‘It’s time to burn the Confederacy down’, says Senate hopeful Gary Chambers, who smoked marijuana in his previous ad
A Louisiana candidate for the US Senate has burned a Confederate flag in a powerful campaign ad about racial injustice in Louisiana and America.
Democrat Gary Chambers is also known for a viral ad where he smokes marijuana to “destigmatize” its use and discusses the unfair policing of drug laws.
Continue reading...Money would go toward humanitarian efforts for Afghan people and to US victims of terrorism, keeping it out of hands of Taliban
Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday releasing $7bn in frozen Afghan reserves to be split between humanitarian efforts for the Afghan people and American victims of terrorism, including relatives of 9/11.
In a highly unusual move, the convoluted plan is designed to tackle a myriad of legal bottlenecks stemming from the 2001 terrorist attacks and the chaotic end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, which ignited a humanitarian and political crisis, the New York times reports.
Continue reading...Jim Lamon’s ad depicts ‘shootout’ with Democrats including Mark Kelly, senator whose wife Gabby Giffords was shot in deadly attack
A Republican Senate primary candidate in Arizona has been condemned for a “disgusting” campaign ad in which he shoots at lookalike actors portraying Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the incumbent Arizona senator Mark Kelly.
Jim Lamon, an energy executive, shared the ad on Twitter, saying it would be aired at this year’s Super Bowl.
Continue reading...American Foreign Service Association chief Eric Rubin says syndrome, which remains a mystery, has affected recruitment
The spread of Havana syndrome has “dramatically hurt” morale in the US diplomatic corps and affected recruitment, according to the head of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA).
Eric Rubin, whose association represents nearly 17,000 current and former diplomats and foreign aid workers, said it was getting harder to find young people to work abroad, because of concerns about Havana syndrome – and about whether the government would look after them if they got sick.
Continue reading...Joe Biden acknowledged that rising prices in the US are having a significant impact on families’ budgets, even as the American economy more broadly continues to recover from the effect of the coronavirus pandemic.
“On higher prices, we have been using every tool at our disposal, and while today is a reminder that Americans’ budgets are being stretched in ways that create real stress at the kitchen table, there are also signs that we will make it through this challenge,” Biden said in a new statement.
Continue reading...Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just said that the agency continues to recommend masking in “areas of high and substantial transmission”.
According to the CDC’s own data, 99.5% of all US counties currently qualify as areas of high and substantial transmission, even as the number of new coronavirus cases across the US has decreased in the past few weeks.
Continue reading...Move to pursue Peter Navarro suggests the select committee is edging ever closer to examining potential culpability for Trump
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Wednesday subpoenaed Donald Trump’s former White House senior adviser Peter Navarro, escalating its inquiry into the former president’s efforts to return himself to office and the January 6 insurrection.
The move to pursue Navarro, who helped finalize the scheme to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win with political operatives at the Willard hotel in Washington DC, suggests the panel is edging ever closer to examining potential culpability for Trump.
Continue reading...Senator says he has texted with ‘terrific’ Ronna McDaniel, RNC chair who oversaw censure of Cheney and Kinzinger
Mitt Romney and his niece, Ronna McDaniel, exchanged texts after the Republican National Committee she chairs called Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat and the Capitol riot “legitimate political discourse”.
Romney, the Utah senator, 2012 presidential nominee and only Republican to twice vote to convict Trump at his impeachment trials, told reporters on Monday he “expressed his point of view”.
Continue reading...Joe Biden issues stark advice to Americans in Ukraine: ‘Leave’
Secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, speaking alongside the EU High Representative, Josep Borrell, said the US and its allies in Europe are acting “in unity” in response to Russian aggression and a potential conflict with Ukraine.
Blinken vowed “real and profound consequences should Russia choose to continue aggression”.
Continue reading...Thiel, a major donor to the Republican party, was seen by critics as part of the reason why Facebook did not censor Trump
Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, is stepping down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, after 17 years.
Thiel, Facebook’s longest-serving board member and a major donor to the Republican party, plans to focus on backing Donald Trump’s allies in the November midterm elections, according to the New York Times. He recently donated $10m each to the Senate campaigns of Blake Masters, who is running for a seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running in Ohio. Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel’s family office and Vance used to work at one of Thiel’s venture funds.
