ReportWire

Tag: civil disobedience

  • ‘This is a social emergency’: Thousands protest in Portugal over housing crisis | CNN

    ‘This is a social emergency’: Thousands protest in Portugal over housing crisis | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Lisbon
    Reuters
     — 

    Thousands of people took to the streets of Lisbon and other cities across Portugal on Saturday in protest against soaring rents and house prices at a time when high inflation is making it even tougher for people to make ends meet.

    “There is a huge housing crisis today,” Rita Silva, from the Habita housing group, said at the Lisbon protest. “This is a social emergency.”

    Portugal is one of Western Europe’s poorest countries, with government data showing more than 50% of workers earned less than 1,000 euros ($1,084) per month last year. The monthly minimum wage is 760 euros ($826).

    Rents in Lisbon, a tourist hotspot, have jumped 65% since 2015 and sale prices have sky-rocketed 137% in that period, figures from Confidencial Imobiliario, which collects data on housing, show. Rents increased 37% last year alone, more than in Barcelona or Paris, according to another real estate data company, Casafari.

    The situation is particularly hard on the young.

    The average rent for a one-bedroom flat in Lisbon is around 1,350 euros, a study by housing portal Imovirtual showed.

    The Socialist government announced last month a housing package that, among other measures, ended the controversial “Golden Visa” scheme and banned new licenses for Airbnb properties but critics say it is not enough to lower prices in the short term.

    At the protest, which was organised by the movement “Home to Live” and other groups, 35-year-old illustrator Diogo Guerra said he hears stories about people struggling to access housing every day.

    “People who… work and are homeless, people are evicted because their house is turned into short-term accommodations (for tourists),” he said.

    Low wages and high rents make Lisbon the world’s third-least viable city to live in, according to a study by insurance brokers CIA Landlords. Portugal’s current 8.2% inflation rate has exacerbated the problem.

    “With my salary, which is higher than the average salary in Lisbon, I cannot afford renting a flat because it’s too expensive,” said Nuncio Renzi, a sales executive from Italy living in the capital.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Bolsonaro greeted by small group of supporters on return to Brazil for first time since riots | CNN

    Bolsonaro greeted by small group of supporters on return to Brazil for first time since riots | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Brasilia, Brazil
    CNN
     — 

    Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro returned to the country on Thursday for the first time since his election defeat that culminated in thousands of his supporters rioting in protest at the result.

    The far-right politician flew back to Brasilia from Florida, where he stayed for three months in self-imposed exile after he failed to win reelection in last year’s presidential election. Bolsonaro has never formally conceded defeat and filed a petition contesting the result, but it was rejected by the country’s electoral court.

    Military police were on high alert in and around the airport, setting up checkpoints on the main road as about 50 Bolsonaro supporters gathered to welcome him. Authorities had earlier asked supporters to stay away from the airport.

    The small group of supporters at the airport’s international arrival hall all wore yellow and green Brazilian soccer jerseys, some draped in flags.

    One man on a motorcycle carrying a large Brazilian flag was turned away by police at the checkpoint, a CNN team on the ground reported, in line with the tight security plan announced by authorities Wednesday.

    Bolsonaro then traveled to the headquarters of his center-right Liberal Party in Brasilia, where a small group of supporters were waiting outside to greet him.

    He was set to attend a reception hosted by his party before traveling to his residence, CNN Brasil reported.

    Bolsonaro waves from the Liberal Party headquarters in Brasilia on Thursday.

    Bolsonaro, who denies inciting violent attacks in the capital Brasilia on January 8, faces an investigation into his alleged involvement upon his return, among other legal troubles.

    Speaking to CNN affiliate CNN Brasil at Florida’s Orlando airport late Wednesday, Bolsonaro said he would not lead the opposition to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva on his return – despite rallying support from conservative activists and far-right groups during his three-month stay in the United States.

    “You don’t have to oppose this government. This government is an opposition in itself,” Bolsonaro told CNN Brasil.

    Instead, Bolsonaro said he planned to help his party center-right Liberal Party “as an experienced person,” collaborating with “whatever they wish,” CNN Brasil quoted the former president as saying. He added that he will tour the country in preparation for next year’s municipal elections.

    Bolsonaro’s return comes as political divisions run deep in Brazil after he left the country in December last year just days before Lula’s inauguration.

    Though he denounced the invasion of Brasilia by his supporters, in the days following the election he welcomed peaceful demonstrations while his party filed petitions for an audit of voting machines, alleging fraud. He fed his followers crumbs of misinformation about election fraud and made vague comments hinting at a potential coup.

    The attacks in Brasilia bore similarities to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, when supporters of ex-US President Donald Trump – a close ally of Bolsonaro – stormed Congress in an effort to prevent the certification of his election defeat.

    Brazil’s Supreme Court is investigating Bolsonaro’s alleged involvement in the Brasilia riots, particularly to find out who or how far-right mobs that support the ex-leader ended up ransacking the seats of government.

    Bolsonaro is also under scrutiny over jewelry he allegedly received as a gift from the Saudi Arabian government while in office. On Wednesday, he denied any “irregularities,” stating that “the objects were registered,” CNN Brasil reported.

    Brazilian federal prosecutors are also investigating whether Bolsonaro tried to smuggle two sets of diamond jewels into the country without paying import taxes.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Netanyahu is backed into a corner. Here’s what he may do next | CNN

    Netanyahu is backed into a corner. Here’s what he may do next | CNN

    [ad_1]

    Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his decision to delay a controversial plan to weaken the country’s judiciary on Monday, he invoked the biblical story of the Judgement of Solomon, where the king had to rule between two women, both claiming to be the mother of a child. Solomon ordered that the child be cut in two, and the woman who protested the ruling was determined to be the real mother.

    Before Netanyahu spoke, supporters of the judicial overhaul had gathered in the streets following calls from right-wing politicians to come out, allowing the prime minister to make his address as protesters from both sides rallied simultaneously for the first time in weeks.

    “Even today, both sides in the national dispute claim love for the baby – love for our country,” said Netanyahu. “I am aware of the enormous tension that is building up between the two camps, between the two parts of the people, and I am attentive to the desire of many citizens to relieve this tension.”

    The timing of the address was likely intentional and was meant to give Netanyahu’s much-delayed speech a favorable backdrop – two competing camps demonstrating their love for the country, said Aviv Bushinsky, a former media adviser for Netanyahu who served the prime minister for nine years.

    Netanyahu’s strategy has always been based on last-minute decisions, Bushinsky said, which sometimes makes it difficult to predict his next move.

    Other analysts say the prime minister’s strategy brings uncertainty to Israel’s future.

    “He is playing the game,” said Gideon Rahat, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “You can never know what will happen, and that’s the problem … There is no certainty in Israel, in the Israeli system, and I am not sure that he’s not happy about this.”

    Bushinsky says that if it was up to Netanyahu he would have pumped the brakes on the judicial overhaul a long time ago, as it wasn’t one of the main leadership goals declared at the start of his sixth term as prime minister.

    He’s standing by it because the survival of his coalition depends on it. But now, analysts say he’s backed into a corner between appeasing protesters and keeping his government intact.

    Before Netanyahu announced the delay, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party broke the news, noting that part of the delay agreement was to establish a National Guard. That caused alarm, with some speculating on social media that Ben Gvir, who has an extremist past, was being allowed to set up his own militia.

    Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Tuesday that putting Ben Gvir in charge of the National Guard is “the equivalent of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

    Ben Gvir was quick to address the concerns about the new body. “Let’s put things straight: no private army and no militias,” he said in a statement published on his Telegram page.

    Bushinsky downplayed the significance of the National Guard, saying it is “a comfort prize” for Ben Gvir – “a prize for the losers.”

    The prime minister is now faced with very few options, analysts say. If he sides with his coalition and votes on the overhaul, crippling protests and strikes would resume. If he pulls the brakes, his coalition could collapse.

    The only wiggle room the Israeli leader has, analysts say, is if negotiators reach a moderated judicial overhaul plan bill over the Knesset’s recess period, which ends April 30, and where concessions to his right-wing coalition members need not be too extreme.

    Netanyahu may also be hoping for the reform bill to be shelved for the time being.

    “I think Netanyahu will try to run away from this thing, hoping that things will gradually ease,” said Bushinsky, noting that the ministers who had threatened to resign should the bill not advance have all remained in their posts.

    Analysts say, however, that what could once again unite the fragmented country and have the public rally behind the government is a potential security threat, either from neighboring countries or through conflict with the Palestinians.

    A security crisis would reorient the government’s attention, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, whether it arises from conflict with the Palestinians, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon or others.

    “Some thought that if there was a security crisis, then Netanyahu would be saved by the bell,” said Bushinsky.

    Palestinians are watching the process with unease amid fears that they will pay the price of Netanyahu’s concessions to right-wing coalition members with a history of anti-Palestinian rhetoric.

    “We are seeing that Palestinians are once again paying the price for Israel’s electoral choices,” said Buttu. “There may be calm in the streets of Tel Aviv … but for Palestinians, the reality remains the same.”

    How Netanyahu will act remains uncertain, and not everyone is optimistic that the recess period will yield any kind of consensus or moderation in his position.

    “I have not detected any indication that tells me that the prime minister is actually entering into the negotiations with a keen interest in achieving consensus … including comprises on core aspects of the judicial overhaul,” said Plesner.

    Plesner notes, however, that Netanyahu and his Likud party emerged “politically injured” from the last few months, losing not only legitimacy and support in the eyes of the Israeli people, but also in the eyes of his own Likud voters.

