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Tag: Democrats

  • Donors mount pressure on Biden to redraw from race amid his determination to secure re-election

    Donors mount pressure on Biden to redraw from race amid his determination to secure re-election

    President Joe Biden is under scrutiny from key Democratic supporters amidst a pivotal phase in his re-election campaign. Some prominent donors are voicing concerns publicly, indicating they may withhold financial support unless the party considers replacing Biden as its candidate.

    This comes after a challenging debate performance last week, which has intensified calls for Biden, aged 81, to consider stepping aside.

    As he prepares for crucial events including a primetime TV interview and a rally in Wisconsin on Friday, Biden faces mounting pressure to address doubts about his candidacy raised by instances of faltering during the debate.

    While he admitted that he “screwed up” that night, he has vowed to stay on as his party’s standard-bearer taking on Donald Trump in the November presidential election.

    Scrutiny on his public appearances has markedly increased since the debate.

    In a White House speech to military families on Thursday to mark 4 July Independence Day, he stumbled over his words when referring to Trump as “one of our colleagues, the former president”.

    And in an interview with WURD radio in Philadelphia, he lost his thread and appeared to say he was proud to be the first black woman to serve with a black president.

    Donors have been weighing their options. Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Disney family fortune, told business news channel CNBC that she did not believe Mr Biden could win against Trump.

    She said her intent to pull support was rooted in “realism, not disrespect”.
    “Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high.”
    The consequences of defeat in November “will be genuinely dire”, she added.

    She joined a select group of wealthy donors who are actively voicing their concerns. Philanthropist Gideon Stein recently disclosed to the New York Times that his family has opted to withhold $3.5 million from various nonprofit and political entities engaged in the presidential campaign unless there is a change in Mr. Biden’s candidacy.

    Meanwhile, Hollywood producer Damon Lindelof, known for his substantial donations to Democratic causes this election cycle, penned an impassioned essay in Deadline. In it, he called on fellow donors to join him in pausing their financial contributions until there is a shift in leadership.

    Adding to the chorus, Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, sibling to Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, emphasized during a recent conference in Colorado the strategic importance of withholding financial support to compel Mr. Biden’s exit from the race, according to a report in the Financial Times published on Thursday.

    “The lifeblood to a campaign is money, and maybe the only way . . . is if the money starts drying up,” he said, according to the newspaper.

  • Alejandro Mayorkas: House of Representatives votes to remove secretary of homeland security

    Alejandro Mayorkas: House of Representatives votes to remove secretary of homeland security

    The House of Representatives has decided to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a very small margin. This makes him the first cabinet member to face impeachment in almost 150 years.

    Many Republicans think Mr Mayorkas is responsible for a lot of migrants coming to the US from Mexico.

    The Republicans voted 214 to 213 in favor of the measure, after it didn’t pass last week.

    The problem will now go to the Senate, where the Democrats are in charge, and it will probably not pass.

    President Joe Biden said that the vote was a clear and unfair decision made by one political party and a move meant to gain attention.

    Critics said Mr. Mayorkas did not keep his promise to do his job well and faithfully because he did not work enough to make the border safer.

    Most Democrats and a few Republicans voted against impeachment.

    The three people who left their group also voted no on the first try to remove Mr. Mayorkas from his job. They said that taking him out of his job for something not very serious would make the punishment in the constitution weaker and wouldn’t help with the border problem.

    Over 63 million people came to the US without permission since 2021. This has made immigration a big problem for politicians before the election in November.

    Donald Trump is really focusing on this problem in his campaign to remove Mr. Biden from his job.

    After the vote, Mr. Biden said Mr. Mayorkas is a good public servant.

    The president said he has followed the law and showed a strong dedication to our country’s important values.

    Mia Ehrenberg, who speaks for the Department of Homeland Security, said that Republicans are not focused on solving the big problems at our border. Instead, she said they are focused on going against the constitution.

    Republican leader Mike Johnson said that he thinks Mr. Mayorkas should be removed from his job.

    In January, Republicans accused Mr Mayorkas of not doing his job in enforcing immigration rules and lying about the safety of the border.

    Democrat Al Green from Texas came to vote against impeachment while wearing hospital clothes, surprising everyone. He was in the hospital getting surgery.

    House leader Steve Scalise voted after missing last vote due to cancer treatment. His coming back helped the Republicans get enough votes to win.

    Impeachment is the first step in removing a government official for doing something really bad. It’s in the US Constitution.

    It needs more than half of the House to agree, then the Senate has a trial.

    We need at least two out of three people to agree for it to work.

    The impeachment probably won’t happen because the Democrats only have a small majority in the Senate.

    The House will give the Senate the impeachment articles on 26 February.

    The last cabinet secretary to be impeached was Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876. He resigned just before the vote.

    In a poll done in January by CBS, nearly half of Americans said they think the situation at the border is a crisis. 63% of people said they want stricter border policies.

    The US agency in charge of protecting the border said that fewer people crossed the border in January. They think this happened because of the usual patterns at that time of year and because they have been working harder to enforce the rules.

  • Democrats support Biden as age concerns raised by article

    Democrats support Biden as age concerns raised by article

    Democrats are standing up for President Joe Biden after a report about how he handles secret papers made people worried about his age and mental abilities.

