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Post by Webster on May 17, 2023 16:54:51 GMT -5
(The Guardian) In order to return to Washington DC on Sunday, Joe Biden canceled visits to Australia and Papua New Guinea intended to shore up America’s alliances against China. In his speech at the White House, Biden signaled he was aware of the criticism that his administration isn’t taking efforts to counter China’s influence seriously. “In the meantime, I’ve spoken to the Australian leader [Anthony] Albanese … I’m going to be seeing him at the G7,” Biden said, adding he would also see the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, at the meeting. Biden was to meet with the leaders at a meeting of the Quad regional group in Australia, which has now been canceled. “The Quad members will be there, will get a chance to talk separately at the meeting, but it’s unlikely I’m going to be going on to Australia,” the president said.
As he departed the White House’s Roosevelt Room after speaking to reporters, Joe Biden was asked if he had given China a win by cancelling his visits to Australia and Papua New Guinea. “No,” he replied. “We’re still formidable allies.” And while it was difficult to hear exactly what he said, the president signaled he intended to speak or meet in the future with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
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Post by Webster on May 17, 2023 16:56:46 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The flare up in the debt ceiling standoff has provided Donald Trump with a perhaps welcome break from the public spotlight, as he deals with a swirl of scandals, investigations and prosecutions. But the Guardian’s Peter Stone reports that Trump hasn’t relented in his zeal to attack his foes, raising concerns among some legal observers: As Donald Trump’s legal troubles mount at the federal, state and local levels, the ex-president and his lawyers are banking on their political allies in the Republican party to make attacks on a New York prosecutor who has charged Trump with criminal offenses, and to also get them to help derail investigations that endanger his 2024 campaign.
Former prosecutors and members of both parties have voiced strong criticism about the drives by Trump, his lawyers and Republican House allies to attack prosecutors who have filed charges against Trump or are investigating him, calling such moves antithetical to democratic principles and the rule of law.
Such criticism has not deterred Trump, his lawyers or pliable Republicans from trying to discredit prosecutors with political attacks that in part reflect Trump’s lack of success in convincing courts to curb prosecutors.
In April, the House judiciary committee chairman, Jim Jordan, a key Trump ally, publicly launched an inquiry into the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, soon after he filed a 34-count indictment of Trump for falsifying business records tied to alleged hush money payments that Trump made in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claimed Trump had an affair with her. In a Fox News interview last month, Jordan echoed Trump’s attacks on Bragg for “interfering” in the coming election charging that “Alvin Bragg used federal tax dollars to go after a former president, to indict a former president for no crime, [which] interferes with the federal election”.
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Post by Webster on May 18, 2023 12:55:54 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Ron DeSantis to launch 2024 presidential bid next week: reportFlorida governor Ron DeSantis is set to officially launch his 2024 presidential bid, according to multiple reports citing sources familiar with the matter. One Republican source told CNN that the Republican governor will file candidacy paperwork next week with the Federal Election Commission and is set to make an official announcement in his home town of Dunedin, Florida, the following week. Earlier this week, reports emerged that DeSantis is poised to sign a bill that would modify a Florida law and allow him to run for president while serving as governor. The bill is also expected to impose new voting restrictions across Florida and will make it increasingly difficult for non-profits to conduct voter registration drives. Last Saturday, DeSantis rolled out a hefty list of endorsements from Iowa lawmakers and visited the crucial early-voting state in an attempt to garner support for his likely bid.
DeSantis gears up to face Trump directly with launch of presidential bidFlorida governor Ron DeSantis is set to officially launch his 2024 presidential bid, according to multiple reports citing sources familiar with the matter. One Republican source told CNN that the Republican governor will file candidacy paperwork next week with the Federal Election Commission and is set to make an official announcement in his home town of Dunedin, Florida, the following week. The reports follow DeSantis’s visit to Iowa last week where he participated in a public gathering hosted US House representative Randy Feenstra in the crucial early-voting stage. Prior to his visit, DeSantis rolled out a hefty list of endorsements from 37 Republican Iowa lawmakers, including senate president Amy Sinclair and house majority leader Matt Windschitl. “I think we need to restore sanity in this country,” DeSantis told a crowd of Iowa supporters last week, adding, “We must reject the culture of losing that has impacted our party in recent years. The time for excuses is over.” DeSantis’s comments appeared to be a subtle jab at Donald Trump, currently the Republican frontrunner who has repeatedly attacked his ex-ally and is currently leading in the polls. Should DeSantis enter the presidential race, he will become Trump’s chief challenger. In the past year, DeSantis has ramped up his “culture war” in Florida, from signing the state’s so-called “don’t say gay” bill into law to approving abortion bans after six weeks. Most recently, the rightwing governor signed a bill on Monday that defunds diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the state’s public colleges.