Continue reading...Conservatives are pushing to ban books from school libraries. At a time of crisis, a group of Pennsylvania teenagers are fighting back
“Napoleon’s use of the sheep was notable,” says Jordan Daughtry, 14. She’s clutching a copy of Animal Farm, and referring to the authoritarian Berkshire boar who seizes control of an English acreage, before bending his fellow animals to his will.
The sheep, who represent the unwitting masses in George Orwell’s critique of Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian rule, are “ignorant buffoons”, Daughtry says.
Kiara Daughtry, left, and Lena Cackley.
Continue reading...Former chief of staff Marc Short joins several senior Republicans to defend the former vice-president in escalating feud with Trump
Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short joined several senior Republicans in rallying to defend the former vice-president on Sunday in his escalating feud with Donald Trump over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
Some of Trump’s advisers on the 2020 election were like “snake oil salesmen”, Short said on Sunday.
Continue reading...Officials in Woodside – a mansion-filled, tech entrepreneur enclave – claim wildcat land keeps them from building multi-unit homes
At first glance, the town of Woodside may look more like a sprawl of mansions built on big-tech billions than crucial habitat for threatened California mountain lions.
But town officials might suggest looking again.
Continue reading...House speaker Nancy Pelosi applauded Joe Biden for overseeing the US military operation that resulted in the death of Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.
“Last night, America delivered justice to the leader of ISIS and struck a serious blow to this terrorist group,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Continue reading...Trump’s lawyer was revealed to be a contestant on The Masked Singer – and when Robin Thicke storms off in protest, you know you’ve got problems
It’s like something from a Guillermo del Toro film: a grotesque fantasy creature disrobes, only to reveal an even more horrifying monster underneath. But that’s what viewers will see when the US version of The Masked Singer, Fox’s incognito singing competition, returns at the end of this month.
The show, in which a panel of judges and the audience try to guess the identity of celebrity vocalists dressed in furry theme-park costumes, is taped in advance of airing. But Deadline reports that at the first episode’s climax, when the eliminated singer reveals their true identity, it was Rudy Giuliani whose head popped out of the costume. Judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke walked off the set in protest. Quite a good reflection of how bad a guy you have to be when rape-culture chanteur Thicke, the singer of Blurred Lines, decides you’re beyond the pale.
Continue reading...In new book, David Friedman recounts private meeting with Israeli president in which Trump also knocked Netanyahu – and how he says he turned his man around
Meeting then-Israeli president Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem in May 2017, Donald Trump stunned advisers by criticising the then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for being unwilling to seek peace while Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, was “desperate” for a deal.
The comment “knocked everyone off their chairs”, David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, writes in a new book.
Continue reading...White House press secretary Jen Psaki is briefing right now. She’s talking further about planned US troop deployments to NATO’s eastern flank to bolster Ukraine’s preparedness in facing massed Russian military might at its border.
“They are not going to Ukraine to fight,” Psaki said, attempting to clarify the mission, in response to questions from reporters about what they’ll be doing.
Continue reading...Concealable devices with ‘modest energy requirements’ which could emit pulsed electromagnetic energy and ultrasound exist
A US intelligence report by a panel of expert scientists has named pulsed electromagnetic energy and ultrasound as plausible causes for the mystery Havana Syndrome symptoms suffered by US diplomats and spies in recent years.
The report found that a group of cases could not be explained by health or environmental factors or by psychosomatic illness. It also said that devices exist with “modest energy requirements” which were concealable and could produce the observed symptoms and be effective over hundreds of meters or through walls.
Continue reading...The former president and his allies may doom the Republicans by reminding the public of their attempted coup
The midterm elections are just over nine months away. What will Democrats run on? What will Republicans run on?
One hint came at a Houston-area Trump rally Saturday night. “If I run and if I win,” the former guy said, referring to 2024, “we will treat those people from January 6th fairly.” He then added, “and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”
Continue reading...Today’s call between the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, lasted about 30 minutes, per the Washington Post.
In the call, Lavrov said the Kremlin is working on a full written response to the US proposal regarding Russia demands on Ukraine, which the White House delivered last week.
Continue reading...