    Mr Biden will not be in trouble for keeping secret documents, but the report said he is an old man who means well but has a bad memory.

    Vice-President Kamala Harris criticized the description as unnecessary, wrong, and not suitable.

    She also said the prosecutor was doing it for political reasons.

    Robert Hur, who was chosen by Donald Trump and had worked for two conservative judges, was chosen last year to investigate classified documents for Biden.

    Prosecutor in trouble because of report about Biden.

    US Attorney General Merrick Garland chose him in January when the justice department was getting backlash from Republicans for appointing a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s handling of secret files.

    Mr Hur’s report that was made available to the public had a letter from the White House. The letter asked for the comments about the president’s memory to be changed in a way that fits with Mr. Hur’s expertise and job responsibilities.

    Ms Harris, who used to work as a prosecutor, repeated the same criticism at a news conference on Friday.

    She said that the way the president was described in the report was completely inaccurate and was clearly done for political reasons.

    “We should expect the prosecutor to have a strong sense of honesty and fairness when dealing with a case like this. ”

    Democratic friends in Congress also told the media that they thought Mr. Hur’s comments were not part of the investigation.

    Senator Jeff Merkley from Oregon said that he thinks it was completely wrong for the special counsel to handle the task the way they did.

    “Too bad it went into the wrong place. ”

    Minnesota’s Tina Smith said that Mr. Hur’s comments were really bad and terrible. She accused him of using his position for political reasons.

    Ever since Mr. Biden started running for president again, people have been worried about how old he is and if he can think clearly.

    He is 81 years old, only a little older than the leading Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, who is 77.

    This report hasn’t eased voters’ worries much. It is claimed that Mr. Biden couldn’t remember when his son Beau died from cancer or when he worked as vice-president when talking to investigators.

    However, Democrats who talked to the media on Friday said they are not worried about the president’s mental abilities.

    Senator Jon Ossoff from Georgia said: “No one is being charged as a result of the report. ” Unexpected comments that are different from what one would usually expect in a detailed and meaningful report. Just a bunch of annoying sounds.

    The youngest person in the Senate, Mr. Ossoff, said he has spent a lot of time with the president in the last few months.

    “I think he is smart, focused, very impressive and capable,” he said.

    MrOssoff’s friends agreed, including Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who said the president is “smart and has a lot of experience” at a news conference on Friday.

    The Democrats still believe strongly in the president, he said. “We want to stay with someone who knows what this country needs. ”

    “Caption on the media”

    But some people on the other side said that Mr. Hur’s comments make it seem like Mr. Biden is not capable of being president.

    “Thom Tillis, a Senator from North Carolina, said that he’s starting to worry about the effort of someone who is doing their best. ”

    “I believe that whoever becomes the leader of our country should be fully prepared and capable, no matter their age. ” This is what the moderate Republican said.

    Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told the media that people are worried about Mr. Biden’s age and it could affect his chances of getting re-elected.

    Experts have found that polls show people aren’t as bothered by Mr. Trump’s age as they are by Mr. Biden’s, even though both men make similar mistakes while campaigning.

    In the past few months, both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have made mistakes when speaking in public, like mixing up the names of world leaders and US politicians.

    But Trump’s loud and aggressive way of speaking and always being on the attack may make people see him as a more lively candidate, said Chris Borick, the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.

  • US House panel votes to release Trump’s tax returns

    Six years’ worth of Donald Trump’s tax returns will be made public, according to a committee vote in the US House of Representatives.

    The decision by the US Supreme Court last month ends a nearly four-year legal battle by Democrats to obtain the documents.

    Even though US presidents are not required by law to release their tax returns, they have been doing so voluntarily for decades.

    The former president has made a significant effort to conceal his tax returns.

    The US House Ways and Means Committee voted 24-16 on Tuesday evening to publish the documents, with all Democrats on the panel in favour and all Republicans opposed.

    One of the committee members, Pennsylvania Democrat Brendan Boyle, said afterwards: “This is one of the most important votes I will ever cast as a member of Congress, and I stand by it 100%.”

    But Kevin Brady, the ranking Republican on the committee, said Democrats had just “unleashed a dangerous new political weapon”.

    “Congress’ enemies list is back,” said the Texas congressman. “Every American taxpayer who may get on the wrong side of majority in Congress is now at risk.”

    It is unclear when the public will see the financial documents which stem from 2015-20, when Mr Trump was running for president and serving in the White House.

    Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat on the panel, told CNN the release of the files could take “a few days” in order to redact personal information such as Social Security numbers.

    The returns could offer a first-hand look into Mr Trump’s finances, including his assets, sources of income, charitable contributions and liabilities, including the possibility of loans owed to foreign entities.

    In 2016, Mr Trump became the first major-party presidential nominee since Richard Nixon in 1972 to decline to publicly release his tax returns while campaigning for office. At the time, he said he would do so after an Internal Revenue Service audit had concluded.

    However, on Tuesday Democrats on the panel said that Mr Trump was not actually under an audit in 2016, and that the Internal Revenue Service did not begin their official audit until 2019.

    The House Ways and Means Committee had first sought the returns when Democrats took over the lower chamber of Congress in 2019. The committee, citing a federal law allowing it to request special access to individual tax returns, said the information was necessary as a part of a review of federal tax law.

