Records obtained by Washington Post show agency paid $396.15 every night since 20 January until at least 30 April
Donald Trump has billed the Secret Service more than $40,000 for a room for his own security detail, which has been guarding him at his Mar-a-Lago resort since he left office in January.
Related: Trump family members got ‘inappropriately close’ to Secret Service agents, book claims
Continue reading...Progressive coalition could be become counterweight to pro-Israeli traditions of Democratic party
It just so happened that Joe Biden was due to visit Detroit, home to the biggest Arab American community in the country, at the height of the latest upsurge in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The sight of the presidential motorcade on Tuesday passing through a protest bedecked with Palestinian flags – and of Biden himself in heated discussion with Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian woman to be elected to Congress, on the Detroit airport tarmac – vividly illustrated the rapid shifts underway in US politics.
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In his remarks before signing the anti-Asian American hate crimes bill, Joe Biden denounced racism as an “ugly poison” that has tarnished the country.
“I believe with every fiber of my being that there are simple core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans,” the president said of the bill.
President Biden: "I believe with every fiber of my being that there are simple core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans. One of them is standing together against hate, against racism — the ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation." pic.twitter.com/DB1gsTNoen
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell applauded Joe Biden for signing the anti-Asian American hate crimes bill into law moments ago.
“Recent increases in anti-Asian hate crimes are alarming,” the Republican leader said on Twitter. “I’m proud the Senate took bipartisan action — and, as the proud husband of a remarkable Asian-American woman, I am especially glad this effort is now law.”
I applaud @POTUS for signing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law. Recent increases in anti-Asian hate crimes are alarming. I’m proud the Senate took bipartisan action — and, as the proud husband of a remarkable Asian-American woman, I am especially glad this effort is now law.
Continue reading...The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly attack on the Capitol in January. Thirty-five Republicans joined Democrats in passing the measure, with the vote largely falling along party lines. A total of 175 Republicans voted against the bill, with Democrat congressman Tim Ryan saying it was 'slap in the face to every rank and file cop in the United States'. Republicans in leadership have played down the violence of the Capitol riot that left five people dead
The vast majority of House Republicans voted against a bipartisan, 9/11-style panel – no surprise from a party still in thrall to Trump
“Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States.” So begins the report of the 9/11 commission, which investigated the terrorist attacks 20 years ago with bipartisan support.
Will there be a similarly limpid introduction to a similarly weighty (567 pages) study of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January? Not if Republicans can help it.
Continue reading...Analysis: Seoul’s navigation of geopolitical landscape in east Asia hints at limits of united front with US
When the South Korean president goes to Washington DC on Friday, his discussions with Joe Biden about China will test the limits of the US president’s rhetoric to “work with [its] allies to hold China accountable”. It will also exhibit the dilemma faced by middle-sized powers such as South Korea.
The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said last month that Moon Jae-in’s visit “will highlight the ironclad alliance between the United States and [South Korea], and the broad and deep ties between our governments, people and economies”.
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The House voted 252-175 to establish a commission investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Among those who voted in favor of establishing the commission were 35 Republicans.
John Katko, the Republican ranking member of the House homeland security committee helped write the bill to establish the commission, had urged his fellow Republicans to support the proposal.
Republicans in Congress are rebelling against the mask requirement on the House chamber, which remains in place due to Covid-19 safety concerns from Democrats, who hold the majority.
During votes on Tuesday, several Republican lawmakers refused to wear masks as they stood in the chamber and encouraged other members to join them.
Continue reading...35-year-old, who served as special assistant in Trump’s White House, declares: ‘I’m a politician out of the womb’
Andrew Giuliani, the son of the embattled Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has announced he will run for New York governor in 2022.
The 35-year-old, who served as a special assistant in Trump’s White House and is a former contributor to the hard rightwing Newsmax television channel, made the announcement on Tuesday, declaring: “I’m a politician out of the womb.”
Continue reading...Loopholes surrounding these weapons make them untraceable – and a hot commodity in many vulnerable communities
When Brian Muhammad, a program manager at a gun violence prevention group in California, asked a 16-year-old boy in 2018 how young people were getting guns, he assumed the answer would be Nevada, the neighboring state with looser gun laws.
“Who would waste time going to Nevada when you can just get them in the mail and put it together?” the Stockton teen nonchalantly replied.