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Post by Webster on May 18, 2023 13:02:23 GMT -5
(The Guardian) As Ron DeSantis gears up for a likely presidential bid, the rightwing Florida governor has suffered a few political blows in recent days in his state and beyond. On Tuesday, voters in Jacksonville, Florida elected their first female mayor, Donna Deegan, a Democrat who beat Republican Daniel Davis despite the endorsements of DeSantis and a handful of business leaders. “Love won tonight, and we made history,” Deegan said as she won the election. “We have a new day in Jacksonville because people chose unity over division – creating a broad coalition of people across the political spectrum that want a unified city,” she added. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the Florida governor suffered another blow when Donald Trump-backed Daniel Cameron won against DeSantis-backed Kelly Craft in the state’s Republican primary. Cameron, the first major-party Black nominee for governor in Kentucky, will face off against Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear in November.
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Post by Webster on May 18, 2023 13:03:21 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Ron DeSantis’s latest attempts to swing elections may have floundered, but he’s been more successful at getting lawmakers in Florida to react to his demands. As the Guardian’s Sam Levine reported earlier this week, his Republican allies, who control both the state Senate and House of Representatives, have approved laws that will allow DeSantis to remain governor while running for president, and also reduce scrutiny of his campaign financing. Here’s more from Sam’s story: DeSantis is poised to sign a bill that would exempt him from Florida’s “resign-to-run” law, so that he won’t have to give up his office in order to run for president. Under existing state law, if he were to run, DeSantis would have had to submit a resignation letter before Florida’s qualifying deadline this year and step down by inauguration day in 2025. Last month, Republicans in the state legislature passed a measure that says the restriction does not apply to those running for president or vice-president.
The bill also imposes sweeping new voting restrictions in the state and will make it much harder for non-profits to do voter registration drives.
“I can’t think of a better training ground than the state of Florida for a future potential commander-in-chief,” Tyler Sirois, a Republican state lawmaker, said when the bill was being debated.
Some Democrats questioned why lawmakers would allow DeSantis to take his attention away from being governor. “Why are we signing off on allowing Ron DeSantis the ability to not do his job?” Angie Nixon, a legislator from Jacksonville, said last month.
DeSantis also signed a bill last week that will shield records related to his travel from public view. The new law exempts all of DeSantis’s past and future travel from disclosure under Florida’s public records law, one of the most transparent in the US. It also exempts the state from having to disclose the names of people who meet with the governor at his office or mansion or travel with him, said Barbara Petersen, the executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, who has worked on transparency laws for more than three decades in the state.
Republican lawmakers and DeSantis have cited security concerns to justify the law. But Democrats and transparency advocates have said it is a brazen effort to keep DeSantis’s travel secret.
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Post by Webster on May 18, 2023 15:20:42 GMT -5
(American Family News) An advocate for parental rights says teachers in Florida have the opportunity to get back to the basics. Jessica Graham of Moms for Liberty thinks the new law restricting discussion of personal pronouns in schools will allow teachers to shift the "focus on the basic concepts of education -- reading, writing, math -- where they don't have to be burdened by this additional stress and content of sexual orientation and gender identity, when it really has no place in the schools in the first place." When Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) signed the bill into law at a Christian school in Tampa yesterday, he noted there is a lot of "nonsense" going around. "What we've said in Florida is we are going to remain a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy," he added. There have been situations in other parts of the country where a student wants to be referred to in a certain way, but the parents do not want instructors to use those incorrect pronouns. Meanwhile, many teachers do not wish to use a student's preferred pronouns or want school districts to force them to do so. Graham says this new law helps parents' rights as much as it does those of educators. "It takes that stress and pressure off of the teachers fearing repercussions if they don't want to use a student's preferred pronouns or don't feel comfortable using those," she submits. Other bills signed into law Wednesday include a ban on the gender manipulation of minors and a requirement that people use bathrooms for the gender assigned at birth. Lawsuits are expected.