    Republican critics, however, have countered that such explanations were merely an excuse to access Mr Trump’s financial documents.

    The Trump administration refused to co-operate with the committee’s request, prompting a drawn-out legal battle that ended when the US Supreme Court, in an unsigned opinion, upheld an appellate court ruling that the Democrats were entitled to the returns.

    In 2020, the New York Times obtained leaked copies of 18 years of Mr Trump’s tax returns. In a series of articles on the topic, the newspaper reported that the president paid no federal taxes in 10 of those 18 years and only $750 (£615) in each of his first two years in the White House. It also disclosed that the then-president was in a fight with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9m tax refund he had claimed and owed more than $400m in debt due by 2024.

    A representative of Mr Trump’s business empire denied the accuracy of the report at the time. Official copies of the former president’s tax returns, which are now expected to be released before Republicans take control of Congress on 3 January, should settle the matter.

    The vote comes one day after a Democratic-led congressional panel asked the US justice department prosecute the former president for insurrection and other criminal charges related to last year’s riot by his supporters at the Capitol in Washington DC.

     

     

  • Trump taxes: Supreme Court clears Democrats to see returns

    The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for ex-President Donald Trump‘s tax forms to be released to a Democratic-controlled congressional committee.

    The justices rejected Mr Trump’s bid in October to block a lower court’s ruling that granted the panel’s request for his financial records.

    The move is a blow to Mr Trump, who has for years kept his returns sealed.

    Mr Trump became the first president in 40 years not to release his taxes after announcing his first presidential run.

    The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee has been seeking access to his records since 2019.

    Mr Trump, who launched his third campaign for the White House last week, is facing several investigations related to his business practices. He denies any wrongdoing.

    The Supreme Court’s brief response on Tuesday did not note dissent from any of the judges.

    The decision means the US treasury department can deliver the tax returns from 2015-20 for Mr Trump and some of his businesses to the Democratic-controlled committee.

    It comes just before the Republicans take control of the House after this month’s midterm elections.

    Donald Trump was almost able to run out the clock on the congressional request to view his tax returns.

    Almost.

    With just over a month left of Democratic control of the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court has given the green light for the treasury department to provide the documents to the Ways and Means Committee.

    Given that the treasury department is run by the Biden administration, the process of handing over the documents should proceed expeditiously.

    Democrats won’t have long to review them before Republicans take over on 3 January, however.

    And coming up with any proposed changes to federal law regarding presidential tax returns – the stated purpose of the congressional request – seems a pointless effort with the little time remaining before congressional adjournment.

    But a few weeks may be long enough to unearth evidence of any unusual or potentially improper accounting by Mr Trump – and for those details to leak to the public.

    And that, many assume, was the real motive behind the request.

    Mr Trump has notched two other defeats this year from the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, three of whose justices he appointed.

    In October, the court refused to weigh in on the legal fight over the FBI search of Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Agents served a warrant at the estate in August on suspicion that the former president improperly handled classified documents.

    In January, the court refused to act to stop the National Archives from handing over documents to the committee investigating the 6 January 2021 riot by Trump supporters at the US Capitol.

    Mr Trump has rejected the Ways and Means Committee’s hunt for his taxes as politically motivated.

    The chairman of the committee, Congressman Richard Neal, said in a statement that lawmakers “will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years”. He did not say whether the committee plans to publicly release Mr Trump’s tax statements.

    Last year, a Trump-appointed judge on the court of appeals in Washington DC ruled that the House did have a legitimate need to review the forms.

    The committee argued it needed to see Mr Trump’s records to determine if tax officials were properly auditing presidential candidates, and whether any new legislation was necessary.

    They had argued to the lower court that Mr Trump’s refusal blocked Congress from conducting oversight of the executive and judicial branches.

    Source: BBC.com 

  • Pelosi announces she will not run for leadership post after GOP wins House

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will not run for a leadership post, a move that marks the end of an era and sets up a major shakeup for House Democrats.

    In a speech on the House floor Thursday, Pelosi touted the party’s legislative achievements under her leadership before saying: “Now we must move boldly into the future.”

    “The hour’s come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus,” the speaker said.

    Pelosi said she will continue “speaking for the people of San Francisco” as their congresswoman, but not seek re-election to a leadership post.

    Her announcement comes after Democrats lost a majority in the lower chamber but maintained control of the Senate in the 2022 midterms, holding off a potentially larger “red wave.”

    Pelosi said that when she first visited the capital as a child, she never imagined she would go “from a homemaker to House speaker.”

    Source: Ghanaweb.com 

  • Time to step down: Nancy Pelosi to bow out as US House Democrats leader

    ‘The hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus,’ says the 82-year-old former US House Speaker.

    US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will not run for reelection to the Democratic Party’s congressional leadership after Republicans regained control of the chamber by a slim margin.

    Pelosi, 82, became the first female speaker of the House in 2007, and has been the top Democratic lawmaker for nearly 20 years. She stated on Thursday that she will continue to serve in Congress to represent her California constituents, but that she is ready to pass the leadership torch to the next generation.

    “With great confidence in our caucus, I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress,” Pelosi said in a speech on the House floor. “For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect, and I’m grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility.”