Continue reading...White House reported the US president urged Israel ‘to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians’
Tennessee governor Bill Lee has signed an anti-transgender bathroom ball into law, in the latest attack on trans rights in a Republican-controlled state this year, the AP reports.
The bill would allow students, parents and employees to sue schools “for all psychological, emotional, and physical harm suffered” if the school allows a trans person to use a bathroom or locker room while someone else is suing it.
The Guardian’s voting rights reporter Sam Levine on the latest developments in Arizona’s election audit:
Arizona Republicans are overseeing a “grift disguised as an audit,” the chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors said on Monday, just before officials released a blistering letter refuting accusations the county was hiding information from auditors.
Maricopa county says Cyber Ninjas is just straight miscounting ballots https://t.co/riK3xBi6l3 pic.twitter.com/vM5Wa9XjnX
Continue reading...Analysis: US president may find himself increasingly isolated in his resolute defence of Israel
In his staunch defence of Israel, Joe Biden is sticking to a course set decades ago as a young senator, and has not so far given ground on the issue to the progressive wing of his party or many Jewish Democrats urging a tougher line towards Benjamin Netanyahu.
Biden has even been prepared to face isolation at the UN security council, at the potential cost of his own credibility on multilateralism and human rights. But analysts say that as the death toll rises with no sign of a ceasefire, the domestic and international pressures on the president could become impossible to ignore.
Continue reading...Liz Cheney has become the figurehead of the conservative Never Trumpers – but the Wyoming congresswoman was for the former president in the last election.
Related: Can ‘Never Trump’ Republicans gain party control – or is it a lost cause?
Continue reading...Embattled Republican congressman compares allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor to congressional earmarks
The embattled Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has compared allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor to earmarks, a congressional process by which spending measures beneficial to representatives’ districts are attached to legislation.
“I’m being falsely accused of exchanging money for naughty favors,” he said, speaking to Republicans in Ohio on Saturday.
Continue reading...Anti-Trump Republicans get lots of media attention. That doesn’t mean they are relevant within the Republican party
“Over 100 Republicans, including former officials, threaten to split” from the Republican party, the New York Times declared on Tuesday. The next day the Washington Post upped the ante, headlining that the 100 Republicans were vowing “civil war”; the columnist Jennifer Rubin proclaimed the beginning of “the stampede away from the GOP”.
Sounds exciting, but what has really happened?
Continue reading...Lawmakers faced with choice between embarrassing Trump and ignoring insurrection
House Democrats are poised to adopt legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, in a move that will force Republicans to either embrace an inquiry that could embarrass Donald Trump – or turn a blind eye to a deadly insurrection.
Related: Liz Cheney: McCarthy should testify about Trump’s views on Capitol attack
Continue reading...Venmo accounts for Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden were removed on Friday after BuzzFeed News said it easily found the US president on the payment app – a discovery it said raised national security questions.
Related: Venmo: how the payment app exposes our private lives
Continue reading...As Liz Cheney’s defiance turns her into one of the movement’s leaders some insist the party was their home long before Trump while others say it’s time to move on
Sixteen minutes and out. The purging of Liz Cheney from Republican leadership in the House of Representatives did not even go to a secret ballot. Instead a voice vote was all it took to confirm the party’s capitulation to Donald Trump and his “big lie” about a stolen election.
But Cheney went down swinging, vowing to reporters on Capitol Hill: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” then using a high-profile TV interview to say of would-be challengers for her seat in Wyoming: “Bring it on.”
Continue reading...Lawmakers agree to create bipartisan commission to investigate breach but questions remain over GOP support
The Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, should testify before the commission to investigate the 6 January Capitol attack, the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney said on Friday, because he has “said publicly that he’s got information about the president’s state of mind that day”.
Related: ‘It’s hard to look at’: Donald Trump makes National Portrait Gallery debut
Continue reading...The progressive representative says the Republican extremist’s behavior has ‘raised concerns’ among Democrats
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said the Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene has a “fixation” on progressive members of Congress, and warned that Greene’s behavior has “raised concerns” among Democrats.
Greene, a Trump loyalist and a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, was elected to the House in 2020, and has spent her first months in office harassing Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats.
Continue reading...A Colorado man suspected in the death of his wife, who disappeared on Mother’s Day last year, is also accused of submitting a fraudulent vote on her behalf for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election, court documents show.
Related: California woman may have washed $26m lottery fortune down the drain
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