Category Archives: US Politics

After Democrats’ historic defeat on voting rights, what happens next?

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In an extremely bruising loss for Biden, Republicans used the filibuster to block the sweeping bill from passing

For a little over a year, America has faced a democratic crisis unlike any it has seen in recent history.

As Republicans have spread lies about the 2020 presidential election, confidence in it remains staggeringly low and about 1 in 3 Americans now believe Joe Biden was not legitimately elected. Republicans who claim the election was stolen are trying to grab key election administration roles, prompting unprecedented alarm that a future election could be overturned.

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Biden warns Russia will ‘pay a heavy price’ if Putin launches Ukraine invasion – as it happened

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Here’s where the day stands so far:

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Ivanka Trump asked to cooperate with Capitol attack committee

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Investigators seek testimony from former first daughter, with panel increasingly focused on Donald Trump’s inner circle

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is asking Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the former president, to appear for a voluntary deposition to answer questions about Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

The move by the panel marks an aggressive new phase in its inquiry into the 6 January insurrection, as House investigators seek for the first time testimony from a member of the Trump family about potential criminality on the part of the former president.

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Trump held secret meetings in days before Capitol attack, ex-press secretary tells panel

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Stephanie Grisham gave more significant details than expected about what Trump was doing before 6 January, sources say

The former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that Donald Trump hosted secret meetings in the White House residence in days before 6 January, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The former senior Trump aide also told House investigators that the details of whether Trump actually intended to march to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse rally would be memorialized in documents provided to the US Secret Service, the sources said.

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‘What are the Republicans for?’: Joe Biden says Trump ‘intimidating’ entire party – video

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US president Joe Biden has accused the Republicans of blocking his legislative agenda for purely political purposes, saying the party is more interested in defeating his presidency than doing things for the American people. Without mentioning his name, Biden suggested that former president Donald Trump was still in control of the Republican party, with members of Congress fearful they will be defeated in their primaries if they vote contrary to his wishes. Biden questioned what the purpose of the Republican party was during his a press briefing marking the one-year anniversary of his presidency

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Supreme court rejects Trump bid to shield documents from January 6 panel

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Court’s move leaves no legal impediment to turning National Archives documents over to congressional committee

The US supreme court has rejected a request by Donald Trump to block the release of White House records to the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol, dealing a blow to the former president.

The order, which casts aside Trump’s request to stop the House select committee from obtaining the records while the case makes its way through the courts, means more than 700 documents that could shed light on the attack can be transferred to Congress.

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Winter of peril and impossibility: Biden faces hard truth at anniversary press conference

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President touts accomplishments but acknowledges failure to foresee Trump’s grip on Republican party

Joe Biden spent decades in Washington, striving to reach the White House. When he achieved the goal a year ago on Thursday, at the age of 78, he spoke of a “winter of peril and possibility”, of cascading crises as an opportunity to think big and aim high.

It turns out the Washington he knows so well has proved more foe than friend, offering more peril than possibility. The 46th US president discovered that not being Donald Trump isn’t enough to get things done or make people love him.

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Joe Biden says his administration has ‘outperformed’ in bruising first year

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President touts coronavirus relief aid and infrastructure law but acknowledges pandemic is unfinished job

• ‘I don’t believe the polls’: Biden gives testy press conference

Joe Biden on Wednesday conceded that the unshakable threat of the Covid-19 pandemic had left many Americans demoralized, but insisted that his administration had “outperformed” expectations despite the myriad crises facing the nation during his first year in office.

Speaking to reporters in the East Room of the White House for his first news conference in months, the US president said he was confident Democrats could pass “big chunks” of his sprawling domestic policy bill currently stalled in the Senate before the 2022 midterm elections.

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Bernie Sanders open to supporting primary challenges against Sinema and Manchin – live

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Over on Capitol Hill, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell lamented the “sad spectacle” of Democrats trying to change the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation.

McConnell accused majority leader Chuck Schumer of launching a “direct assault on the core identity of the Senate” by attempting to amend the filibuster, which Republicans have repeatedly used to block Democrats’ voting rights bills.

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New York attorney general alleges Trump firm misled banks and tax officials

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Court filing says investigators are seeking to question Donald Trump and his two eldest children

The New York attorney general’s office has told a court that its investigators have uncovered evidence that Donald Trump’s company used “fraudulent or misleading” asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits.

The court filing late on Tuesday said state authorities had not yet decided whether to bring a civil lawsuit in connection with the allegations, but that investigators needed to question Trump and his two eldest children as part of their inquiries.

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Donald Trump’s former attorney general William Barr to publish his memoirs

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The book, to be published in March, will divulge details from his tenure as attorney general for George HW Bush and Trump

William Barr, Donald Trump’s second attorney general and perceived “hatchet man” until he split from the former president over his lies about election fraud, will publish his memoirs in March.

