Category Archives: US Politics

Biden in Israel as poll shows support for re-election bid at new low – as it happened

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Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed an executive order preventing women who travel to Michigan for an abortion from being extradited to other states where seeking the procedure is illegal.

Here’s how she described the order, which also protects abortion providers in the state from extradition:

I will stand up for all women, even if their local and statewide leaders refuse to. Michigan must remain a place where a person’s basic rights are preserved. In this existential moment for fundamental rights, it is incumbent on every elected official who believes that health—not politics—should guide medical decisions to take bold action.

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Trouble for Trump as committee makes case Capitol attack was premeditated

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Criminal prosecution appears increasingly likely as January 6 committee strengthens case against former president

Donald Trump is facing growing legal peril as the House January 6 committee lays out a case that appears increasingly geared to making a criminal prosecution all but inevitable.

The panel’s seventh hearing on Tuesday argued that Trump instigated an attack on the US Capitol that was premeditated rather than spontaneous and that he cannot hide behind a defence of being “willfully blind”.

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John Bolton says he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countries

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Former national security adviser to Donald Trump says US Capitol attack was not a coup because it was not carefully planned

John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump and before that ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush, said on Tuesday he helped plan coup attempts in other countries.

Speaking to CNN after the day’s January 6 committee hearing, Bolton said it was wrong to describe Trump’s attempt to stay in power after the 2020 election as a coup.

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January 6 testimony tells chilling tale of democracy hanging by a thread

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Analysis: Viewers learned of an ‘unhinged’ White House meeting and rioters ready for war – but will it close the case against Trump?

“We settle our differences at the ballot box.”

Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, emphasised this article of faith in his opening remarks on Tuesday.

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Trump sought to mount ‘armed revolution’, militia ex-spokesman says

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Witness Jason van Tatenhove testifies at seventh public hearing, ‘This could have been the spark that started a new civil war’

In powerful testimony to the House January 6 committee, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers militia told Americans to “quit mincing words and just talk about truths”, and to recognise that Donald Trump attempted to mount “an armed revolution” in order to stay in power.

“People died that day,” Jason van Tatenhove said. “Law enforcement officers died, there was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there. That would have been good for no one.”

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US law will overrule states for abortions in cases of medical emergencies

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Biden administration insists federal law would overrule state bans, protecting providers who perform emergency abortions

Physicians must continue to offer abortions in cases of medical emergencies without exception, Joe Biden’s administration said on Monday, as it insisted federal law would overrule any total state bans on abortion.

In a letter to healthcare providers, the president’s health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) protects providers from any purported state restrictions should they be required to perform emergency abortions.

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Shireen Abu Aqleh: family of killed journalist demand meeting with Biden

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Letter to president expresses ‘sense of betrayal’ for shielding Israel from accountability for her death ahead of his visit to Jerusalem

The family of Shireen Abu Aqleh, the renowned Palestinian-American journalist killed during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank, is demanding a meeting with President Biden during his visit to Jerusalem this week after accusing his administration of shielding Israel from accountability for her death.

Abu Aqleh’s brother, Anton, wrote to Biden on Friday expressing his family’s “grief, outrage and sense of betrayal” after the US state department concluded that Israeli forces were “likely responsible” for shooting the Al Jazeera reporter in the head in the West Bank city of Jenin in May but “found no reason to believe that this was intentional”.

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Bannon suffers setback as judge rejects delaying contempt of Congress trial

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Federal judge also rejects claim by former Trump strategist that he thought his non-compliance was excused by executive privilege

Donald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, suffered heavy setbacks in his contempt of Congress case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed his motion to delay his trial, scheduled for next week, and ruled he could not make two of his principal defences to a jury.

The flurry of adverse rulings from District of Columbia district judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – marked a significant knock back for Bannon, who was charged with criminal contempt after he ignored a subpoena last year from the House January 6 select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters in 2021.

Nichols refused in federal court in Washington DC, to delay Bannon’s trial date set for next Monday, saying that he saw no reason to push back proceedings after he severely limited the defences that the former Trump aide’s lawyers could present to a jury.