    “(It was) a dramatic erosion of their political power and political posture,” he said.

    Biden, Netanyahu trade barbs over plan to weaken courts; Israel rejects US ‘pressure’

    Israel’s embattled prime minister escalated a rare public dispute with US President Joe Biden on Tuesday, rejecting “pressure” from the White House after Biden criticized Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken Israel’s judiciary. Biden said on Tuesday that he won’t invite Netanyahu to the White House “in the near term,” and issued an unusually stinging rebuke of the Israeli leader’s proposed judicial overhaul. Netanyahu responded late on Tuesday, saying, “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”

    • Background: The prime minister finally paused the legislation on Monday after a general strike and mass protests threw Israel into chaos, but he said he planned to return to the effort in the next legislative term. Critics say Netanyahu is pushing through the changes because of his own ongoing corruption trial, which he denies.
    • Why it matters: The back and forth thrust into public view a simmering diplomatic dispute that has mostly been kept private over the past several weeks. Biden and other US officials had sought to quietly dissuade Netanyahu from moving ahead with his proposed reforms without creating the appearance of a rift. But now the divide appears to be opening between the two men, who have known each other for decades.

    Riyadh joins Shanghai Cooperation Organization as ties with Beijing grow

    Saudi Arabia’s cabinet approved on Wednesday a decision to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as Riyadh builds a long-term partnership with China despite US security concerns, Reuters reported. Saudi Arabia has approved a memorandum on granting the kingdom the status of a dialog partner in the SCO, state news agency SPA said.

    • Background: Formed in 2001 by Russia, China and former Soviet states in Central Asia, the body has been expanded to include India and Pakistan, with a view to playing a bigger role as counterweight to Western influence in the region. The SCO is a political and security union of countries spanning much of Eurasia. Iran also signed documents for full membership last year. Countries belonging to the organization plan to hold a joint “counter-terrorism exercise” in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region in August.
    • Why it matters: Riyadh’s growing ties with Beijing have raised security concerns in Washington, its traditional ally. Washington says Chinese attempts to exert influence around the world will not change US policy toward the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have voiced concern about what they see as a withdrawal from the region by the United States, its main security guarantor, and have moved to diversify partners. Washington says it will stay an active partner in the region.

    US sanctions Syrian leader Assad’s cousins, others over drug trade

    The US on Tuesday imposed new sanctions against six people, including two cousins of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for their role in the production or export of captagon, a dangerous amphetamine, Reuters cited the Treasury Department as saying. The Treasury said trade in captagon was estimated to be a billion-dollar enterprise and the sanctions highlight the role of Lebanese drug traffickers and the Assad family dominance of captagon trafficking, which helped fund the Syrian government.

    • Background: Regional officials say the Iranian-backed Hezbollah as well as Syrian armed groups linked to the Damascus government are behind the surging trade of captagon, smuggled either through Jordan to the south or Lebanon to the west. Assad’s government denies involvement in drug-making and smuggling and says it is stepping up its campaign to curb the lucrative trade. Hezbollah denies the accusations.
    • Why it matters: There is a thriving market for captagon in the Gulf, and United Nations and Western anti-narcotics drug officials say Syria, shattered by a decade of civil war, has become the region’s main production site for a multibillion-dollar drug trade that also exports to Europe.

    Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco will acquire a 10% stake in China’s Rongsheng Petrochemical in a strategic deal worth $3.6 billion that would significantly expand its presence in China.

    Amena Bakr, deputy bureau chief at Energy Intelligence, spoke to CNN’s Becky Anderson about what this means for Saudi-Chinese cooperation.

    She said Saudi interest is in the East as the kingdom does not like “policy that interferes with their internal affairs,” a mantra that China holds sacred.

    Watch the full interview here.

    A Ramadan TV show is in hot water for its offensive depiction of Iraqi women, drawing condemnation from politicians in both Kuwait and Iraq.

    The series, “London Class,” is produced by the Saudi state-backed media conglomerate MBC group and depicts Iraqi women working as maids for Kuwaiti women and being accused of theft.

    The show follows a group of Arab medicine students at a London university in the 1980s. Much of the anger from Iraqis is directed at Kuwait.

    The Kuwaiti Ministry of Information has however said the show has nothing to do with the country and was not shown on any platform there, according to Arabic media.

    One Baghdad-based Twitter user condemned what he said was a repeated “stream of hatred and malice from Kuwaiti shows towards our people.”

    The show was written by Kuwaiti writer Heba Hamada and directed by Egyptian Mohamed Bakir. Hamada responded to the criticism in an Instagram post, saying: “Iraq is the mother of civilization, and all Arabs lean on its shoulder.”

    Mustafa Jabbar Sanad, a member of parliament in Iraq, accused the show of “erasing the value of well-known Iraqi talents … to distort the image of the Iraqi people as a whole, not just women.”

    Hamada was the subject of criticism in 2019 because of a similar show she wrote called “Cairo Class,” which caused strife between Kuwaitis and Egyptians due its portrayal of Egypt. That show is being aired on Netflix.

    The question of honor, particularly that of Iraqi women, has long been a sensitive issue in Kuwaiti-Iraqi relations. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had accused Kuwait of insulting his country’s women, citing it as a reason for his invasion of the country in 1990.

    In a 2004 court hearing in Iraq, the former president decried being held accountable for the invasion.

    “How could Saddam be tried over Kuwait that said it will reduce Iraqi women to 10-dinar prostitutes?” he asked, referring to himself. “He (Hussein) defended Iraq’s honor and revived its historical rights over those dogs,” Saddam said, referring to the Kuwaitis.

    Iraq made its final reparation payment for that invasion last year, having paid the Gulf nation a total of $52.4 billion.

    By Dalya Al Masri

    A shepherd walks with his goats as trucks move rubble at Samandag, in Turkey's Hatay province on Tuesday, after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6 killed more than 50,000 in southeastern Turkey and nearly 6,000 over the border in Syria.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Netanyahu says he will delay his judicial overhaul. But will that be enough for protesters? | CNN

    Netanyahu says he will delay his judicial overhaul. But will that be enough for protesters? | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he would postpone the votes on his planned judicial overhaul, but analysts say that may not be enough to cool the protests.

    The prime minister announced he would delay the second and third votes on the remaining legislation until after the Jewish Passover holiday from April 5-13, “to give time for a real chance for a real debate.”

    Netanyahu nonetheless insisted that the overhaul was necessary. And while he may be trying to buy himself time, it is unclear if his deferment of the vote will silence the huge protests and mass strikes paralyzing the country, experts say.

    Gideon Rahat, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and a member of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said the protests may either tail off or resume at a later date following the announcement, but that the demonstrators are nonetheless “ready” for the reform, and can return to the streets at any moment.

    “The protesters now have the infrastructure to take protests out (to the streets) within minutes,” Rahat told CNN, noting that it is not just one protest movement but tens of groups, some of whom may decide to continue to rally despite the deferment.

    “The infrastructure is there, and if there will be a need, there will be a comeback (to the streets),” he said.

    Former head of the Israeli Intelligence Directorate and managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Major General Tamir Hayman said that postponing the vote until after the Passover holiday will not end anger on the streets.

    “The protests will continue unless Netanyahu will note publicly that he was mistaken when leading that reform, and (that) he is holding all future motivations to renew the judicial reform,” Hayman told CNN. “This is the only scenario where we will see a complete stop of all the demonstrations.”

    If, however, Netanyahu uses the pause to conduct proper negotiations with all parties, and eventually presents a moderated reform bill that is approved by the opposition, then “maybe, in that case, at the end state, after Independence Day, we will see a remission in the protests,” Hayman said, referring to Israel’s national day on April 25/26.

    During his speech, Netanyahu also reiterated his criticism of the refusal by some reservists to train or serve in the military in protest at the planned changes. The prime minister had earlier fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over his opposition to the planned overhaul.

    “The state of Israel cannot continue with people who refuse to serve in the army,” he the prime minister said. “Refusing is the end of our country.”

    Hayman, from the INSS, said the protests may pose a security threat as some within the military begin to divide into camps for and against the judicial overhaul.

    While it is has not yet happened, said Hayman, the mass movement could cause “the gaps, the rifts inside the (IDF) units … to widen and deepen.”

    Some of the military members Netanyahu is referring to are also serving in very critical units, said Rahat. But since they are mostly volunteers who do so “because they love their country,” Netanyahu must “regain their trust” to bring them back to their posts.

    “This is a problem of legitimacy; this is a problem of trust,” Rahat said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Proud Boy testifies that talk of ‘stacking bodies’ was locker-room banter | CNN Politics

    Proud Boy testifies that talk of ‘stacking bodies’ was locker-room banter | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Proud Boys member Fernando Alonso, who was with members of the group in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, testified on Monday that text messages about “stacking bodies” on the White House lawn were akin to locker-room banter and that members of the group were simply “knuckleheads.”

    During his testimony in the trial against five members of the Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy for their alleged actions around the US Capitol attack, Alonso testified that the idea Proud Boys wanted to take over the government was “offensive.”

    But then prosecutors pressed him about text messages he sent weeks earlier.

    In one message, an individual named Al messaged Alonso on December 24, 2020, asking: “When do we start stacking bodies on the White House Lawn?”

    “Jan 7th,” Alonso wrote back, according to evidence presented at the trial.

    Al responded: “The RINOs first, make the Democrats watch…”

    Alonso answered: “yes.”