HarperCollins, the publisher of One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, promised a “vivid and forthright” read on Barr’s long career in law and conservative politics, in which he was first attorney general under George HW Bush.

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‘Do not celebrate. Legislate’: Martin Luther King family on voting rights – video

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The family of Martin Luther King Jr has called for the passage of a law to protect voters from racial discrimination, while the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the right to vote in the US was 'under assault'. As part of the annual MLK Day peace walk, the King family and more than 100 national and local civil rights groups strode across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge urging the Democrats to pass the bill in the US Senate

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Capitol attack panel grapples with moving inquiry forward: to subpoena or not?

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The committee is undecided on making the near-unprecedented step as the threat of Republican retaliation looms

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is weighing whether to subpoena some of Donald Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill as it considers its options on how aggressively it should pursue testimony to move forward its inquiry into the January 6 insurrection.

The Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican members of Congress Jim Jordan and Scott Perry may have inside knowledge about Trump’s plan to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election and whether it was coordinated with the Capitol attack.

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‘It’s a tough time’: why is Biden one of the most unpopular US presidents?

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Puzzle of Biden’s unpopularity has some pieces within his control and some not, experts say, as Covid casts a shadow over his first year in office

Joe Biden ends his first year in office at a particularly bleak moment for a US president who promised competency and normalcy.

Much of his domestic agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill, impeded by members of his own party. The virus is once again raging out of control: daily infections of Covid-19 have soared to record levels, hospitalizing more Americans than at any previous point during the pandemic. The administration’s vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers was blocked by the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority. Inflation is at a nearly 40-year high. Diplomatic talks have so far failed to pull Russia back from the brink of war with Ukraine.

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‘Florida’s Trump’: DeSantis focusing on nonexistent issues as election looms, critics say

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Opponents say the governor leans on ‘wokeness’ and culture war issues that are irrelevant to the real needs of Floridians

There are still almost 10 months until Florida’s voters elect their next governor, but the campaign of the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, appears well under way.

In a red-meat-for-the-base address at the opening of Florida’s legislature last week, themed around the concept of “freedom” but described by critics as a fanfare of authoritarianism, DeSantis gave a clear indication of the issues he believes are on voters’ minds. They include fighting the White House over Covid-19, ballot box fraud, critical race theory in schools and defunding law enforcement.

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Joe Biden’s first year: Covid, climate, the economy, racial justice and democracy

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How has the president fared on the four big issues he outlined at his inauguration – and the one he couldn’t ignore

One year ago on Thursday, Joe Biden took the oath of office as the 46th president at the US Capitol in an inauguration ceremony devoid of the usual crowds due to pandemic restrictions.

Biden identified four crises facing America: the coronavirus, the climate, the economy and racial justice. He could have added a fifth: a crisis of democracy in a divided nation where, just two weeks earlier, the Capitol had been overrun by insurrectionists.

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Joe Biden’s low point: can the president revive his sinking popularity?

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After a week of setbacks, some analysts say time is running short to impress voters ahead of the November polls

Even for a White House familiar with roadblocks and frustration, Thursday’s setbacks on vaccine mandates and voting rights came as hammer blows.

Aside from the immediate derailing of two key policy tenets of Joe Biden’s administration, the vaccine ruling by the supreme court, which quickly followed Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema’s public assassination of his voting reform efforts, prompted a new round of questions over whether his presidency was doomed.

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US ‘concerned’ Russia preparing for an invasion in Ukraine – live

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The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing with reporters, and she opened her remarks with an important announcement about Joe Biden’s schedule.

The president will hold a formal press conference next Wednesday at 4pm, as he marks one year in office.

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‘Breeding grounds for radicalization’: Capitol attack panel signals loss of patience with big tech

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Subpoenas are an escalation in the committee’s efforts for answers as companies ignored information requests

The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol has ordered several social media firms to hand over data relating to the attack, asignificant step toward transparency that could have broader privacy implications.

The committee on Thursday subpoenaed Twitter, Meta, Alphabet and Reddit for private messages exchanged on the platforms about the attack aas well as information regarding moderation policies that allowed communities to remain online even as they incited violence in early 2021.

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Kyrsten Sinema blocks filibuster reform as Biden continues ‘fight’ for voting rights – video

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US president Joe Biden said he was not sure if his administration could push voting rights legislation through Congress, but he would continue fighting to change the law. ‘I don't know if we can get it done,' he said to reporters. ‘But I know one thing, as long as I have a breath in me … I am going to be fighting to change the way these legislatures are moving.' Earlier, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema reaffirmed she would not support any change to the filibuster rules, effectively killing her party’s hope of passing the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation.

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