The defeats for Bannon stunned his lead lawyer, David Schoen, who asked, aghast: “What’s the point of going to trial if we don’t have any defences?”

Nichols stripped Bannon of two of his main defences for defying the select committee’s subpoena, ruling he could not present evidence to the jury that he had relied on the advice of counsel, and could not rely on entrapment by estoppel, the argument that a defendant was advised erroneously by an official that certain conduct was legal.

The decision, Nichols said, came in large part because he was bound by the controlling case law at the DC circuit level, which ruled in Licavoli v United States 1961, that advice of counsel was no defence against contempt of Congress charges.

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House January 6 committee to focus on Trump’s tweet at extremist group hearing

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Former president’s notorious ‘Be there, will be wild!’ tweet was catalyst for violent protests, congress members will argue

The House January 6 select committee is expected to make the case at its seventh hearing Tuesday that Donald Trump gave the signal to the extremist groups that stormed the Capitol to target and obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win.

The panel will zero in on a pivotal tweet sent by the former president in the early hours of the morning on 19 December 2020, according to sources close to the inquiry who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the forthcoming hearing.

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Biden defends Saudi Arabia trip that aims to reset ties

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President says he aims to reorient relations and meet with the crown prince, who he previously denounced as a pariah

Joe Biden on Saturday defended his decision to travel to Saudi Arabia saying human rights would be on his agenda as he gave a preview of a trip on which he aims to reset ties with the crown prince, who he previously denounced as a pariah.

The American president will hold bilateral talks with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his leadership team, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his visit to the Middle East next week.

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Musk muses about Mars and Earth – but stays quiet on Twitter deal

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Billionaire avoids talking of collapse of $44bn deal but talks about colonizing Mars and boosting Earth’s birthrates at conference

Elon Musk reportedly talked about the colonization of Mars and boosting Earth’s birthrates during his keynote address at Allen & Co’s Sun Valley conference on Saturday, but he avoided discussing his attempt to withdraw from his $44bn bid to buy Twitter.

Musk’s talk to close out this year’s edition of the Idaho conference which annually draws tech, media and finance gurus became one of the hottest tickets after lawyers for the Tesla boss filed notice Friday that he was terminating his bid to acquire Twitter. The billionaire accused the social media firm of failing to provide information on bot accounts, among other things, making observers wonder whether he would address such complaints at his speech scheduled for the next day.

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‘It’s a crisis’: US summer pools closed or cut back amid lifeguard shortage

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Officials say not enough lifeguards to open pools safely but critics say decision to cut services during Covid has had knock-on effect

A nationwide shortage of lifeguards is forcing local pools across the US to close for the summer, according to reports.

In major cities such as New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and elsewhere, public pools are reducing their hours of operation, or shutting down entirely amid an apparent shortage of lifeguards.

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Trump considers waiving Bannon’s executive privilege claim, reports say

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Decision from former president would clear way for one-time adviser to testify before committee investigating Capitol attack

Donald Trump is considering waiving executive privilege for his longtime political adviser Steve Bannon, which would clear the way for a key ally of the former president to testify before the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Trump is reportedly considering sending a letter to Bannon, his former White House strategist, acknowledging that he granted Bannon executive privilege on 21 September but is now willing to give up the claim if Bannon reaches an agreement to testify before the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, the Washington Post first reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.

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US army general suspended for mocking Jill Biden’s support of abortion rights

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Gary Volesky, three-star general who took on lucrative consulting role, suspended over Twitter post that appeared under his name

The US army has suspended a retired three-star general from a lucrative consultant’s role after a social media post appearing under his name taunted first lady Jill Biden’s support of abortion rights.

Former top army spokesperson Gary Volesky, who retired as a lieutenant general and earned a silver star for gallantry while serving in Iraq, was making $92 an hour advising military officers, staff and students who were taking part in war games and other similar activities.