    When asked about the message, Alonso testified it was all “‘locker room talk,’ if you will.”

    The Proud Boy also testified that defendant Enrique Tarrio – chairman of the group – never wanted violence. Alonso said the idea that they wanted to overtake the government “is insulting” and “ridiculous.”

    The five defendants – Tarrio, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs – have pleaded not guilty.

    Alonso said that, around the time of January 6, Proud Boys were irritated by police who, in his view, didn’t do enough to stop violence perpetrated by the left-wing group Antifa, calling them “coptifa.”

    “Antifa did a lot of things, and I don’t see any trials for them,” he said.

    Alonso testified that on January 6, he followed Proud Boys leaders around the Capitol but said he never went inside. Alonso has not been charged in connection with his actions on January 6.

    “I wasn’t going to go in when there’s armed police pointing guns at us,” Alonso said, adding that it “was pretty extreme” to go inside.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Netanyahu announces delay to Israel judicial overhaul plans amid huge protests | CNN

    Netanyahu announces delay to Israel judicial overhaul plans amid huge protests | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday his controversial plans to weaken the judiciary will be delayed after widespread strikes and protests drove the country to a standstill.

    Netanyahu said he would delay the second and third votes on the remaining legislation until after the Knesset’s Passover recess in April “to give time for a real chance for a real debate.”

    Netanyahu added that he is “aware of the tensions” and is “listening to the people.”

    “Out of the responsibility to the nation, I decided to delay … the vote, in order to give time for discussion,” he added.

    But he insisted that the overhaul was necessary, and reiterated criticism of refusal to train or serve in the military in protest at the planned changes.

    “Refusing is the end of our country,” he said.

    Reacting to Netanyahu’s announcement, Arnon Bar-David, the leader of the Histadrut labor union, announced that a planned general strike would now be called off.

    “The general strike stops from this moment,” Bar-David told CNN affiliate Channel 13, although he warned Netanyahu against reviving the legislation.

    “If the prime minister returns to aggressive legislation he’ll find us facing him. Legislation without consent will be met with a general strike.”

    The original proposals would have amounted to the most sweeping overhaul of the Israeli legal system since the country’s founding. The most significant changes would allow a simple majority in the Knesset to overturn Supreme Court rulings; the Netanyahu government also sought to change the way judges are selected, and remove government ministries’ independent legal advisers, whose opinions are binding.

    But months of sustained protests over the plans drew global attention and rocked the country. The political crisis deepened on Sunday when Netanyahu’s office announced the firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a one-line statement, after he became the first member of the cabinet to call for a pause to the controversial plans.

    In the hours that followed, Israeli society ground to a halt as anger at the bill mounted. Netanyahu was also condemned by his opponents and a host of former Israeli prime ministers.

    “We’ve never been closer to falling apart. Our national security is at risk, our economy is crumbling, our foreign relations are at their lowest point ever, we don’t know what to say to our children about their future in this country. We have been taken hostage by a bunch of extremists with no brakes and no boundaries,” former Prime Minister Yair Lapid said at the Knesset.

    As he fought to push ahead with his effort last week, Netanyahu’s government also passed a law making it harder to oust prime ministers that was condemned by critics as a self-preservation tactic.

    By a 61-to-47 final vote, the Knesset approved the bill that states that only the prime minister himself or the cabinet, with a two-thirds majority, can declare the leader unfit. The cabinet vote would then need to be ratified by a super majority in the parliament.

    Netanyahu, who is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to appear in court as a defendant, is on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery. He denies any wrongdoing.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump leans into extremism at first 2024 rally as legal woes mount | CNN Politics

    Trump leans into extremism at first 2024 rally as legal woes mount | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump is igniting his White House bid at a moment of unprecedented peril in the criminal investigations against him – a confluence that could send America into a new political and legal collision.

    Trump’s wild rhetoric at his first official 2024 campaign rally Saturday previewed the divisive national moment ahead should he be indicted in any of multiple criminal probes. As he whipped up a demagogic fervor in Waco, Texas, to try to secure a new presidency dedicated to “retribution,” Trump’s extremism – laced with suggestions of violence – left no doubt he would be willing to take the country to a dark place to save himself.

    Yet Trump’s chilling warnings that the Biden administration’s “thugs and criminals” have created a “Stalinist Russia horror show” by “weaponizing” justice against him also spelled electoral danger for a GOP hurt by his authoritarianism in recent elections. An extraordinary prolonged character attack on Ron DeSantis, in which Trump depicted his biggest potential rival of 2024 tearfully begging for his endorsement in 2018, demonstrated the political firestorm the Florida governor will have to deal with if he jumps into the White House campaign.

    Even with the ex-president’s reputation for hyperbole and inflammatory rhetoric, such demagoguery has never previously been heard in the first official rally of any modern American election campaign.

    Meanwhile, House committee chairs eager to appeal to the Trump base are increasing their efforts to use the power of their Republican majority to thwart Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s inquiry into Trump – even before it releases any possible indictment or evidence. House Oversight Chair James Comer told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the GOP moves were justified because the investigation into Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scheme to pay an adult film actress was based purely on politics.

    “This is the, for better or worse, leading contender for the Republican nomination of the presidential election next year, as well as a former president of the United States,” the Kentucky Republican told Jake Tapper.

    Many legal experts have questioned whether the potential Bragg investigation will produce the strongest of cases against Trump, who’s also facing several other probes over his actions around the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents. (Trump, who maintains he’s done nothing wrong, so far has not been charged in any of the criminal probes against him.)

    And given the greater national impact of those other investigations, a possible attempt to use a business accounting violation in this yearslong hush money case to suggest a possible violation of campaign finance law could be especially controversial. Yet Comer’s comments also created the implication that an ex-president or White House candidate could be protected from investigation even if they had committed a criminal offense. This gets to the core of the possible cases against Trump: Would failing to investigate him and charge him, if the evidence justifies such a step, mean an ex-president is above the law? Or would some attempts to call him to account risk subjecting him to a level of scrutiny that other citizens might not face?

    Comer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who were among the three committee chairs writing to Bragg this weekend with intensifying demands for his testimony, won a warm shout-out from Trump at his rally in Texas, reflecting the way the new House GOP is acting as a political tool for the ex-president and his radical campaign. Bragg responded to the chairmen in a statement saying it was not appropriate for Congress to interfere with local investigations and vowed to be guided by the rule of law. He was backed up this weekend by nearly 200 former federal prosecutors who wrote a letter denouncing efforts to intimidate him.

    The grand jury in the Trump case is expected to reconvene on Monday, following a week of rampant public speculation over whether Bragg would call more witnesses and whether the case was sufficiently serious to merit the potential first indictment ever of an ex-president. Trump falsely predicted earlier this month that he would be arrested last Tuesday – a move that fired up an effort by his allies to intimidate Bragg. But the week came and went without any indictment news.

    CNN reported last week that the district attorney’s office was trying to determine whether to call back Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to refute the testimony provided by attorney Robert Costello, who appeared at the request of Trump lawyers – or to call an additional witness to buttress its case before the grand jurors consider a vote on whether to indict the former president.

    The escalating confrontation over Bragg’s inquiry came as other investigations around Trump seemed to be nearing their own conclusions.

    In a totally separate case on Friday, Trump’s primary defense attorney, Evan Corcoran, appeared before a grand jury in Washington, DC, that is hearing evidence over the ex-president’s handling of classified documents at his home in Florida, including possible obstruction of justice when the government tried to get those documents back. Prosecutors have made clear in court proceedings that are still under seal that they believe Trump tried to use Corcoran to advance a crime.

    Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday that Corcoran’s appearance represented a serious development for Trump. “That is an unprecedented thing that we’re seeing, and Evan Corcoran is in a position to provide unbelievably damaging testimony against him,” he said.

    Besides looking into the documents issue, special counsel Jack Smith is investigating Trump’s conduct around the 2020 election – which even this weekend the former president again falsely claimed he had won – and in the run-up to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    In another probe related to the 2020 election, a district attorney in Georgia said at the end of January that decisions were “imminent” in the investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the key swing state. CNN reported last week that prosecutors are considering bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges.

    Charges in any one of these investigations would test the strength of the country’s political and judicial institutions, given that an ex-president and current presidential candidate is involved. And the fact that Trump is showing such willingness to inflame the country’s politics in his own defense makes this a deeply serious moment for the nation.

    Trump’s fiery rally in Waco pulsated with falsehoods about the 2020 election and his one-term presidency and misrepresented the legal cases against him. Coming a day after he warned in a social media post about “death and destruction” if he is indicted, his speech boiled with conspiracy theories and personal resentments – rhetoric that is especially dangerous in the aftermath of January 6. It wasn’t lost on observers that his event coincided with the 30th anniversary of a law enforcement raid on a cult compound in Waco that’s seen on the far right as a symbol of government overreach, although the campaign maintained the location had been chosen for convenience.

    The ex-president has often used extremist speeches to try to get more time in the limelight or more attention, whether from adoring onlookers or outraged critics. It is too early to judge how well his tactic is working in the 2024 campaign and as his legal plight seems to worsen. To date, there have been no big protests of the kind Trump has repeatedly called for. The price his supporters could pay for turning violent has also been demonstrated by the hundreds of convictions of those who invaded the Capitol more than two years ago after his big Washington rally. So there is at least the possibility that while Trump remains widely popular with his GOP base, his angry rhetoric lacks the power that it once did.