    Democrats will elect their leaders for the new Congress, which convenes early next year, at the end of the month. House Democratic Conference Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, a 52-year-old New York representative, is widely considered a frontrunner to replace Pelosi.

    The top three Democrats in the House – Pelosi, House majority leader Steny Hoyer and majority whip Jim Clyburn – are in their 80s.

    Hoyer also announced in a letter to Democratic lawmakers on Thursday that he will not seek a leadership position in the next Congress, saying that it was time for a “new generation of leaders”. Clyburn, too, suggested that he will leave his position as whip.

    “Speaker Pelosi has left an indelible mark on Congress and the country, and I look forward to her continued service and doing whatever I can to assist our new generation of Democratic Leaders which I hope to be Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, and Pete Aguilar,” Clyburn wrote in a tweet.

    In her speech on Tuesday, Pelosi warned about the fate of US democracy, citing the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump who sought to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

    “American democracy is majestic, but it is fragile,” Pelosi said. “Many of us here have witnessed this fragility firsthand – tragically in this chamber. And so, democracy must be forever defended from forces that wish it harm.”

    Biden called Pelosi the “most consequential” House speaker in US history.

    “Because of Nancy Pelosi, the lives of millions and millions of Americans are better, even in districts represented by Republicans who voted against her bills and too often vilify her. That’s Nancy – always working for the dignity of all of the people,” the US president said in a statement on Thursday.

    The daughter of a former US congressman and Baltimore mayor, Pelosi has been serving in the House since 1987 – before some current members of her caucus were born.

    The outgoing House speaker is often praised as an effective lawmaker who managed to keep unity in a Democratic caucus that is far from ideologically homogeneous.

    During her two stints as speaker – from 2007 to 2011 and 2019 until the end of the year – she passed historic legislation, including former President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law, the Affordable Care Act.

    US lawmakers were quick to pay tribute to Pelosi on Thursday, praising her leadership and years of service.

    “Nancy Pelosi is a trailblazer. A fierce advocate for California and our entire country, she was fearless in the face of impeachments and insurrection. Her legacy will live on with our next generation of leaders,” House Democrat Katie Porter wrote on Twitter.

    Senator Chris Van Hollen said Pelosi made history as the first female speaker of the House but also offered the most effective leadership.

    “She has been the fearless force behind much of the progress we have made in the 21st Century. Her legacy is forever etched in American history,” Van Hollen said in a social media post.

    Over her career, Pelosi has been criticised from the left for not pushing more progressive legislation and failing to back impeaching former President George W Bush over the Iraq invasion and torture of prisoners after the 9/11 attacks.

    And Republicans have vilified Pelosi as a symbol of everything they dislike about Democrats: a member of the so-called “coastal elite” who supports higher taxation and government spending.

    Ahead of the midterm vote, “firing Nancy Pelosi” became a rallying cry for Republicans. Despite an underwhelming election performance where they failed to capture the Senate, Republicans were able to narrowly take back the House, ensuring that Pelosi would not serve for another term as speaker.

    Although the president is largely responsible for US foreign policy, in her decades-long career, Pelosi has stepped into the international limelight.

    Earlier this year, she angered China by visiting Taiwan. She also oversaw the allocation of continuing US aid to Ukraine after the Russian invasion and travelled to Kyiv where she met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in May.

    The outgoing speaker is a staunch supporter of Israel. “If this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid – I don’t even call it our aid – our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are,” she said in 2018.

    Source: Aljazeera.com 

  • Russia delayed Kherson withdrawal announcement to sway midterm election results reports suggest

    Russia may have delayed announcing its withdrawal from Kherson in order to sway the outcome of the midterm elections in favour of Republicans, according to sources familiar with US intelligence.

    Republicans failed to achieve the hoped-for “red wave,” and Democrats retained control of the US Senate after holding seats in key swing states Arizona and Nevada.

    According to the most recent NBC News projection, Republicans will win 220 House seats to the Democrats’ 215.

    That means the Republicans would still take control but with much less authority than the 40+ gains anticipated by some pollsters.

    Now, sources have suggested that Russia delayed its Kherson withdrawal announcement in part to stop the Democrats from a political lead.

    One source said the US elections were a “pre-planned condition” when it came to Russia’s acknowledgement that it was not succeeding in the Kherson region.

    Meanwhile another source told CNN: “Even though there is still robust bipartisan agreement on Ukraine, the party that has been much more vocally supportive is the Democratic Party, and particularly the Biden administration.”

    In Washington last week, President Joe Biden also appeared to notice the timing of Russia’s announcement as he described how Russia’s decision to leave Kherson was “evidence” they had “some real problems”.

    He said: “I find it interesting that they waited until after the [US midterm] election to make that judgement.”

    Russia

     

  • US midterms: Democrats retain control of Senate after key Nevada victory

    The Democrats will retain majority control of the US Senate after winning a pivotal race in the state of Nevada.

    Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is projected to defeat Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, who was backed by former President Donald Trump.

    The results amount to the best midterm performance for a sitting party in 20 years.

    US President Joe Biden said he was incredibly pleased, and it was time for Republicans to decide “who they are”.

    Democratic Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the results showed the American people had rejected what he called the “violent rhetoric” of the Republican Party.

    The Democrats will now have 50 Senate seats, with Republicans currently on 49.