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Texas woman given traffic ticket says unborn child counts as second passenger

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Brandy Bottone, who is 34 weeks pregnant, pulled over by police for driving in high-occupancy vehicle lane for two or more people

A pregnant woman in Texas told police that her unborn child counted as an additional passenger after being cited for driving alone in a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane, offering up a potentially clever defense for motorists navigating the legal landscape following the supreme court’s striking down of nationwide abortion rights last month.

Brandy Bottone of Plano, Texas, tried to fight a ticket for driving with only one passenger in an HOV lane – which requires at least two people in the car – by arguing that her unborn baby should count as her second passenger.

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Biden in crisis mode as specter of one-term Carter haunts White House

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President urged to act more forcefully to deal with rising inflation, gun violence and dire supreme court rulings

At an Independence Day barbecue, crises cascading around him, Joe Biden declared that he had “never been more optimistic about America than I am today”.

Of course there were challenges, grave ones, the US president told the military families assembled on the south lawn of the White House. And the nation had a troubling history of taking “giant steps forward” and then a “few steps backwards”, he acknowledged.

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Biden signs executive order to protect US abortion access and urges Americans to ‘vote, vote, vote’ – as it happened

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It’s official; Biden has formally signed an executive order protecting access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare services.

Here is a previous post detailing what is in the executive order.

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US gunmakers summoned to Congress to justify soaring profits from gun violence – as it happened

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Top Democrats ‘deeply troubled that gun manufacturers continue to profit from the sale of weapons of war’

Could Donald Trump have had the IRS carry out its most stringent audit on two of his political foes? That’s the question posed by a story published yesterday in The New York Times that says former FBI director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe were both selected for random audits by the tax authority, which is run by an appointee of the former president.

A spokesman for Trump denied knowing anything about the matter, and experts quoted in the story wondered whether it was even possible for a president to order the IRS to carry out such an action. The coincidence is nonetheless abnormal. Here’s how one former IRS official put it to the Times:

“Lightning strikes, and that’s unusual, and that’s what it’s like being picked for one of these audits,” said John A. Koskinen, the I.R.S. commissioner from 2013 to 2017. “The question is: Does lightning then strike again in the same area? Does it happen? Some people may see that in their lives, but most will not — so you don’t need to be an anti-Trumper to look at this and think it’s suspicious.”

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Colorado governor issues executive order to protect abortion access

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Jared Polis pledges that his state will not assist other states in criminal or civil investigations into abortions

The Democratic governor of Colorado has mandated that his state will not cooperate with any investigations into abortions led by other states.

Jared Polis signed an executive order on Wednesday pledging that the western US state will not assist other states in criminal or civil investigations used to prevent people from accessing abortions.

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Trump’s White House counsel Pat Cipollone agrees to testify to January 6 panel – as it happened

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Lawyer was subpoenaed last month by the House committee investigating the 2021 assault on the Capitol

A feud appears to be brewing between Biden and the top Democrats in Kentucky, including its governor Andy Beshear.

It began last week when the Courier-Journal reported that Biden intended to nominate an anti-abortion judge to a federal district court, in an apparent deal with Mitch McConnell, the state’s Republican senator who leads the party in Congress’s upper chamber. Now, the Courier-Journal has managed to obtain emails between the White House and Beshear’s office that elaborate on the deal, which the Biden administration has declined to talk about.

The governor’s office also turned over a follow-up email from a White House official sent June 29 — five hours before The Courier Journal first broke the story on the pending nomination of attorney Chad Meredith — clarifying that the original email was “pre-decisional and privileged information.”

White House aide Kathleen M. Marshall, a former lieutenant governor in Nevada who joined the White House in August as senior adviser to governors in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, sent the June 23 email that stated: “To be nominated tomorrow: … Stephen Chad Meredith: candidate for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.”

Mr. Shapiro, the sitting attorney general, will roll out the endorsements of 10 Republicans on Wednesday as part of a continued effort to label his candidacy a reach-across-the-aisle aficionado who will unify the parties to get things done.

The list includes two former U.S. representatives, Charlie Dent and Jim Greenwood; former state House Speaker Denny O’Brien; former Lt. Gov. and longtime state Sen. Robert Jubelirer; and former state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Schultz Newman.

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