    But it is also clear after this first campaign rally that Trump, who is still leading the Republican pack for 2024, has crossed a new political line. He is painting a picture of a decrepit and powerless nation – plagued by corruption, rigged elections and the criminal manipulation of the law against his supporters – that is far more extreme than the “American carnage” he invoked in his inaugural address in 2017.

    “The abuses of power that are currently with us at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt and depraved chapters in all of American history,” Trump said, lashing the US as a “third world banana republic.”

    “Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state,” he said at one point.

    And while Trump’s intent is to shock, history suggests that authoritarians seeking power follow exactly the same playbook of populist nationalism – discrediting free elections, demonizing the legal system and taking aim at vulnerable sectors of society – that Trump is pioneering in his new campaign.

    His rally was also notable for the fact that it was almost totally dominated by his grievances and complaints, which may well hint at a sense of foreboding over his legal position. “Every piece of my personal life, financial life, business life and public life has been turned upside down and dissected like no one in the history of our country,” Trump said.

    This raises a question of whether he’s offering a message, rooted in his obsessions, that a majority of Republican voters would actually want to sign up for, even those who considered his presidency a success. In 2016, Trump emerged as an unlikely but highly skilled vehicle for the conservative grassroots, much of which felt patronized by politicians and left behind in a wave of globalization that sent millions of blue-collar jobs overseas.

    DeSantis may be trying something similar in 2024. In the early moves of his yet-to-be-declared campaign, the Florida governor has positioned himself as the champion of conservative voters who believe their way of life is under attack from liberals and multiculturalists pushing a “woke” ideology. One of the key questions of the GOP primary campaign will be whether this approach could appeal to more Republican voters than Trump’s incessant attempts to portray investigations into him as a symptom of a wider attack by a corrupt government on his followers.

    But ahead of yet another potentially pivotal week, Trump is proving that he will not turn away from the defining tactic of his political career: subjecting the country’s institutions to ever more intense and unprecedented stress tests.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Site of Atlanta’s proposed ‘Cop City’ training center is partially closed after deadly traps found | CNN

    Site of Atlanta’s proposed ‘Cop City’ training center is partially closed after deadly traps found | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A large portion of a public park near Atlanta on the proposed site of a police and fire training facility – dubbed “Cop City” by critics – has been temporarily closed by an executive order, after county officials said they located “life threatening” hidden traps scattered in the park.

    “They confiscated booby traps, boards with nails that were hidden by leaves and underbrush. You could kill a small child or a pet with those,” DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond told CNN by phone.

    Thurmond said the park is a very popular area where people walk and enjoy nature.

    “It’s just not safe right now,” he added.

    The planned facility has received fierce pushback since its conception, by residents who feel there was little public input, conservationists who worry it will carve out a chunk of much-needed forest land and activists who say it will militarize police forces and contribute to further instances of police brutality.

    Thurmond said he “understands the pushback against Cop City, but this is too far.”

    Under the executive order, unauthorized persons entering the properties will be subject to prosecution for criminal trespass, and unauthorized parked vehicles will be towed and impounded, according to a news release about the executive order.

    DeKalb County has been unable to send its parks employees into the site of the proposed $90 million, 85-acre training facility because “they have been attacked with rocks” and other objects, Thurmond said.

    Tensions between law enforcement and protesters have continued to rise since the January shooting death of a protester, who law enforcement says fired on officers first and seriously wounded a state trooper.

    The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Friday released an incident report in which a trooper with the state’s Department of Public Safety SWAT team described law enforcement officers calling for the protester, Manuel Paez Terán, to come out of his tent during a clearing operation.

    Paez Terán refused to leave, the report says, and as the protester was zipping up the front door of the tent, the trooper fired pepper bails into the opening. Paez Terán then started shooting “steadily,” the report says. The trooper says he ditched the pepper ball launcher and fired his pistol at the shooter.

    “While shooting I observed a small explosion at the front of the tent and a large plume of white powder going into the air,” the officer writes in the report.

    The officer says he fired until it became clear Paez Terán was no longer shooting or had set off additional explosive devices. A use of force report indicates in addition to the trooper firing at the protester, five other troopers shot their weapons.

    A spokesperson for Paez Terán’s family sent CNN a statement calling on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to release witness statements and evidence. It also criticized the bureau for investigating the shooting, which came during an operation the bureau planned.

    “The GBI is investigating its own tragic operation. The family calls upon the GBI to explain what steps it has taken to preserve the integrity of its investigation of its own operation,” said Enchanta Jackson.

    Jackson noted the incident report was filed February 13.

    “The officer narratives released today by the Department of Public Safety were drafted weeks or, in some cases, months after the incident,” Jackson said. “When officers drafted these statements, each had the opportunity to review the publicly available video and the press releases issued by the GBI.”

    Kamau Franklin, the leader of the Community Movement Builders organization which opposes the facility, calls the latest move by DeKalb County an excuse to close the park and criminalize the climate activists working to preserve the green space.

    “I think part of the reason is to stop and quell protests and then, to continue putting out a narrative that suggests that people who are protesting against Cop City are criminals or criminal-minded,” he told CNN. “They want to put fear into people who use the park by suggesting it’s sabotaged and booby-trapped, but without presenting any real evidence that links anything that they allegedly found to any organizers or activists.”

    He says the claim that organizers sought to hurt anyone trying to enter the park flies in the face of why they’re protesting in the first place.

    “The very reason we use the area, the very reason that these protests are happening is to stop the Cop City training center from going on so that the community around here can have continued access, as was promised, to that environment and to that park.”

    The South River Forest Public Safety Training Center is set to be built on a piece of land which used to be a prison farm. Though it is just outside Atlanta city limits, the plot of land is owned by the city, meaning residents who live around the site do not have voting power for the leaders who approved it.

    The training center would be built in a predominantly Black and Brown neighborhood.

    Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has established a community task force to address the opposition and controversy surrounding the training center.

    More than 40 “experts and community stakeholders” will join the South River Forest Public Safety Training Center Community Task Force, according to the mayor’s office. The task force adds members to the existing advisory committee.

    “The new Community Task Force will add more voices and broaden the scope of community input to include the surrounding green space and the nearby site of the former Atlanta Prison Farm, as well as public safety training curriculum,” the mayor’s office said in a news release.

    Included in the task force are representatives from the Georgia NAACP, ACLU, and Georgia State University, as well as other community and clergy members.

    “The ACLU of Georgia is committed to helping ensure the safe and unencumbered right to protest, and as such, joins the City’s task force with demonstrators’ First Amendment rights at the forefront,” officials from the organization said in a statement.

    The organization said “dozens of people” at the site have been charged with domestic terrorism in recent months. They call the charges “an over-criminalization of demonstrators under a constitutionally dubious statute.”

    “The ACLU of Georgia is committed to helping ensure the safe and unencumbered right to protest, and as such, joins the City’s task force with demonstrators’ First Amendment rights at the forefront,” the ACLU of Georgia, which is part of the new task force, said in a statement.

    Like many of those who are part of the new task force, the ACLU of Georgia opposes the training center’s construction.

    Noticeably absent from the task force is anyone from the Muscogee Nation, or “Creek” Native American tribe. When asked by CNN why there was no Native American representation on the task force, the mayor’s office did not reply.

    The “Creek” have maintained the land in the Weelaunee Forest, which is expected to house the training center, is sacred Native American land. Their fight has been joined by a robust coalition of decentralized activists, including climate activists who believe paving the 85 acres would – among other things – lead to an increase in flooding in an already flood-prone area.

    Anti-policing activists, some of whom have traveled from as far as France and Canada, have also joined the movement.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 2024 GOP field tests their messages — while largely avoiding conflict with Trump | CNN Politics

    2024 GOP field tests their messages — while largely avoiding conflict with Trump | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    As former President Donald Trump heads to Texas on Saturday for his first major campaign rally, the handbrake remains on for most of his potential 2024 rivals.

    Trump will appear in Waco just a week after he predicted his own arrest in connection with a hush money case from 2016. In the days since, anticipation grew over a potential indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, with Trump warning early Friday of “potential death and destruction” if he’s charged, though no action was taken this week.

    This latest melodrama for the former president is unfolding during an uneasy period for the rest of the 2024 GOP presidential field, which is mostly frozen in place as a host of rumored contenders travel the country to test-run their messages while also seeking to avoid conflict with Trump.

    The former president, though, operates on his own schedule and, along with his allies, used his own announcement about a coming indictment to test the loyalties of his fellow Republicans.

    “We all need to be speaking up against the political persecution of President Trump,” right-wing Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert tweeted last weekend. “This is not the time for silence.”

    What Trump and his supporters eventually heard was a field of would-be opponents rushing to their defense – yet another sign that former president’s grip on the Republican Party remains firmly in place.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has at times harshly criticized Trump over the latter’s role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, fell into line almost immediately after Trump’s prediction last week.

    “The fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority, I think, it just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country,” Pence said in an ABC News interview last Sunday. “It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here.”

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, remains the only other candidate with an established national profile to formally enter the race. She too backed Trump after he floated his expected arrest, saying the potential case against him was “more about revenge than it is about justice.”

    Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has projected a warrior-like persona in the run-up to his own expected campaign, is still months out from an announcement. Though he took a sharper, snarkier tone when discussing Trump’s legal troubles this week, it came as he faced the fallout from his own messy, conflicting series of remarks on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, another potential contender, parried questions about Trump, and whether he was concerned by the behavior underlying the hush money case. Instead, he turned his ire on reporters and President Joe Biden.