    The remaining seat, Georgia, is going to a run-off in December. In the event of the Senate being divided equally between the two parties, Vice-President Kamala Harris has the casting vote.

    Republicans could still take control of the US House of Representatives as votes continue to be tallied from a handful of districts after Tuesday’s elections.

    If the Republicans win the House they could still thwart much of Mr Biden’s agenda.

    “I’m not surprised by the turnout. I’m incredibly pleased. And I think it’s a reflection of the quality of our candidates,” Mr Biden said in Cambodia, where he is attending a summit.

    Mr Schumer said the country “showed that we believed in our democracy and that the roots are strong and it will prevail as long as we fight for it”.

    Ms Cortez Masto was neck-and-neck with her challenger Adam Laxalt throughout the midterm elections.

    The Republican gained notoriety two years ago for championing defeated former President Trump’s false claims of election fraud. One recent poll had Mr Laxalt making inroads with Latino voters, who make up one in five eligible voters in Nevada.

    But Ms Cortez Masto managed to secure victory, and with it her party’s control of the Senate.

    Senator Cortez MastoGETTY IMAGES

    Catherine Cortez Masto received a congratulatory call from President Biden after the result

    The result is a big blow to the Republicans, who were hoping for a “red wave” – an electoral rout which would deliver a harsh rebuke of President Biden and his Democrats.

    While the Republicans have made modest gains and remain favoured to win the House of Representatives, the Democrats have performed much better than expected.

    Mr Trump – who continues to insist, falsely, that he won the 2020 presidential election – has been making unsubstantiated claims about the midterms.

    “The Democrats are finding all sorts of votes in Nevada and Arizona. What a disgrace that this can be allowed to happen!” he posted on his Truth Social platform on Friday.

    Mr Trump is expected to announce that he will run for president again in 2024, but candidates he backed received mixed results in the midterms.

    Republican Senator Josh Hawley – who represents Missouri – said after the Senate result that the old party was “dead” and it was time for something new.

    Result will bolster Biden’s standing in party

    The Republican midterm flameout is now official. Democrats have retained control of the US Senate, which will pave the way for Joe Biden to spend two more years filling the federal courts with his nominees and staffing his administration largely the way he sees fit.

    The Georgia Senate run-off is no longer a pivotal contest to determine control of the chamber, although a victory for Democrats there would make holding the majority in two years easier, when the party will have more at-risk seats to defend.

    There is still a likelihood, although not certainty, that the Republicans will control a slim majority in the House of Representatives, bringing a variety of headaches for the president.

    His legislative agenda is dead, and more aggressive Republican oversight is in store, but even that has a silver lining – if his political opponents are unable to effectively govern due to internal discord.

    The consequences of this history-defying midterm election result are still being revealed.

    Donald Trump’s political future has been damaged, although how enduringly remains to be seen. Joe Biden’s standing within his party has been bolstered. The political world in the US looks considerably different than it did just a week ago.

    The midterm elections are for Congress, which is made up of two parts – the House of Representatives and the Senate.

    Congress makes nationwide laws. The House decides which laws are voted on while the Senate can block or approve them, confirm appointments made by the president and, more rarely, conduct any investigations against him.

    These votes are held every two years and when they fall in the middle of the president’s four-year term of office, they are called the midterm elections.

    Each state has two senators who sit for six-year terms. Representatives serve for two years, and represent smaller districts.

    All the seats in the House of Representatives were up for election in the midterms, alongside one-third of the Senate.

    Several major states also have elections for their governor and local officials.

    Source: BBC.com 

     

  • US elections: John Fetterman’s victory in Pennsylvania boosts Democrats

    For TV personalities-turned-politicians, Pennsylvania delivered a stinging rebuke in this election. Not only for Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who came to fame on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but for Donald Trump too, the – well, you know the back story.

    Mr Trump lent Dr Oz his endorsement in April, saying that his chosen candidate for the crucial Senate race would help “stop the Radical Left maniacs from destroying our country”.

    Instead, he’s gone down to a convincing defeat at the hands of his Democratic opponent John Fetterman, who successfully courted blue-collar Pennsylvanians with a traditionally left-wing raft of policies, including a promise to tackle corporate greed.

    And – in a further twist that could be right out of a Hollywood script – the slick TV physician came up short against a candidate who’s been struggling to overcome the debilitating effects of a stroke on the campaign trail.

    Dr Oz’s political demise arguably leaves Mr Trump’s role as Republican kingmaker on life-support, and the ex-president’s chance of a third tilt at the White House in 2024 now the subject of serious probing.

    Even his staunchest of allies are advising that he puts on pause a widely anticipated announcement, earlier teased to come next week.

    No wonder Pennsylvania is being so roundly cheered by Democrats.

    It is the highlight of an election that looks to have been about rejecting the Trumpian alternative at least as much as any condemnation of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy.

    Ex-President Donald Trump talks to the press on the grounds of his Mar-a-Lago resort on midterm elections night, Palm Beach, Florida, 8 November 2022
    IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS Image caption, Trump has said he will not take responsibility for those Republicans he supported but did not get elected

    Livid Trump, triumphant Fetterman

    And it is with no small degree of relish that insiders are sharing tweets – unconfirmed – suggesting that the former president is furious, with one claiming he has even begun blaming his wife Melania for the choice of Dr Oz.