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 15:10:07 GMT -5
(The Guardian) DeSantis says only 'Biden and me' can win, Scott set to announce as 2024 race heats upJoe Biden will not be president forever. Voters will either re-elect the Democratic leader next year, or replace him with one of several Republican challengers – and the ranks of those candidates are set to get even deeper in the days to come. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, will announce his presidential campaign on Wednesday, the Miami Herald reports, after spending months pursuing conservative policies in the state that he will argue to voters should be implemented nationally. According to the New York Times, he’s given donors an even sharper message behind closed doors, saying only “Biden and me” have a chance at winning next year. The governor won’t be alone in making his candidacy official. On Monday, South Carolina senator Tim Scott will make a “major announcement” in North Charleston – most likely the start of his presidential campaign. But in order to win the GOP’s nomination and face Biden in the November 2024 general election, either man will have to succeed at something no Republican candidate has managed to pull off since 2016: beat Donald Trump.
GOP contenders may come, but polls show Trump still dominatesTwo things are happening simultaneously in the Republican presidential primary field: more candidates are arriving, Donald Trump is staying as popular as ever. Just take a look at poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight for evidence of that. Trump’s lead over other Republicans has only grown in recent weeks, particularly since his late-March indictment by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. Before that, the gap between him and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, wasn’t quite so immense, but it’s since yawned further. According to the New York Times, DeSantis made to donors yesterday a fairly straightforward argument: he’s more electable than Trump. “You have basically three people at this point that are credible in this whole thing: Biden, Trump and me. And I think of those three, two have a chance to get elected president – Biden and me, based on all the data in the swing states, which is not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people aren’t going to change their view of him,” he told donors. That was his message to a behind-closed-doors gathering of wealthy Republicans. In the months ahead, we’ll find out what the party’s rank and file think.
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 15:26:53 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The odds for Republican presidential candidates who are not Donald Trump appear to be long, but that doesn’t mean running is a bad idea. The former president is in an array of legal trouble, facing a felony indictment in New York City and an ongoing investigation by justice department special counsel Jack Smith. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that we could learn whether a county district attorney will bring charges against Trump or his allies in late July. If any of these matters became serious enough to knock him out of the race, candidates like Tim Scott or Ron DeSantis could benefit: The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia signalled Thursday that charging decisions in the case may come starting the final week of July, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The indication from the prosecutor, Fani Willis, first came during a meeting with her full team where she told them to make preparations to work remotely during the final week of July and through the first weeks of August, the people said.
Willis made no explicit mention of Trump during the meeting, but the specific timing is understood to reflect the expected window for indictments after previous indications suggested charging decisions would come during the court term that runs July to September.
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 15:40:00 GMT -5
(The Guardian) When he officially hits the campaign trail next week, you can expect to hear a lot from Ron DeSantis about how he’s transformed Florida. But what does the governor’s push to crack down on issues like voter fraud actually mean for the state’s residents? Here’s the Guardian’s Sam Levine with the tale of what happened to one man who tried to vote: Just as it had been all day, courtroom 3C at the Alachua county courthouse was mostly empty when members of the jury filed in on Tuesday evening. John Boyd Rivers, a mason who once laid the bricks of the courthouse, stood up to hear whether or not they would convict him on two counts of voter fraud.
Judge James Colaw read the verdict on the first charge: not guilty. Then he read the verdict on the second: guilty. Rivers stood quietly as he listened, a small hole visible in the red long-sleeve shirt he wore to court over khaki pants and work boots.
It was a result that was unimaginable to Rivers, 45, who voted for the first time in his life in 2020.
Another campaign tactic Ron DeSantis seems poised to try: embracing alleged vigilantes. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny,” who is facing charges for killing a man on a New York City subway, the governor tweeted last week. As the Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis reports, he’s not the only Republican doing this: When New York City authorities charged Daniel Penny with second-degree manslaughter after placing fellow subway rider Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold, his case quickly became a flashpoint in rightwing discourse on crime and vigilantism – and the broader culture war playing out in the US in advance of the 2024 election.
Penny, a white former Marine, soon raised more than $1m for his legal defense in the killing of Neely, an unhoused Black man. The sum now exceeds $2.5m.
Showing how his support largely comes from the US right, the financial drive is posted on GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising website which has also hosted efforts for rightwing vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse and far-right groups and individuals, among them January 6 insurrectionists.