    “You know, one of the things I’d say is that red-on-red violence, so to speak, is something that the mass media enjoys,” Scott said on Fox New Thursday. “The road to socialism runs through a divided Republican Party. One thing we should do is keep our focus on the actual problem: That is President Biden.”

    Further complicating DeSantis’s bid to shave support from Trump while energizing his own conservative base, his other would-be rivals – led by Haley and Pence – are increasingly framing him as a carbon copy of the former president.

    The main difference: They can go after DeSantis without fear of reprisal from Trump or his supporters.

    Pence has taken aim at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s home state war with Disney, which he targeted after the company pushed back against state GOP legislation banning certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    The former vice president argued that DeSantis’ revocation of Disney’s special tax status went too far, and that such interventions violated his principles as a “limited government Republican.”

    Both Pence and Haley have also insisted that “entitlement reform,” in the form of cutting benefits for seniors in an effort to combat what they’ve described as a funding crisis, would be on the table if they were elected. That position separates them from Trump and DeSantis – at least rhetorically – who have both pledged not to touch popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.

    For his part, DeSantis has ignored pokes from more establishment-aligned Republicans, instead attempting to land subtle jabs on Trump. Asked about the rumors of Trump’s coming indictment, DeSantis on Monday said he “no interest in getting involved in some type of manufactured circus by some Soros DA,” a reference to Democrat Alvin Bragg and billionaire liberal donor George Soros.

    But he followed that with a dig that raised the hackles of Trump and his top advisers.

    “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” DeSantis said to laughs from some in the press corps. “I just, I can’t speak to that.”

    Trump promptly responded by posting a series of personal attacks against DeSantis on social media.

    “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!),” Trump wrote. “I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”

    But his back-and-forth with Trump, which carried on after DeSantis landed a few more shots during an interview with Piers Morgan, was arguably less damaging to the Florida governor than his continued about-faces on Ukraine.

    After being met with a barrage of criticism from prominent Republicans for initially describing Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” in a statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, DeSantis subsequently insisted to Morgan that he had only been addressing a longer-running part of the conflict focused in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

    “That’s some difficult fighting,” DeSantis said of the region, “and that’s what I was referring to. And so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that (land), and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it.”

    By Thursday, though, DeSantis has tracked back to a more populist position, saying in an interview with Newsmax that he cares “more about securing our own border in the United States than I do about the Russia-Ukraine border.”

    The back-and-forth over Ukraine invited reproaches from Pence and Haley, along with foreign policy hawks like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who all at various times either mocked or scorned DeSantis’ comments

    “When the United States supports Ukraine in their fight against Putin, we follow the Reagan doctrine, and we support those who fight our enemies on their shores, so we will not have to fight them ourselves,” Pence said in a statement. “There is no room for Putin apologists in the Republican Party.”

    The broad backlash underscored DeSantis’ uniquely tricky path to the nomination. When he hewed to Trump’s position in his initial remarks, the party establishment and anti-Trump conservatives raced to condemn him.

    But because DeSantis largely shares a voter base with the former president, staking out a clear position opposing Trump would be politically untenable.

    It is a challenge he will need to meet – and solve – as the race becomes more intense and the waiting, for candidates and action in Trump’s legal cases, comes to an end.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • King Charles state visit to France postponed amid violent pension protests | CNN

    King Charles state visit to France postponed amid violent pension protests | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    King Charles’s state visit to France has been postponed amid planned protests over the French government’s controversial pension reforms.

    Both France’s Élysée Palace and Buckingham Palace confirmed the trip had been shelved on Friday morning.

    The British monarch and Queen Consort were supposed to visit the country from Sunday through Wednesday, and they would have traveled to Paris and the southwestern city of Bordeaux. However a decision to postpone the visit was made after demonstrations turned violent in some areas, including Bordeaux, on Thursday.

    Clashes between groups of protesters angry over proposed pension reforms and police broke out after workers staged a national strike throughout Thursday, with flare-ups in Paris and regional capitals. In Bordeaux, demonstrators set fire to the entrance of the city hall during skirmishes with police, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.

    The Élysée Palace said in a statement that the King’s state visit “will be rescheduled as soon as possible.”

    “In view of yesterday’s announcement of a new national day of action against pension reform on Tuesday, March 28 in France, the visit of King Charles III, originally scheduled for March 26-29 in our country, will be postponed,” the statement read.

    “This decision was taken by the French and British governments, after a telephone exchange between the President of the Republic and the King this morning, in order to be able to welcome His Majesty King Charles III in conditions that correspond to our friendly relationship,” it continued.

    A Buckingham Palace spokesperson confirmed the postponement to CNN, adding: “Their Majesties greatly look forward to the opportunity to visit France as soon as dates can be found.”

    A UK government spokesperson also confirmed the King would not travel to France next week, adding that “this decision was taken with the consent of all parties, after the President of France asked the British Government to postpone the visit.”

    Charles and Camilla were due to travel from France to Germany on Wednesday for a state visit. The second leg of the trip is still expected to go ahead.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Today’s news in 10 minutes | CNN

    Today’s news in 10 minutes | CNN

    [ad_1]

    Story highlights

    This page includes the show Transcript

    The Weekly Newsquiz tests your knowledge of events in the news

    March 24, 2023

    Today CNN 10 is looking at the latest news from Capitol Hill where the CEO of TikTok is the sole witness at a House Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing. The app which has a reported 150 million US users could be potentially banned over national security concerns. And CNN 10 is going to France where the country is facing protests over the government’s plan to overhaul the pension system. Then, CNN 10 has a story that’s un-bear-ably cute on professional bear huggers. This and more on today’s episode of CNN 10.

    WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ

    1. Last Friday, the International Criminal Court issued a war crimes arrest warrant for what international leader?

    2. Large amounts of what natural phenomenon is a growing threat to tourism in the Caribbean and now parts of Florida?

    3. Protesters are upset at the government`s plans to give parliament the power to potentially overrule Supreme Court decisions in what country?

    4. Featured in Tuesday’s show, in what country will Harry Potter fans be able to immerse themselves in some of the series most iconic moments?

    5. In what U.S. city did the union representing school custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and other support staff hold a strike this week?

    6. A recent study trained what insect to solve puzzles, proving they’re organized, smart and coachable?

    7. At Fort Sill in Oklahoma the U.S. is training soldiers from what country on U.S. weapons systems?

    8. Researchers at Columbia University recently set out on a mission to create what dessert through 3D printing?

    9. In France, citizens are protesting the government’s plan to raise the national retirement age to what?

    10. The CEO of what major social media app appeared before congress on Thursday to answer questions about the app’s security and data?

    Click here to access the printable version of today’s CNN 10 transcript

    CNN 10 serves a growing audience interested in compact on-demand news broadcasts ideal for explanation seekers on the go or in the classroom. The show’s priority is to identify stories of international significance and then clearly describe why they’re making news, who is affected, and how the events fit into a complex, international society.

    Thank you for using CNN 10

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Opinion: Why France is fuming at Macron | CNN

    Opinion: Why France is fuming at Macron | CNN

    [ad_1]

    Editor’s Note: Catherine Poisson is an associate professor of Romance Languages at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Her research has focused on literature and culture of France from the 19th century to the present. The views expressed in this article are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    As a native of France who has lived in America for many years, I never fail to be shocked at the sight of older workers packing groceries at the supermarket. It suggests to me a deplorable lack of social supports that could allow aged people to enjoy a dignified retirement.

    While it’s true that some people choose to work past retirement, most of us in this country, at some point or the other, have seen elderly people hard at work in occupations that people many years younger would find taxing.

    And yet, many Americans somehow seem to be puzzled by the recent protests over retirement benefits that are roiling the country of my birth.

    For the past three months, a spasm of demonstrations has gripped France over moves by the government to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. In recent days, French indignation led to a no-confidence vote that President Emmanuel Macron only narrowly survived. A new round of mass protests called by organized labor took place on Thursday — the ninth day of strikes since the bill was introduced in January.

    Schools are closed because teachers are on strike. Transportation, including France’s usually reliable train service, is suddenly erratic because of the work stoppages. On top of all this, Parisians have seen their city’s streets strewn with tons of trash, after sanitation workers launched a labor action in solidarity.

    I return to France for several weeks each year, but have lived in the United States some 30 years and know both countries well. One thing that seems clear to me is that the kind of upheaval playing out in the country of my birth would be almost unthinkable in America. Americans seem not to be able to understand the source of the boiling national rage felt by the French over the planned increase in the retirement age.

    The closest analogy in the United States to anything like what my compatriots are experiencing would be the decision four decades ago to raise the age at which Social Security benefits are doled out.

    And that’s exactly what happened: The US government announced in 1983 that it would gradually raise the age for collecting full Social Security retirement benefits from 65 to 67 over a 22-year period, beginning in 2000. Of course, older Americans care deeply about Social Security — and often cast their votes accordingly. Still, it’s hard to imagine such a change going over quite so easily in France.

    For the most part, the demonstrations in France haven’t awakened Americans’ sense of empathy or solidarity. Instead, it has elicited expressions of sheer befuddlement. What on earth, my friends and acquaintances here ask, do the French have to complain about?

    Life in France is not perfect. But French citizens have a generous health care system, which means workers pay next-to-nothing out of pocket for medical care. University education is nearly free. Unemployment benefits allow laid-off workers to sustain a reasonable quality of life while they look for their next jobs.