    Mr Biden took Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential vote by a narrow margin after appealing to white working-class voters and winning them back from Mr Trump.

    The hoodie-wearing, tattooed Mr Fetterman – once mayor of the former steel-town Braddock, and director of its youth programme – has used those credentials to do the same.

    But the health setback introduced a huge note of uncertainty on the campaign trail, particularly after he was seen to be struggling to articulate fluently in last month’s TV debate.

    How much would his stroke weigh on the minds of voters and raise questions about his fitness to govern?

    When we caught up with Mr Fetterman before polls opened, his minders were working hard to keep reporters at bay as he posed for photos outside a United Steelworkers Union chapter in Coatesville, a suburb of Philadelphia.

    “Are you feeling confident?” I shouted out over their heads, but there was no reply.

    However, as votes were counted into the early hours of the morning, it was clear he had overcome the doubters, and the personal and the political came together in an emotional victory speech.

    “I’m proud of what we ran on,” he told supporters.

    “Protecting a woman’s right to choose, raising our minimum wage, fighting for the union way of life, healthcare as a fundamental human right. It saved my life and it should be there for you if you all ever need it.”

    Did abortion help win it for Fetterman?

    Pennsylvania also brought another key election issue into sharp focus – the central role that abortion is playing across the US political landscape.

    Mr Fetterman referenced it in his victory speech, and it was something female voters we spoke to outside the polling stations mentioned, too.

    One young woman told us it was the only issue she was voting on – turning out for Mr Fetterman for his pro-choice stance.

    Another woman – an anti-abortion Republican mother – said she could no longer speak about politics to her voting-age daughter because they were so firmly in opposite camps.

    In his televised debate, Dr Oz’s weakest moment was seen by many to come when he said that abortion was an issue for “women, doctors [and] local political leaders” to decide.

    His strong anti-abortion stance was already known, but that formulation – seeming to conjure the image of lawmakers in the room alongside women and doctors – was considered a major blunder.

    Democrats may be buoyed by the midterm results, but they would be wrong to be complacent.

    Mr Trump still holds significant sway with a large swathe of the Republican base and still has a major financial war-chest at his disposal.

    And even if he is now politically weakened, he may have to face bigger threats out there.

    The triumph of Ron DeSantis in Florida – re-elected governor with a massively increased majority – is a victory for a culture warrior promising to make Florida a place where “woke comes to die”.

    The result is seen as raising his chances of winning the Republican 2024 nomination for the presidency.

    Some argue he may be a far more formidable rival for Democrats than Mr Trump – but harbouring the same anti-democratic instincts.

    The former president is certainly treating Mr DeSantis as a threat, warning this week that he would reveal things about the governor that “won’t be very flattering” if he does launch a presidential bid of his own.

    For now, though, Republicans appear to have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as their predicted “red wave” is turning into little more than a ripple.

    And perhaps more than anywhere else, it is the victory in Pennsylvania of a man who – just a few months ago suffered a stroke that nearly killed him – that has kept Democrat hopes alive.

    Source: BBC.com

  • Democrats win another closely watched House race in Michigan

    Representative Elissa Slotkin has won her US House race in Michigan, defeating Republican challenger Tom Barrett, a state senator who denies the results of the 2020 presidential election.

    The race was considered a bellweather for Democrats, as Slotkin was running in a largely redrawn district.

    It comes after Hillary Scholten, an immigration lawyer, bested Trump-backed candidate John Gibbs, a former official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

    The victory flipped the seat for Democrats. In the primary, Gibbs had defeated Republican Congressman Peter Meijer, who had voted to impeach Trump.

     

    Source: Aljazeera.com

  • Here’s where things stand

    We don’t yet have a full picture of the midterm results but we can draw a few early conclusions.

    The “red wave” that Republicans had predicted looks like more of a ripple. It doesn’t appear to be the rout the Democrats had feared. They have held onto a number of seats in places where they looked vulnerable. They have won a notable victory in the senate seat in Pennsylvania.

    Exit polls suggest that the economy and inflation were the biggest concerns for voters, which should have benefitted Republicans

    Democrats ran campaigns that focused on abortion rights and warnings that American democracy was in peril. Whilst Republicans blamed the Biden admiration for the rising cost of living.

    So although Democrats may well lose control of the House of Representatives and could yet lose the Senate as well, they will still be breathing a huge sigh of relief

    The party in power in Washington usually loses seats in the midterm elections and Joe Biden appears set to lose fewer than either Barack Obama or Donald Trump did at this stage in their presidencies

    However, a Republican majority in either of the houses of congress will mean that they can block almost every piece of legislation President Biden proposes.

    Source: BBC

  • Why is Joe Biden becoming highly unpopular?

    Democrats are concerned about Joe Biden’s record-low approval rating, as we’ve previously reported.

    His approval rating is the lowest of any president ahead of their first midterm elections, at 40%.

    While most presidents experience some loss of support in their first two years, his ratings have fallen lower than those of his recent predecessors; what is the cause of this?

    It’s impossible to point to just one issue, but dissatisfaction with the economy seems to be among one of the biggest contributors.

    Not all of this was in Mr Biden’s control, as countries are dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic and a spike in gas prices caused by the war in Ukraine.