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 15:46:12 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden backs effort to train Ukrainians on F-16 jetsIn a meeting with G7 leaders in Japan, Joe Biden announced America would support a joint effort with allies to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s and other fourth-generation aircraft, CNN reports, citing a senior administration official. The Biden administration has been under pressure from Congress and Washington’s allies to step up efforts to bolster Ukraine’s air force amid an intensifying aerial campaign by Russia.
From Hiroshima, Japan, the Guardian’s Justin McCurry has more on Joe Biden and other G7 leaders’ efforts to bolster Ukraine’s defenses and punish Russia for the ongoing invasion of its neighbor: The G7 has unveiled further sanctions targeting Russia over its war against Ukraine, as Volodymyr Zelenskiy prepared to attend the Hiroshima summit in person.
“Our support for Ukraine will not waver,” the G7 leaders said in a statement on Friday, vowing “to stand together against Russia’s illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine”.
“Russia started this war and can end this war,” they said.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was top of the agenda as G7 leaders gathered in Hiroshima, with Friday’s statement designed to underscore their resolve to support Ukraine and put pressure on Moscow.
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 15:48:16 GMT -5
 (The Guardian) Tim Scott files paperwork to make presidential run officialSouth Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott has submitted paperwork to officially begin his campaign for president, Reuters reports. Scott, the sole Black GOP lawmaker in the Senate, has on Monday scheduled a “major announcement” in North Charleston – expected to be the kickoff of his campaign. He’s been making the rounds of early voting states in recent weeks, including Iowa and New Hampshire, and adopted the slogan “Faith in America.” He joins a Republican primary field alongside former president Donald Trump, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and ex-United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who polls typically show in a distant second place to Trump, is also expected to announce his presidential campaign next Wednesday. |
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 16:29:46 GMT -5
(The Guardian) It became clear how serious the debt limit situation was earlier this week, when Joe Biden cut short his planned trip to Asia in order to be back in Washington DC on Sunday, saying he needed to ensure that the US government is able to avoid a default. The president kept his travel plans to Japan, but nixed stops in Australia and the first-ever presidential visit to Papua New Guinea, a decision critics say harmed Washington’s efforts to build alliances against China. It also proved to be a very expensive decision for the media organizations who place their reporters in the White House press corps and task them with following the president’s every move. The Washington Post reports that the White House Travel Office had booked a charter flight to Australia for the dozens of journalists that were planning to come along with Biden, while their employers were also planning to shell out thousands for their hotels, transportation and logistics. All of that had to be canceled, but according to the Post, news outlets are now on the hook for as much as $25,000 per person in the form of sunk costs for charter flights and other travel arrangements. While the country’s biggest news outlets all have reporters at the White House, the news industry has been financially tumultuous for the better part of 15 years, and the Post says some reporters fear the debacle will make their bosses cut back on travel with the president – which could mean less scrutiny of what Biden and his successors actually do with their time. Here’s more from the Post: The now-canceled charter flight, organized by the White House Travel Office, cost $760,000, or about $14,000 for each of the 55 journalists who’d booked seats on it. Journalists will immediately lose their deposits, about $7,700 each, and may be on the hook for the rest, according to a memo sent to reporters on Wednesday by Tamara Keith, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
But a lengthy list of other costs — hotel reservations, ground transportation, a shared press-filing center, among them — may also be unrecoverable. And journalists will lose some or all of the cost of their return flights from Sydney to Washington, as they scramble for last-minute flights from Hiroshima to Washington.
Bottom line: The bill for not going to Australia could run upward of $25,000 per person before any refunds kick in, according to several people involved in efforts to recover the money. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the funds.
In an interview, Keith said her organization is seeking to recover as much of the travel money as possible, though it wasn’t clear how much was possible. “When the president travels amid a budget crisis or a debt ceiling crisis, his [travel] plans can change,” she said, noting that presidents Obama and Trump also canceled trips during their terms. “These are the risks we undertake with our eyes open. We hope it never happens. But it just did.”