    Yes, French workers have all of that. It is, in short, part of their birthright as citizens of France.

    After World War II, both the retirement system and the National Health care system were introduced in France, and though there have been limitations over the last twenty years, social benefits still make it among the most envied countries in Europe in terms of its social programs.

    If Americans are baffled by the French willingness to fight to hold onto these hard-won benefits, it is in part because the two countries have very different ideas about what it means to be a worker. In the United States, work is an identity. You are what you do.

    For those of us raised in French culture, work refers to a finite period of life lasting roughly 40 years. And when that work is done, you are still young enough and fit enough to enjoy the best of what life has to offer. It’s the norm that retirement years — or decades actually — are spent traveling, caring for grandchildren or picking up new hobbies.

    It’s part of our social compact: The French work hard during their most productive years during which time they pay what most Americans would consider usuriously high taxes. But then comes the much anticipated “Troisieme Age” — the “third age.” It’s a concept French people grow up with and cling to fervently for their entire lives.

    The “first age” is childhood. During life’s “second age,” many of us are saddled with responsibilities of work and raising children. The third age however promises a good, healthy retirement free from want and worry — the kind of retirement many in the United States cannot even dream of. It is no wonder that people are willing to take to the streets to protect it.

    The ongoing protests are also seen as a pushback against Macron’s imperious governing style. Years ago, he earned the nickname “Jupiter” — after the king of the Roman gods — as he was derided by some for his highhanded approach to governing — imposing his will, in the eyes of his critics, as if he were a sovereign rather than elected.

    Macron says retirement reform is necessary because the system is near collapse. There’s some disagreement about that, however. The budget appears to be balanced for the next dozen years, although it’s true that falling birth rates and increasing longevity pose a problem that will have to be addressed.

    Still, there are less draconian ways to fix problems posed by a future retirement fund shortfall. For starters, Macron might reverse his move to abolish the wealth tax. He might also reconsider corporate tax breaks that have benefited big business handsomely.

    His administration’s use last week of a constitutional maneuver to bypass a vote in the National Assembly and raise the retirement age is an example of his imperial style. It’s an approach to governing that Macron has used multiple times, including when he passed a budget late last year. And as the protests wear on, there’s been another sign of government heavy-handedness: Macron now has resorted to the “requisition” of some striking workers — in short requiring them to return to their places of employment or risk losing their jobs.

    Such moves are, in my view, an admission of political impotence rather than strength. The president has failed to see politics as the art of persuasion and is instead ruling by fiat. The brutal police crackdown on demonstrators protesting pension reforms led to hundreds of arrests in recent days, another sign that he lacks political deftness. The unions meanwhile show no sign of backing down, and are continuing to organize massive protests urging workers to stand firm and remain off the job.

    So what’s next? Surely the French will continue to take to the streets, something they always do with great gusto. Beyond this, it’s hard to say how this upheaval ends.

    There’s no question that the French are slow to embrace change. I am and will always remain staunchly French, although after many years in the US, I can see that my compatriots need to show greater flexibility. They hold on too long to obsolete aspects of their cherished way of life. It’s time for the French to abandon their “c’est tout ou rien” (“all or nothing”) approach as we negotiate what French society will look like in the future.

    But then I read about the latest moves to raise the US retirement age to 70, and think that my protesting countrymen have a thing or two that they can teach workers in America when it comes to protecting the sanctity of their golden years.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Your Trump questions answered. Yes, he can still run for president if indicted | CNN Politics

    Your Trump questions answered. Yes, he can still run for president if indicted | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]

    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Could he still run for president? Why would the adult-film star case move before any of the ones about protecting democracy? How could you possibly find an impartial jury?

    What’s below are answers to some of the questions we’ve been getting – versions of these were emailed in by subscribers of the What Matters newsletter – about the possible indictment of former President Donald Trump.

    He’s involved in four different criminal investigations by three different levels of government – the Manhattan district attorney; the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney; and the Department of Justice.

    These questions are mostly concerned with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s potential indictment of Trump over a hush-money payment scheme, but many could apply to each investigation.

    The most-asked question is also the easiest to answer.

    Yes, absolutely.

    “Nothing stops Trump from running while indicted, or even convicted,” the University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen told me in an email.

    The Constitution requires only three things of candidates. They must be:

    • A natural born citizen.
    • At least 35 years old.
    • A resident of the US for at least 14 years.

    As a political matter, it’s maybe more difficult for an indicted candidate, who could become a convicted criminal, to win votes. Trials don’t let candidates put their best foot forward. But it is not forbidden for them to run or be elected.

    There are a few asterisks both in the Constitution and the 14th and 22nd Amendments, none of which currently apply to Trump in the cases thought to be closest to formal indictment.

    Term limits. The 22nd Amendment forbids anyone who has twice been president (meaning twice been elected or served part of someone else’s term and then won his or her own) from running again. That doesn’t apply to Trump since he lost the 2020 election.

    Impeachment. If a person is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate of high crimes and misdemeanors, he or she is removed from office and disqualified from serving again. Trump, although twice impeached by the House during his presidency, was also twice acquitted by the Senate.

    Disqualification. The 14th Amendment includes a “disqualification clause,” written specifically with an eye toward former Confederate soldiers.

    It reads:

    No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

    Potential charges in New York City with regard to the hush-money payment to an adult-film star have nothing to do with rebellion or insurrection. Nor do potential federal charges with regard to classified documents.

    Potential charges in Fulton County, Georgia, with regard to 2020 election meddling or at the federal level with regard to the January 6, 2021, insurrection could perhaps be construed by some as a form of insurrection. But that is an open question that would have to work its way through the courts. The 2024 election is fast approaching.

    If he was convicted of a felony – reminder, he has not yet even been charged – in New York, Trump would be barred from voting in his adoptive home state of Florida, at least until he had served out a potential sentence.

    First off, there’s no suggestion of any coordination between the Manhattan DA, the Department of Justice and the Fulton County DA.

    These are all separate investigations on separate issues moving at their own pace.

    The payment to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels occurred years ago in 2016. Trump has argued the statute of limitations has run out. Lawyers could argue the clock stopped when Trump left New York to become president in 2017.

    It’s also not clear how exactly a state crime (falsifying business records) can be paired with a federal election crime to create a state felony. There are some very deep legal dives into this, like this one from Just Security. We will have to see what, if anything, Bragg adds if he does bring an indictment.

    Of the four known criminal investigations into Trump, falsifying business records with regard to the hush-money payment to an adult-film actress seems like the smallest of potatoes, especially since federal prosecutors decided not to charge him when he left office.

    His finances, subject of a long-running investigation, seem like a bigger deal. But the Manhattan DA decided not to criminally charge Trump with regard to tax crimes. Trump has been sued by the New York attorney general in civil court based on some of that evidence.

    Investigations in Georgia with regard to election meddling and by the Justice Department with regard to January 6 and his treatment of classified data also seem more consequential.

    But these cases are being pursued by different entities at different paces in different governments – New York City; Fulton County, Georgia; and the federal government.

    “I do think that the charges are much more serious against Trump related to the election,” Hasen said in his email. “But falsifying business records can also be a crime. (I’m more skeptical about combining that in a state court with a federal campaign finance violation.)”

    One federal law enforcement source told CNN’s John Miller over the weekend that Trump’s Secret Service detail is actively engaged with authorities in New York City about how this arrest process would work if Trump is ultimately indicted.

    It’s usually a routine process of fingerprinting, a mug shot and an arraignment. It would not likely be a public event and clearly his protective detail would move through the building with Trump.

    New York does not release most mug shots after a 2019 law intended to cut down on online extortion.

    As Trump is among the most divisive and now well-known Americans in history, it’s hard to believe there’s a big, impartial jury pool out there.

    The Sixth Amendment guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.”

    Finding such a jury “won’t be easy given the intense passions on both sides that he engenders,” Hasen said.

    A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in March asked for registered voters’ opinion of Trump. Just 2% said they hadn’t heard enough about him to say.

    The New York State Unified Court System’s trial juror’s handbook explains the “voir dire” process by which jurors are selected. Those accepted by both the prosecution and defense as being free of “bias or personal knowledge that could hinder his or her ability to judge a case impartially” must take an oath to act fairly and impartially.

    We’re getting way ahead of ourselves. He hasn’t been indicted, much less tried or convicted. Any indictment, even for a Class E felony in New York, would be for the kind of nonviolent offense that would not lead to jail time for any defendant.

    “I don’t expect Trump to be put in jail if he is indicted for any of these charges,” Hasen said. “Jail time would only come if he were convicted and sentenced to jail time.”

    The idea that Trump would ever see the inside of a jail cell still seems completely far-fetched. Hasen said the Secret Service would have to arrange for his protection in jail. The logistics of that are mind-boggling. Would agents be placed into cells on either side of him? Would they dress as inmates or guards?

    Top officials accused of wrongdoing have historically found a way out of jail. Former President Richard Nixon got a preemptive pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford. Nixon’s previous vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned after he was caught up in a corruption scandal. Agnew made a plea deal and avoided jail time. Aaron Burr, also a former vice president, narrowly escaped a treason conviction. But then he left the country.

    That remains to be seen. Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent and current global head of security for Teneo, said on CNN on Monday that agents are taking a back seat – to the New York Police Department and New York State court officers who are in charge of maintaining order and safety, and to the FBI, which looks for potential acts of violence by extremists.

