Category Archives: US Politics

Donald Trump takes up a post-presidency hobby: revenge

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Instead of discreetly returning to private life the ex-president is focused on punishing Republicans he feels betrayed him

Every former American president picks up hobbies after leaving office (books, painting, skinny dipping, boxing). For the early days of Donald Trump’s post-presidency he has picked something a little different: revenge.

It’s early and presidents usually intentionally recede from public view dramatically after leaving office. But Trump appears uninterested in following that practice.

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Republicans take no action against Cheney or extremist Greene after vote

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Republicans met to consider fate of two prominent congresswoman in a divided party

House Republicans faced a reckoning on Wednesday as leaders in the US House of Representatives confronted calls to punish two prominent congresswomen who represent clashing visions for a party struggling to chart a path forward since Donald Trump left the White House.

Related: House to vote on removing rightwing extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene from committees – live

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US ‘deeply disturbed’ by reports of systematic rape in China’s Xinjiang camps

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State department says ‘atrocities’ against detained Uighur and Muslim women in region must be ‘met with serious consequences’

The United States government is “deeply disturbed” by reports of systematic rape and sexual torture of women detained in China’s Xinjiang camps for ethnic Uighur and other Muslims, and demanded serious consequences.

The US state department was responding to a BBC report, published on Wednesday, detailing horrific allegations rape, sexual abuse and torture, based on interviews with several former detainees and a guard. The interviewees told the BBC “they experienced or saw evidence of an organised system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture”.

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Republicans clash over futures of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney – live

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The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she did not believe the vaccination of all teachers was required to safely reopen US schools.

Dr Rochelle Walensky told reporters at the White House coronavirus briefing, “Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools.”

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, encouraged people to safely watch the Super Bowl game this Sunday.

“Please watch the Super Bowl safely, gathering only virtually or with the people you live with,” Walensky said during the White House coronavirus briefing.

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Biden pledges to ‘undo moral shame’ of Trump era with new orders on immigration – live

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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has been denounced as a “rogue agency” after new allegations of assaults on asylum seekers emerged, and deportations of African and Caribbean migrants continued in defiance of the Biden administration’s orders.

Joe Biden unveiled his immigration agenda on Tuesday, and his homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate, but the continued deportations suggested the Biden White House still does not have full control of Ice, which faces multiple allegations of human rights abuses and allegations that it has disproportionately targeted black migrants.

Related: New claims of migrant abuse as Ice defies Biden to continue deportations

A hastily executed transfer of nearly 200 people in California’s prison system set off a public health disaster that endangered the lives of thousands of prisoners and staff and led to dozens of deaths, according to a new report from the state’s office of the inspector general (OIG).

The report published on Monday, the third in a series examining the Covid-19 catastrophe in California state prisons, details the circumstances of a May 2020 transfer of 189 people from the California Institute for Men (CIM) in Chino, California, to San Quentin state prison in the Bay Area and Corcoran state prison in the Central Valley.

Related: California prison transfer led to dozens of deaths and endangered thousands – state watchdog

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‘A moral and national shame’: Biden to launch taskforce to reunite families separated at border

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President decries Trump administration that ‘literally ripped children from the arms of their families’ as he signs executive orders

Joe Biden plans to create a taskforce to reunify families separated at the US-Mexico border by the Trump administration, as part of a new series of immigration executive actions signed at an Oval Office ceremony on Tuesday.

Biden condemned Donald Trump’s immigration policies as a “stain on the reputation” of the US.

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Mitch McConnell says congresswoman’s ‘loony lies’ are ‘a cancer’ for Republicans

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Senate minority leader didn’t name Marjorie Taylor Greene, but the remarks were clearly directed at the QAnon supporter

Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the US Senate, has intensified pressure on the extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling the “loony lies and conspiracy theories” that she endorses a “cancer for the Republican party”.

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US to resume deporting asylum seekers after judge rejects Biden order

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Trump-appointed judge ruled against president’s 100-day suspension, raising questions over whether Ice will resist reform

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is preparing to resume deportations of asylum seekers after a Trump-appointed Texas judge ruled against a 100-day suspension ordered by Joe Biden.

The ruling, in response to a challenge from a leading figure in the Republican effort to overturn the election result, marks the first shot in a legal rearguard action by Trump loyalists intended to stymie the Biden administration’s agenda.

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Donald Trump’s impeachment defence in disarray as lead lawyers quit

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Butch Bowers clashed with Trump over strategy, according to reports, and leaves along with Deborah Barberi and three others

The ability of Republican senators who plan to acquit Donald Trump at his upcoming impeachment trial to pretend to have weighed the case on the merits has been endangered by the mass resignation of Trump’s legal team at the weekend.