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 20:33:53 GMT -5
(American Family News) A retired Air Force officer is painting a dismal picture about the ability of a weakening U.S. military to deter "bad actors" that continue to gain strength in their quest to dominate the globe. Brigadier General Blaine "Blaino" Holt (USAF-Ret.) is a former deputy U.S. military representative to NATO and cofounder of the nonprofit Restore Liberty. In an interview with American Family News, Holt makes it clear who he feels is to blame for the weakened status of America's military. "In the past few years," Holt says, "there has been a lot of focus on single incidents throughout the world – [in places like] Afghanistan, North Korea, China, and Ukraine. [But] there's a story above all this, and it goes to the center point." That center point, says Holt, is "American weakness" – the direct result of an "incapable" Biden administration. "Whether it's incompetence or malevolence," Holt admits, "it's imperiling our nation and the free world. What's unique to [the Biden administration's] national security team is that they don't have one single victory they can hang their hat on." In fact, he contends "they've done nothing, except for imperiling [the country] further." With that, Holt points out another "interesting thing" about the Biden team: "Not one of them has been held to account for their failure – no one has resigned, and no one has been fired." That absence of accountability will "come back and haunt us," he fears. "It's playing out now as I speak," Holt warns. "When you look at [China's geostrategy], they're mopping up the field with diplomatic win after diplomatic win." In the meantime, he continues, the United States is weakening itself. Sending billions of dollars' worth of military aid to Ukraine, Holt explains, is harming military readiness. "We're leaving ourselves and others vulnerable," the retired Air Force officer argues. "Look at the build-up of nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, and how Israel is now encircled without any friends in the region." As a result, he adds, the U.S. now has "a complete lack of respect on the world stage" – and at the same time, China is being emboldened. "They're sailing spy balloons over our country, killing a hundred thousand a year with fentanyl coming across our border, and scolding us anytime we get out of line [with their agenda]," he laments. According to Holt, America's elected officials need to recognize that "we are running out of time" as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea clearly aren't changing their goal to overcome the U.S. – economically, militarily, or both. "It's past time to [simply] deter them," he emphasizes.
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Post by Webster on May 19, 2023 20:35:22 GMT -5
(American Family News) Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to announce next week he is running for the White House, a decision that would end months of speculation but kick off a new debate among divided Republican voters over should be the Republican nominee for president. DeSantis is expected to file official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission next week to declare his candidacy according to a Fox News story. It credits The Wall Street Journal for first reporting on the Florida governor’s long-expected news. DeSantis, 44, was easily re-elected to a second term as governor last November in a stomping of Charlie Crist, a former governor who has switched to the Democratic Party. DeSantis defeated Crist 59%-40%.
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Post by Webster on May 21, 2023 13:40:12 GMT -5
(American Family News) A retired Air Force officer is painting a dismal picture about the ability of a weakening U.S. military to deter "bad actors" that continue to gain strength in their quest to dominate the globe. Brigadier General Blaine "Blaino" Holt (USAF-Ret.) is a former deputy U.S. military representative to NATO and cofounder of the nonprofit Restore Liberty. In an interview with American Family News, Holt makes it clear who he feels is to blame for the weakened status of America's military. "In the past few years," Holt says, "there has been a lot of focus on single incidents throughout the world – [in places like] Afghanistan, North Korea, China, and Ukraine. [But] there's a story above all this, and it goes to the center point." That center point, says Holt, is "American weakness" – the direct result of an "incapable" Biden administration. "Whether it's incompetence or malevolence," Holt admits, "it's imperiling our nation and the free world. What's unique to [the Biden administration's] national security team is that they don't have one single victory they can hang their hat on." In fact, he contends "they've done nothing, except for imperiling [the country] further." With that, Holt points out another "interesting thing" about the Biden team: "Not one of them has been held to account for their failure – no one has resigned, and no one has been fired." That absence of accountability will "come back and haunt us," he fears. "It's playing out now as I speak," Holt warns. "When you look at [China's geostrategy], they're mopping up the field with diplomatic win after diplomatic win." In the meantime, he continues, the United States is weakening itself. Sending billions of dollars' worth of military aid to Ukraine, Holt explains, is harming military readiness. "We're leaving ourselves and others vulnerable," the retired Air Force officer argues. "Look at the build-up of nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, and how Israel is now encircled without any friends in the region." As a result, he adds, the U.S. now has "a complete lack of respect on the world stage" – and at the same time, China is being emboldened. "They're sailing spy balloons over our country, killing a hundred thousand a year with fentanyl coming across our border, and scolding us anytime we get out of line [with their agenda]," he laments. According to Holt, America's elected officials need to recognize that "we are running out of time" as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea clearly aren't changing their goal to overcome the U.S. – economically, militarily, or both. "It's past time to [simply] deter them," he emphasizes.
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