    The Secret Service, far from coordinating the event as they might normally, are “in a protective mode,” Wackrow said.

    “They are viewing this as really an administrative movement where they have to protect Donald Trump from point A to point B, let him do his business before the court, and leave. They are not playing that active role that we typically see them in.”

    The New York Times published a report based on anonymous sources close to Trump on Tuesday that suggested he is, either out of bravado or genuine delight, relishing the idea of having to endure a “perp walk” in New York City. The “perp walk,” by the way, is the public march of a perpetrator into a police office for processing.

    “He has repeatedly tried to show that he is not experiencing shame or hiding in any way, and I think you’re going to see that,” the Times reporter and CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman said on the network on Tuesday night.

    “I do think there’s a part of him that does view this as a political asset,” said Marc Short, the former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, during an appearance on CNN on Wednesday. “Because he can use it to paint the other, more serious legal jeopardy he faces either in Georgia or the Department of Justice, as they’re politically motivated.”

    But Short argued voters will tire of the baggage Trump is carrying, particularly if he faces additional potential indictments in the federal and Georgia investigations.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Philadelphia reaches $9.25 million settlement over police misconduct during the 2020 George Floyd protests | CNN

    Philadelphia reaches $9.25 million settlement over police misconduct during the 2020 George Floyd protests | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The City of Philadelphia has announced a $9.25 million settlement with hundreds of people who sued the city alleging “excessive and unreasonable force” by police during the civil unrest over the killing of George Floyd in 2020.

    The lawsuit filed on behalf of 343 plaintiffs alleged that the response by police left protesters with “physical injuries that, in some cases, required medical treatment and hospitalization, as well as emotional anguish” during a protest over police brutality on May 31, 2020 – just a few days after Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.

    Philadelphia police officers used “tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets” against protesters “and in some cases arrested participants and bystanders” according to the lawsuit, which was filed by the Legal Defense Fund, the Abolitionist Law Center, and Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin LLP.

    The city also agreed to disengage from the 1033 program, “a federal program which arms state and local law enforcement with military weapons and equipment,” according to a statement by the Legal Defense Fund about the settlement.

    Under the agreement, the city will also give a grant of between $500,000 and $600,000 to Bread & Rose Community Fund to provide free mental health counseling and community-led programing for “all residents within a radius of 52nd Street corridor in West Philadelphia, not just plaintiffs in the lawsuit,” according to the city’s press release.

    The settlement did not include an admission of liability or wrongdoing by the defendants, and the court filings with the settlement terms indicate the city continues to deny any wrongdoing.

    How police respond to protests came under intense scrutiny during the massive protests that erupted nationwide after Floyd’s death as police in major cities tried to quell unrest with tear gas and rubber bullets.

    In the statement, the Legal Defense Fund said this is an “unprecedented settlement with the City of Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Police Department’s excessive, militaristic use of force” during the 2020 protests.

    Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said “the Philadelphia Police Department is a learning organization, and we remain dedicated to moving forward in meaningful and productive ways,” according to a news release from the city.

    “We will continue to work non-stop towards improving what we as police do to protect the first amendment rights of protestors, keep our communities and officers safe, and to ultimately prove that we are committed to a higher standard,” she continued.

    The settlement “features a recognition of the damage the PPD has done throughout West Philadelphia and it communicates the importance of centering the community in a path towards healing,” said Cara McClellan, director and practice associate professor of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania.

    “Today’s settlement sets an important precedent for accountability in future cases,” she added.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Capitol Police see no current threat to US Capitol after Trump calls for supporters to protest potential indictment | CNN Politics

    Capitol Police see no current threat to US Capitol after Trump calls for supporters to protest potential indictment | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The US Capitol Police force “is not currently tracking any direct or credible threats to the US Capitol” ahead of a possible indictment of former President Donald Trump, according to a department intelligence assessment obtained by CNN.

    “Although (Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division) has identified reactionary responses that include calls for protests, mass civil disobedience, violence and targeting of law enforcement involved in any such arrest of the former president, IICD is not currently tracking any direct or credible threats to the US Capitol,” the assessment said.

    “While the calls for protests and violence are worrisome and some commentators may be inclined (to) engage in potentially violent unlawful actions, IICD has not yet seen any indication of large-scale organized protests and/or violence, as IICD did leading up to January 6, 2021,” the assessment said.

    A USCP spokesman declined CNN’s request for comment on the assessment, saying that “for safety reasons we don’t discuss any potential security plans.”

    A Manhattan grand jury is investigating Trump’s alleged role in a hush money payment scheme, but no indictment has been issued. Trump on Saturday called on his supporters to protest in response to a potential arrest, echoing the calls he made for protests in Washington, DC, in response to his 2020 election loss – protests that later turned violent when scores of his supporters stormed the Capitol.

    After the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, USCP came under fire for security lapses despite online chatter about protests and potential violence that day.

    Some social media users have interpreted Trump’s post over the weekend as a “call to action,” the Capitol Police assessment says, including discussions on tactics for their demonstrations, like forming large gatherings to block roads and access to buildings and a trucker transportation protest.

    The assessment noted that while some social media users “have issued calls for demonstrations” in Washington, DC, the department “has not identified any confirmed plans for demonstrations in the city or on US Capitol grounds.”

    “Any protests or possible violence are likely to be directed at the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office,” the assessment said.

    Protests supportive of an indictment are also expected, according to the assessment, which cautions that the “organizing of protests supporting opposing views increased the likelihood of protestor/counter-protestor confrontation.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump shadow looms large over House GOP policy retreat | CNN Politics

    Trump shadow looms large over House GOP policy retreat | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Orlando, Florida
    CNN
     — 

    House Republicans had hoped to use their annual retreat to get on the same page about upcoming policy battles and devise a strategy to preserve their fragile majority.

    Instead, they find themselves playing defense for former President Donald Trump.

    While most Republicans had hoped to steer clear of any presidential politics – despite being in Florida, home to two major potential GOP rivals in 2024 – Trump’s announcement over the weekend that he expects to be imminently arrested has put him back in the center of the conversation and forced Republicans to publicly rally to his side. Even some GOP lawmakers who have called for the party to move on from Trump have lined up to offer their full-throated defense of the ex-president, attacking the Manhattan District Attorney’s office that is investigating Trump as a political witch hunt.

    Speaker Kevin McCarthy, echoing calls from inside his conference, has instructed GOP-led committees to investigate whether the Manhattan DA used federal funds to probe a payment made by Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election.

    McCarthy said Sunday that he already talked to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, about an investigation into the matter, and hinted that there could be more developments on that front soon.

    “Remember, we also have a select committee on the weaponization of government, this applies directly to that. I think you’ll see actions from them,” McCarthy told reporters at a news conference kicking off their three-day policy retreat.

    But Republicans weren’t in complete lockstep with Trump. McCarthy carefully broke with Trump’s calls to protest and “take our nation back” if he is arrested, which has sparked concerns of political violence reminiscent of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

    “I don’t think people should protest this, no,” McCarthy said. But he added: “You may misinterpret when President Trump talks … he is not talking in a harmful way, and nobody should. Nobody should harm one another … We want calmness.”

    Firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, however, offered a different take.

    “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling for protests,” she told reporters after the news conference on Sunday. “Americans have the right to assemble and the right to protest. And that’s an important constitutional right. And he doesn’t have to say ‘peaceful’ for it to mean peaceful. Of course he means peaceful.”

    The latest Trump drama is once again threatening to divide the GOP and overshadow their carefully-laid messaging plans – a familiar predicament for Republicans who served in Congress while Trump was in office and spent years being forced to answer for his regular controversies. Republican leaders who had hoped to focus on their legislative agenda during the first news conference of their policy retreat instead fielded numerous questions from reporters about Trump and the Manhattan DA’s investigation.

    Asked whether he thinks it would be appropriate for Trump to run for president if he is ultimately convicted, McCarthy said: “He has a constitutional right to run.”

    Multiple Republican lawmakers – including House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik – have endorsed Trump, while at least two of his staunch supporters have thrown their weight behind other candidates in the race: South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman is backing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas is supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Most GOP lawmakers, however, have been reluctant to pick sides just yet, waiting to see how the field develops. Even McCarthy, who credited his speakership to Trump, has yet to make his preference known.

    “I could endorse in the primary, but I haven’t endorsed,” he told reporters on Friday. When pressed on if he will do so, he again repeated: “I could endorse but I haven’t.”

    Aside from a potentially bruising GOP primary contest, House Republicans have other major internal battles on the horizon. They are about to dive into some of the most complicated and divisive policy fights of their razor-thin majority, including lifting the nation’s borrowing limit, funding the government, reauthorizing federal food stamp programs and deciding whether to continue aid for Ukraine.

    Part of their goal during their annual retreat is to just get the conference in sync ahead of these looming debates.

    “The value of something like this is, can we keep the era of good feelings going within the Republican conference?” said Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, who chairs the centrist-leaning Main Street Caucus. “This is gonna be a nice opportunity for us to just get in the same room, have a couple hundred of us breathe the same air, and remind ourselves that we have more in common than we have apart.”

    While the GOP has notched a handful of victories since taking over the House, including a resolution to overturn a DC crime bill, most of their bills have been messaging endeavors thus far. And even measures that were thought to be low-hanging fruit, like a border security plan, have proved more challenging than expected in their slim majority.

    House Republicans know their biggest challenges lie ahead.

    “The question is really going to be as we get into phase two,” GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who co-leads a bipartisan caucus with Democrats, told CNN. “The real test is going to be the must-pass pieces of legislation.”