    Asked about this previously, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki offered a similar explanation.

    “People are fatigued across the country. It’s impacting how they live, how they work. There are worries about their kids, their ability to experience joyful things in life like concerts and going to restaurants and seeing friends,” she said, describing the impact of the pandemic and rising costs.

    But other factors are at play too.

    Mr Biden has also seen slipping support among young voters angry about inaction on climate change, healthcare and student debt.

    Meanwhile, black voters have been disappointed by a lack of progress on voting rights and police reform.

    Then there was the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

    Although a majority of Americans supported withdrawing US troops, the desperate scenes in Kabul undercut Mr Biden’s authority as a foreign policy expert.

  • Democrats withdraw their call for Biden to reverse his position on Ukraine

    A group of left-wing Democrats in the United States Congress has withdrawn a letter calling for a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine conflict.

    According to the Progressive Caucus, the message was misinterpreted as aligning with the Republican Party’s growing reluctance to continue sending aid to Kyiv.

    Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal stated that it was written “months ago” and that it was released without being “vetted.”

    The memo sparked intra-party backlash before the US midterm elections next month.

    The letter to the White House was made public on Monday and was signed in June by 30 of President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives.

    Its call for the US to negotiate directly with Russia was seen as undermining the Biden administration, which has repeatedly said Moscow is not interested in diplomacy.

    White House officials said in response that diplomacy is only possible when all sides are prepared to negotiate, and that is not currently the case.

    Massachusetts Democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss denounced the letter as “an olive branch to a war criminal who’s losing his war”, in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Another Progressive Caucus member, Ruben Gallego, responded: “Russia doesn’t acknowledge diplomacy, only strength.

    “If we want Ukraine to continue as the free and democratic country that it is, we must support their fight.”

    Ms Jayapal, a Washington state congresswoman, said on Tuesday that she still supported an end to the war “with diplomacy”.

    She said the timing of the letter’s release meant it had “been conflated with [Republican] opposition”.

    Ms Jayapal continued: “It is a distraction at this time.”

    She accused Republicans of planning to withdraw financial and military support for Ukraine if they win a majority in Congress next month.

    Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy warned earlier this month that if his party takes power in November there will be no “blank cheque” for Ukraine.

    Other signatories to the letter included New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading figure in the party’s socialist wing, and Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, who has taken a lead role in the Democrats’ efforts to investigate former President Donald Trump.

    Mr Raskin disavowed the letter on Tuesday in a statement condemning Russia as “a world centre of antifeminist, antigay, anti-trans hatred”. He praised the Ukrainian armed forces for recruiting women and “sexual minorities”.

    Ms Ocasio-Cortez has faced pressure over Ukraine at recent public appearances.

    One heckler at a town hall-style event accused her of voting for nuclear war with Russia and China, shouting: “Why are you playing with the lives of American citizens?”

     

  • Senate passes Democrats’ sweeping health care and climate bill

    The Senate on Sunday afternoon passed Democrats’ $750 billion health care, tax, and climate bill, in a significant victory for President Joe Biden and his party.

    The final, party-line vote was 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie.
    The package is the product of painstaking negotiations, and its final passage would give Democrats a chance to achieve major policy objectives ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
    The Democrat-controlled House, which is expected to take up the legislation on Friday, August 12, must approve the bill before Biden can sign it into law.
    The sweeping bill — named the Inflation Reduction Act — would represent the largest climate investment in US history and make major changes to health policy by giving Medicare the power for the first time to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs and extend expiring health care subsidies for three years.
    The legislation would reduce the deficit, be paid for through new taxes — including a 15% minimum tax on large corporations and a 1% tax on stock buybacks — and boost the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to collect.
    It would raise over $700 billion in government revenue over 10 years and spend over $430 billion to reduce carbon emissions and extend subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and use the rest of the new revenue to reduce the deficit.
    Senate Democrats, with a narrow 50-seat majority, stayed unified to pass the legislation, using a special, filibuster-proof process to approve the measure without Republican votes.
    The final passage came after a marathon series of contentious amendment votes known as a “vote-a-rama” that stretched nearly 16 hours from late Saturday night until Sunday afternoon.
    Source: bbc.com

  • Senator Joe Manchin suddenly backs Biden climate and tax bill

    A US Democratic senator who has proved a political thorn in the White House’s side has stunned Washington by announcing sudden support for President Joe Biden’s top agenda item.

    Joe Manchin says he now backs a bill to raise corporate taxes, fight climate change, and lower medical costs.

    The West Virginians previously objected to the proposal, citing fears more spending could worsen inflation.

    Passage of the bill would be a major legislative victory for Mr. Biden.

    Salvaging a key plank of his domestic agenda could also grant a much-needed electoral boost for his fellow Democrats, who are battling to retain control of Congress as midterm elections loom in November.

    “If enacted, this legislation will be historic,” said the president.

    It is not clear what prompted the senator’s dramatic reversal to support the new bill. He is something of a political anomaly, representing a conservative state that voted overwhelmingly for former President Donald Trump.

    Earlier this week, the 74-year-old tested positive for Covid. He is fully vaccinated and wrote on Twitter that he was experiencing mild symptoms.

