosby, did not attend the vote.

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US court strikes down appointment of special master to review Trump records

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Decision marks decisive defeat as judges opine the request should never have been granted in the first place

A federal appeals court on Thursday terminated the special master review of documents seized from Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property, paving the way for the justice department to regain access to the entirety of the materials for use in the criminal investigation surrounding the former president.

The decision by the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit marked a decisive defeat for Trump in a ruling that said a lower-court judge should never have granted his request for an independent arbiter in the first place and is unlikely to be overturned in the event of appeal.

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Biden ‘working with Macron’ to hold Russia accountable for ‘brutal’ Ukraine war – as it happened

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We’re still waiting for Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron to appear for their press conference at the White House.

Elsewhere in Washington, the Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz might be a little uneasy today, as a former tax collector whose arrest led to a wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation faces sentencing.

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Garland vows to hold January 6 attackers to account after Oath Keepers conviction – live

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Attorney general condemns ‘those responsible for crimes related to the attack on our democracy’ – follow US politics live

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who was also Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, will use the coming Christmas holidays to decide whether to launch a run for the presidency in 2024.

Speaking in her home state and at her alma mater, Clemson University, on Tuesday, Haley said: “We are taking the holidays to kind of look at what the situation is. If we decide to get into it, we’ll put 1,000% in, and we’ll finish it.”

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Ron DeSantis book announcement a clear sign of presidential ambition

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Florida governor expected to challenge Trump for Republican nod in 2024 will publish The Courage to Be Free in February

In the clearest signal yet that Ron DeSantis is preparing a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, it was announced on Wednesday that the rightwing governor of Florida will publish a campaign-style book, mixing memoir with policy proposals.

The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Renewal, will be published by Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins, on 28 February.

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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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