Category Archives: US Politics

Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine

Posted on by

Former CIA director and retired army general says Moscow’s leader is ‘desperate’ and ‘battlefield reality he faces is irreversible’

The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black sea fleet – if Russian president Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons in the country, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday.

Petreaus said that he had not spoken to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to nuclear escalation from Russia, which administration officials have said has been repeatedly communicated to Moscow.

Continue reading...

Hurricane Ian: Americans urged to weigh risks of rebuilding in vulnerable areas

Posted on by

Fema administrator says people should ‘make informed decisions’ about rebuilding in areas hit by natural disasters

US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) administrator Deanne Criswell asked Americans on Sunday “to make informed decisions” about rebuilding in vulnerable areas hit by natural disasters intensified by climate change.

“People need to understand what their potential risk my be whether it’s along the coast, inland along a riverbed or in tornado alley,” Criswell told CNN’s Face the Nation. “People need to make informed decisions about what their risk is and if they choose to rebuild there they do so in a way that’s going to reduce their threat.”

Continue reading...

The ‘all-out’ effort to overcome Georgia’s new restrictive voting bill

Posted on by

SB202 is forcing officials and voting rights groups to use every resource to ensure elections run smoothly

In 2021, the Election Integrity Act sent shockwaves across Georgia as citizens learned of new restrictions, such as curbing the way churches could provide pizza and water to voters. However, there are much broader effects of the bill being felt across the state as communities across Georgia prepare for midterm elections, the first major election since the signing of the controversial bill.

The 98-page bill, also called SB202, impacts a litany of election elements ranging from voter ID laws to the distance at which food and water can be distributed to voters waiting in line. Election officials say they are being forced to use every resource at their disposal to navigate the bill and ensure this election season runs smoothly. But there is widespread concern that the new law will create fresh barriers to voters of color and the changing Georgia electorate.

Continue reading...

Iranian American held in Tehran for seven years granted temporary release

Posted on by

Siamak Namazi, convicted along with father on espionage charges, freed from Evin prison on one-week renewable furlough

An Iranian American businessman who has been imprisoned in Iran for nearly seven years has been released from Tehran’s Evin prison on a one-week, renewable furlough, the United Nations announced on Saturday.

The release of detainee Siamak Namazi comes as his father, Baquer Namazi, is being allowed to leave Iran for medical treatment, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Continue reading...

Uvalde families stand with Beto O’Rourke amid Republican silence on gun reform

Posted on by

Families of those killed in May school shooting support Democrat in race against Texas governor Greg Abbott

A small photo of Jacklyn Casarez, one of the children killed during the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in May, graced the front of a greeting card held by Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who visited a Rio Grande Valley park Friday morning before the one and only staged debate with incumbent governor Greg Abbott.

“Maybe you don’t consider yourself a political person,” Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was also killed in the 24 May shooting at Robb elementary, said Friday during a pre-debate news conference.

Continue reading...

Pelosi reportedly resisted Democrats’ effort to impeach Trump on January 6 – as it happened

Posted on by

For all the supreme court’s pomp and ceremony, a new poll finds Americans increasingly are holding it in low regard.

According to Monmouth University, a majority of Americans find it out of touch with their beliefs:

Continue reading...

Senate passes short-term deal to avoid government shutdown – as it happened

Posted on by

Top Democrat says he hopes to finalize deal to fund government until mid-December by the end of today

With a speech on the Capitol steps, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy was stumping again today for his party’s Commitment to America platform and plans for “firing Nancy Pelosi”.

McCarthy last week debuted the plan, which offered a broad if vague outline of what the party would do should they take Congress’s lower chamber in the 8 November midterms:

Kevin McCarthy’s pitiful display this morning is only further proof that the MAGA cult in his conference has him in a chokehold. House Republican Leaders spent their morning detached from reality: bragging about their dangerous, extreme, unpopular agenda to ban abortion in all fifty states, send prescription drug costs soaring and steal your right to choose your leaders. Truthfully, a desperate press conference is about par for the course for an uninspiring and incoherent politician like the Minority Leader, whose only real accomplishment to date is typing up a radical right-wing wish list that sends a clear message to the American people that House Republicans have gone off the deep end.

Continue reading...

Sirhan Sirhan, man who assassinated Robert Kennedy, asks judge to free him

Posted on by

Lawyer, who says he no longer poses a risk, files request to reverse California governor Newsom’s decision to deny Sirhan parole

Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy in 1968, is asking a judge to free him from prison by reversing a decision by the California governor to deny him parole.

Sirhan shot Kennedy in 1968 at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles, moments after the US senator from New York claimed victory in California’s pivotal Democratic presidential primary. He wounded five others during the shooting.

Continue reading...

Biden takes aim at food insecurity with first hunger conference in 50 years – as it happened

Posted on by

Biden releases national hunger and nutrition strategy, which includes a slate of goals to help end food insecurity

Biden is going into the main pillars of the national hunger and nutrition strategy released on Tuesday, which includes a slew of goals to help end food insecurity, give people more information and options to eat more healthily, and help folks take up regular physical activity.

Unfortunately, the goals are more a call to action, as Congress has ended Covid-era policies like the universal free school meals program and the expanded child tax credits which had massively reduced food insecurity and child poverty in the US.

Continue reading...

House January 6 committee postpones public hearing, citing Hurricane Ian

Posted on by

Storm bearing down on Florida nixes session that had been expected to feature footage of Trump ally Roger Stone

The House January 6 select committee announced that it would postpone what was expected to be its final investigative hearing scheduled for Wednesday over concerns about a hurricane and as it considers how best to present a number of unresolved questions surrounding the US Capitol attack.

“In light of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s proceedings,” the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson and the vice-chair Liz Cheney said in a joint statement. “We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path.”