    In a joint statement on Wednesday evening with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Mr. Manchin provided a few specifics about his change in position on the bill which:

    • Is said to be much more modest than the $3.5tn (£2.9tn) version Democrats originally put forward
    • Would arguably help the US lower its carbon emissions by about 40% by the year 2030
    • Would devote $369bn to climate policies such as tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, and to tackling the impact of pollution on low-income communities.

    “By a wide margin, this legislation will be the greatest pro-climate legislation that has ever been passed by Congress,” Mr. Schumer said.

    Mr. Manchin and Mr. Schumer also maintained the measure would pay for itself by raising $739bn (£608bn) over the decade through hiking the corporate minimum tax on big companies to 15%, beefing up Internal Revenue Service tax enforcement, and allowing the government to negotiate prescription drug prices.

    President Biden needs the support of all 50 Democratic senators, along with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote, to get the bill through the Senate and send it to the House of Representatives – where Democrats hold a razor-thin majority.

    If passed, the legislation would mark a major breakthrough for the president, enshrining a number of his major policy goals into law and offering to salvage a domestic economic agenda that has in recent months stalled under failed negotiations.

    The bill still amounts to significantly less than what the White House had hoped to achieve in its original $1.9tn Build Back Better agenda – an ambitious plan to comprehensively rewrite the US’s health, education, climate, and tax laws.

    That earlier plan, which for months has floundered in the Senate with an uncertain future, is now “dead”, Mr. Manchin said on Wednesday.

    Barely a fortnight ago, the senator exasperated the White House by saying he could only back the portions of the proposal relating to pharmaceutical prices and healthcare subsidies.

    “I have worked diligently to get input from all sides,” Mr. Manchin said on Wednesday evening.

    He had previously expressed concern that policies boosting the development of clean energy without also increasing fossil fuel production could hurt the US by making it more dependent on foreign imports.

    Oil and gas companies employ tens of thousands of people in West Virginia and Mr. Manchin received $875,000 (£718,000) in campaign donations from the industry over the past five years.

    Mr. Schumer hopes to pass the bill with 51 votes through a budgetary maneuver that would allow him to circumvent rules requiring support from 60 out of 100 senators. If every Democrat backs the measure in the evenly split chamber, it would go through.

    Mr. Schumer said the Senate would take the bill up next week. The House of Representatives could then take it up later in August.

    However, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate Arizona Democrat who has in the past acted as a roadblock to President Biden’s agenda, could still scupper the plan. She declined to comment on news of the agreement on Wednesday night.

    In April, US media reported that Ms. Sinema had told Arizona business leaders she remained “opposed to raising the corporate minimum tax rate”.

    Republicans, who have previously tried to woo Mr. Manchin to join their party, slammed him.

    “I can’t believe that Senator Manchin is agreeing to a massive tax increase in the name of climate change when our economy is in a recession,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said.

    Ahead of the Glasgow climate conference last year, Mr. Biden promised the US would provide $11.4 billion (£9.35 billion) a year in climate finance by 2024 – to help developing countries tackle and prepare for climate change.

    But in March he managed to secure just $1 billion of that from Congress – only a third more than the Trump-era spending.

  • Democrats undoing election, say Trump lawyers

    President Trump’s lawyers have begun defending him at his impeachment trial, accusing Democrats of seeking to overturn the result of the 2016 election.

    “The president did absolutely nothing wrong,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said.

    Mr Trump’s defence will last three days and follows the Democrats’ prosecution case which ended on Friday.

    The president faces two charges linked to his dealings with Ukraine.
    He is alleged to have withheld military aid to pressure the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, into starting a corruption investigation into Mr Trump’s political rival, Democrat Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.

    Read:Pelosi loses Senate Democrats on Trump impeachment delay

    The charges, or articles of impeachment, accuse him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

    Democrats also accuse Mr Trump of making a visit by Mr Zelensky to the White House contingent on an investigation.

    Mr Trump is charged with obstructing Congress by failing to co-operate with the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.

    The president dismisses the accusations as a witch-hunt.

    The trial in the Senate will decide if Mr Trump should be removed from office. This is unlikely as the Republicans control the Senate and any such move would need a two-thirds majority.

    Echoing a line heard from many Republicans, Mr Cipollone said Democrats were “asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election… they’re asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in the election that’s occurring in approximately nine months.”

    Read:Democrats add last-minute evidence to Trump impeachment case before Senate trial

    “They are asking you to do something very, very consequential and, I would submit to you … very, very dangerous,” he said.

    Much of the abuse of power charge centres on a phone call in July between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenksy.

    Trump defence lawyer Mike Purpura insisted there was no quid pro quo – as asserted by the Democrats.

    “Zelenksy felt no pressure. President Zelensky says he felt no pressure. The House managers tell you they know better,” he said.

    In a news conference after Saturday’s hearing, Adam Schiff, the Democrats’ lead prosecutor, raised the disputed issue of calling witnesses.

    “The one question they did not address at all is why they don’t want to give the American people a fair trial, why they want this to be the first impeachment case in history without a single witness and without a single document being handed over.

    Read:Democrats to focus on legality for removing Trump

    “That ought to tell you everything you need to know about the strength and weaknesses of this case”.

    The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, told reporters that Mr Trump’s defence team had inadvertently “made a really compelling case for why the Senate should call witnesses and documents”.

    Source: bbc.com