The Senate has set a deadline of Tuesday for Trump’s lawyers to submit a preliminary memo laying out his defense. The House impeached Trump earlier this month on a single article charging “incitement of insurrection” – a historic second impeachment of a US president.

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Biden presidency ‘may herald new start for Saudi-Iranian relations’

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Existing quiet cooperation has been under way for months, say authors of Guardian comment article

An opportunity for a new beginning between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been presented by Joe Biden’s presidency, two leading Saudi and Iranians close to their diplomatic leaderships are proposing in an article in the Guardian today.

The article is co-written by Abdulaziz Sager, the Saudi Arabian chairman and founder of the Gulf Research Center, and Hossein Mousavian, a former senior Iranian diplomat and now a nuclear specialist based at Princeton University.

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Explainer: what is the filibuster and why do some Democrats want to get rid of it?

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Abolishing the filibuster could allow Senate Democrats to pass Joe Biden’s agenda, but there are risks

While the US Senate has temporarily averted a showdown over its so-called filibuster rule, the issue appears likely to resurface, as the wafer-thin Democratic majority endeavors to pass Joe Biden’s legislative agenda into law – and Republicans try to stop them. Here’s what you need to know:

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Cori Bush says she’s moving office away from GOP extremist over safety concerns

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Democratic congresswoman said Marjorie Taylor Greene and her staff refused to wear masks and berated her

The Democratic representative Cori Bush said she is moving her office away from that of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene due to safety concerns after Greene and her staff berated her and refused to wear masks.

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Biden move to refund UN population agency is ‘ray of hope for millions’

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‘Women’s bodies are not political bargaining chips’ says UNFPA director, as US funding restored after Trump era

The decision by US president Joe Biden to refund the UN population fund, UNFPA, offers “a ray of hope for millions of people around the world”, said the agency’s executive director.

Dr Natalia Kanem said the announcement on Thursday would have an “enormous” impact on the agency’s work, particularly as the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.

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‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy

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The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.

Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.

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Joe Biden axes ‘global gag rule’ but health groups call on him to go further

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President’s move to end ‘abortion ban’ on overseas funding hailed – now aid groups want apology for harmful Trump policies

Health groups around the world are celebrating the end of a harmful policy banning US funding for overseas aid organisations that facilitate or promote abortion, which was scrapped by the US president, Joe Biden, in a presidential memorandum on Thursday.

Reproductive rights advocates are urging the new administration to now go further and permanently repeal the Mexico City policy – known as the “global gag rule” – to prevent it being reinstated by a future Republican president. The policy has been blamed for contributing to thousands of maternal deaths in the developing world over the past four years.

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‘What were they thinking?’: Pelosi slams GOP over Marjorie Taylor Greene committee seat – video

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A visibly angry Nancy Pelosi accused Republican leaders of showing disregard to the victims of school shootings after the QAnon-supporting congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was assigned a seat on the House education committee. Greene has previously suggested the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida was a 'false flag' and was filmed harassing a teenage survivor on Capitol Hill in 2019. 'She has mocked the killing of little children,'  Pelosi said. 'What could they be thinking? Or is thinking too strong a word for what they might be doing?'

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US House members ask for more security amid fears they’re targets

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Letter sent to Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy asks if Congress members can use personal allowances for additional security

Pervasive fear among some members of Congress that they will be the targets of further politically motivated violence following the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol has led more than 30 of them write a letter to House leaders.

The group sent the letter to the House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, asking for more support over security concerns.

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Pompeo’s exit leaves new secretary of state with task of regaining department’s trust

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Analysis: Pompeo’s replacement, Antony Blinken, has pledged to put experts at the center of diplomacy and listen dissenting views

No statues were toppled at the state department after Mike Pompeo’s departure. It was a changing of the guard, rather than regime change. But in one case at least, his legacy was brought down quickly and visibly.

On the day of the inauguration, workmen brought down a giant placard about “professional ethos” that the former secretary of state had erected at the main entrance to mark his first year in office.

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John Kerry says workers have been fed false narrative on climate change – video

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US climate envoy John Kerry says US workers have been fed a false narrative on climate change over the last few years. The former US secretary of state was speaking as president Joe Biden signalled a major shift on climate policy by signing a host of executive orders. Kerry highlighted job growth in renewable energy as evidence of a misled belief that had spread that resolving climate change would come at a cost to workers

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