Continue reading...

McConnell endorses bipartisan bill to prevent efforts to overturn US elections

Posted on by

Legislation would clarify and expand parts of 1887 Electoral Count Act and aim to avoid repeat of January 6 insurrection

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Tuesday he would “proudly support” legislation to overhaul rules for certifying presidential elections, bolstering a bipartisan effort to revise a 19th-century law and avoid any repeat of the January 6 insurrection.

The legislation would clarify and expand parts of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which, along with the constitution, governs how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential winners.

Continue reading...

January 6 committee postpones Wednesday hearing over hurricane – as it happened

Posted on by

Panel cites threat of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, and says the ‘investigation goes forward’

As the January 6 committee enters what is likely to be the home stretch of its investigation, a new poll has found it hasn’t meaningfully shifted beliefs about what happened that day.

Monmouth University finds that around four in 10 Americans hold Donald Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol, slightly less than in late June, while three in 10 believe the election was stolen from him, a figure that’s moved little since November 2020.

Continue reading...

Senate advances funding bill to avert shutdown after Manchin measure scrapped

Posted on by

Both parties opposed the measure on energy permits, which critics said would gut environmental protections

The US Senate has voted to advance a funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown, after a tense standoff over a controversial energy-permitting provision proposed by the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin ended with its withdrawal.

A procedural vote on Tuesday to move forward with the funding bill succeeded easily, 72-23, after Democrats announced that the West Virginia senator’s proposal, which faced opposition from both parties, would be stripped from the final legislation. It was clear that, with Manchin’s plan included, Democrats were falling far short of the 60 votes needed to proceed, as most Republicans objected to it.

Continue reading...

Republican ex-congressman suggests colleagues ‘had serious cognitive issues’

Posted on by

Paul Gosar and Louie Gohmert were eager to believe ‘wild, dramatic fantasies’, claims Denver Riggleman in new book

The Republican congressmen Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar adopted such extreme, conspiracy-tinged positions, even before the US Capitol attack, that a fellow member of the rightwing Freedom Caucus thought they “may have had serious cognitive issues”.

Denver Riggleman, once a US representative from Virginia, reports his impression of his former colleagues from Texas and Arizona in a new book.

Continue reading...

Meadows was central to hundreds of texts about overturning 2020 election, book says

Posted on by

Messages include group chat among cabinet officials and plans by lawmakers to object to election certification

Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, was at the center of hundreds of incoming messages about ways to aid Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to texts he turned over to the House January 6 select committee that have been published in a new book.

The texts included previously unreported messages, including a group chat with Trump administration cabinet officials and plans to object to Joe Biden’s election certification on January 6 by Republican members of Congress and one former US attorney, as well as other Trump allies.

Continue reading...

Former January 6 committee staffer says texts show evidence of ‘attempted coup’ – live

Posted on by

Denver Riggleman tells 60 Minutes that texts from Mark Meadows amounted to a ‘roadmap to an attempted coup’

The supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade allowed states to curtail abortion rights completely, potentially transformed the midterms and, as Maya Yang reports, complicated access to other medicines in unexpected ways:

A few weeks after the supreme court’s 24 June decision to overturn the nationwide abortion rights established by Roe v Wade, the pharmacy chain Walgreens sent Annie England Noblin a message, informing her that her monthly prescription of methotrexate was held up.

Continue reading...

Pennsylvania school district bans Girls Who Code book series

Posted on by

The books are four of more than 1,500 titles banned by schools across the US as part of a conservative push to censor books

A school district in Pennsylvania has banned the Girls Who Code book series for young readers, according to an index of banned books compiled by the free expression non-profit Pen America.

The books are four of more than 1,500 unique book titles that have been banned by schools across the country after conservative pushes to censor books. According to a report released by Pen America in April, 138 school districts across 32 states have banned books from their classrooms and school libraries.

Continue reading...

US senators refuse to let killing of Shireen Abu Akleh drop with Israel

Posted on by

The state department seems keen to avoid questions about the Palestinian American journalist’s shooting by an Israeli soldier

Israel has declared the case closed. The US state department has done its best to duck difficult questions. But leading members of the US Congress are refusing to drop demands for a proper accounting of the death of the Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, four months ago.

The longest-serving member of the US Senate, Patrick Leahy, recently upped the ante by warning that Israel’s failure to fully explain the Al-Jazeera reporter’s killing could jeopardize America’s huge military aid to the Jewish state under a law he sponsored 25 years ago cutting weapons supplies to countries that abuse human rights.

Continue reading...

Louisiana school turned ‘college fair’ into transphobic church event, students say

Posted on by

More than 2,100 high school seniors were taken to event that left many of the students traumatized, some attendees say

More than 2,000 public school students in Louisiana were told earlier this week that they were going to a college fair. They were then shuttled to what parents later deemed a sexist and transphobic church event which left many of the students traumatized.

On Tuesday, more than 2,100 high school seniors from the East Baton Rouge Parish School System – which serves residents of Louisiana’s capital – were taken to the local Living Faith Christian Center under the promise that they would receive college and career advice, as well as free food.

Continue reading...

Trump claimed ‘I was not watching television’ on January 6, book says

Posted on by

Ex-president denied knowing his supporters were rioting and called them ‘fucking crazy’, Maggie Haberman writes in new book

Donald Trump denied knowing at the time the January 6 attack on the US Capitol started that a mob of his supporters – whom he privately called “fucking crazy” – were rioting, the author of a forthcoming book on his chaotic presidency writes in what may stand as one of the most surprising, non-believable postscripts of his tenure in the Oval Office.

“I didn’t usually have the television on. I’d have it on if there was something. I then later turned it on and I saw what was happening,” Trump told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming account Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.

Continue reading...