    The GOP’s investigations on a wide array of subjects, including Hunter Biden’s business deals and the treatment of January 6 defendants, have caused some consternation among the party’s moderates. And some were also skeptical about the need for a congressional response to a potential Trump indictment.

    “I’m going to wait until I hear more facts and read the indictment itself,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who represents a district President Joe Biden won, told CNN. “I have faith in our legal system. If these charges are political bogus stuff, and they may be, it will become clear enough soon.”

    GOP leaders are nonetheless expressing confidence in their ability to stay united.

    “House Republicans are working as a team,” House GOP Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota said at the Orlando news conference. “Because that’s what the American people elected us to do.”

    Bacon framed the stakes of the legislative fights with Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to come by saying, “We need to be the governing party that voters trust. This will determine 2024 results. This means we can’t cave to Biden’s and Schumer’s demands, but we can’t refuse to find consensus and make agreements on must pass legislation.”

    GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who told CNN he is willing to shut down the government if conservatives do not get what they are calling for pertaining to the debt ceiling, reflected on how House Republicans could learn from their Democratic counterparts in presenting a unified front.

    “They’re better than us at the carrot and the stick. If they get in line, they get the carrot. If they don’t, they get the stick. They all tout the unity thing. Maybe that’s one of our weaknesses,” he told CNN.

    The must-pass pieces of legislation expose not only the fault lines of a slim majority, but also underscore the hurdles House Republicans face in cementing their transition from a nay-saying minority to a governing majority.

    “Campaigning is for dividing. Governing is for uniting,” GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas told CNN, adding that sentiment must extend beyond House Republicans to Biden and Senate Democrats.

    “I’d say in general, not everybody comes up here to be serious legislators. A lot of people come up here for fame and fortune. I spent 20 years in the military. I’m focused on being a serious legislator,” he added.

    Fitzpatrick told CNN, “It’s definitely an adjustment,” when describing the House Republicans’ transition from minority to majority, particularly for those members who have not served in the majority before. But Fitzpatrick pointed to the fact that the messaging bills that Republicans have brought to the floor so far have passed almost unanimously.

    Some of the House GOP’s biggest hurdles will come in trying to write a budget blueprint, which they hope will kick off negotiations over the raising debt ceiling, where Republicans are demanding steep spending cuts.

    Further complicating the GOP’s goal to balance the budget and claw back federal spending, Republican leaders – egged on by Trump – have vowed not to touch Social Security and Medicare.

    Norman acknowledged how difficult it is going to be to coalesce around a framework that the entire conference can agree on. Before leaving Washington, the far-right House Freedom Caucus laid out their own hardline spending demands in the debt ceiling fight.

    “I don’t expect to get 218 on the first blush. What we present, there’s gonna be some gnashing of teeth,” he told CNN. “Every dollar up here has an advocate.”

    Burchett told CNN he stands behind the proposals being pushed by the Freedom Caucus.

    “It seems like every time the conservatives are the only ones that compromise. And we are just going to have to say no compromise,” he told CNN, adding he is willing to shut down the government on this issue. “I did it under Trump, and I’ll sure as heck do it under Biden.”

    McCarthy said he thought it was “productive” for his members to outline “ideas” for the budget, and dismissed the idea that anyone was drawing red lines.

    Asked about Biden’s insistence that House Republicans show them their budget before negotiations can continue, McCarthy replied, “Why do we have to have a budget out to talk about the debt ceiling? We’re not passing the budget, we’re doing a debt ceiling.”

    He added that he has told the president, “We’re not going to raise taxes, and we’re not going to pass a clean debt ceiling, but everything else is up for negotiation.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Mike Pence calls potential Trump indictment ‘not what the American people want to see’ | CNN Politics

    Mike Pence calls potential Trump indictment ‘not what the American people want to see’ | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence balked at the idea of a potential indictment of Donald Trump, categorizing any possible prosecutorial actions as “politically charged” and “not what the American people want to see.”

    Speaking with ABC’s Jon Karl during a taped interview Saturday, Pence defended any peaceful protests that may break out at Trump’s behest, after the former president called for his supporters to “take our nation back,” while still condemning the egregious violence that the country witnessed at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    “The American people have a constitutional right to peacefully assemble,” Pence said, adding, “The frustration the American people feel about what they sense is a two-tiered justice system in this country, I think is well founded. But I believe that people understand that if they give voice to this – if this occurs on Tuesday, that they need to do so peaceful and in a lawful manner.”

    Pence’s comments underscore his attempts to walk a fine line in issuing criticism and support for his former boss amid mounting expectations that he will vie for the Republican presidential nomination. Just last week, at the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, DC, the former vice president issued his most blistering comments yet about Trump’s role in the attack on the Capitol.

    “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable,” Pence said at the dinner.

    Trump has repeatedly pushed back on that assertion and argued Pence was at fault because he didn’t attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.

    “The president’s wrong,” Pence told ABC. “He was wrong that day, and I had actually hoped that he would come around in time, Jon, that he would see that the cadre of legal advisers that he surrounded himself with had led him astray. But he hasn’t done so and it’s … I think it’s one of the reasons why the country just wants a fresh start.”

    Pence said the former president let him and the country down on January 6 and Trump’s continued discourse on the events is one of the reasons why the former duo has gone their “separate ways.”

    Still, Pence maintained he is “taken aback at the idea of indicting a former president of the United States.”

    Trump said Saturday that he expects to be arrested in connection with the yearslong investigation into a hush money scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels and he called on his supporters to protest any such move.

    In a social media post, Trump, referring to himself, said the “leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week” – though he did not say why he expects to be arrested. His team said after Trump’s post that it had not received any notifications from prosecutors.

    Law enforcement has discussed how to navigate the potential indictment on a criminal charge by a New York county grand jury and the choreography around the possibility of an unprecedented arrest of a former president.

    Should he be indicted, Trump is expected to surrender and be processed and arraigned at a New York courthouse, which includes fingerprinting and mug shots, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

    “At a time when there’s a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting president Trump is his top priority just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country,” Pence said Saturday.

    Turning to the subpoena he received from the special counsel investigating Trump’s post-2020 election activities, Pence said he is not challenging all the elements of the subpoena and that he and his lawyers aren’t asserting executive privilege. Trump, though, has already cited executive privilege in a motion to prevent Pence from testifying before a grand jury.

    As for 2024, Pence said he is “giving serious consideration” to a White House bid, and, speaking to reporters in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, he said, “No one is above the law, and I’m confident President Trump can take care of himself. My focus is going to continue to be on the issues that are affecting the American people.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump and Le Pen backed these Dutch farmers — now they’ve sprung an election shock | CNN

    Trump and Le Pen backed these Dutch farmers — now they’ve sprung an election shock | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A farmers’ protest party in the Netherlands has caused a shock after winning provincial elections this week just four years after their founding. Could their rise have wider implications?

    The Farmer-Citizen Movement or BoerburgerBeweging (BBB) grew out of mass demonstrations against the Dutch government’s environmental policies, protests that saw farmers using their tractors to block public roads. The BBB is now set to become the largest party in the Dutch senate.

    The developments have thrown the Dutch government’s ambitious environmental plans into doubt and are being watched closely by the rest of Europe.

    The movement was powered by ordinary farmers but has become an unlikely front in the culture wars. Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen have voiced support, while some in the far right see the movement as embodying their ideas of elites using green policies to trample on the rights of individuals.

    On Wednesday, the Farmer-Citizen Movement landed a large win in regional elections, winning more seats in the senate than Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s conservative VVD party.

    The first exit poll showed the party was due to win 15 of the Senate’s 75 seats with almost 20 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile Rutte’s ruling VVD party dropped from 12 to 10 seats – leaving it without a Senate majority. Results on Thursday showed the BBB party had won the most votes in eight of the country’s 12 provinces.

    Wednesday’s election win is significant as it means the party is now set to be the largest in the Upper House of Parliament, which has the power to block legislation agreed in the Lower House – throwing the Dutch government’s environmental policies into question.

    As the election results emerged overnight on Wednesday, BBB leader Caroline van der Plas told domestic broadcaster Radio 1: “Nobody can ignore us any longer.

    “Voters have spoken out very clearly against this government’s policies.”

    Newspapers described the election outcome this week as a “monster victory” for the Farmer-Citizen Movement, which has enjoyed support from sections of society who feel unsupported by Rutte’s VVD party.

    For Arjan Noorlander, a political reporter in the Netherlands, the provincial election results this week have made the country’s political future very hard to predict. “It’s a big black hole what will happen next,” he told CNN.

    “They don’t have a majority so they would have to negotiate to form a cabinet and we have to wait and see what the impact will be.”

    Tom-Jan Meeus, a journalist and political columnist in the Netherlands, believes Wednesday’s result is reflective of a “serious dissatisfaction” with traditional politics in the country.

    “This party is definitely part of that trend,” he told CNN.

    “However, it’s new in that it has a different agenda from previous anti-establishment parties but it fits in the bigger picture that has been around here for 25 years now.”

    Meeus believes that the shock rise in support for the BBB party largely comes from those living in small, rural villages who feel disillusioned by government policies.

    “Although it’s a small country, there’s this perception that people living in the western, urbanized part of the country are having all the goods from government policies, and people living in the countryside in small villages believe that the successful people in Amsterdam, in the Hague, in Utrecht are having the goods, and they suffer from it.

    “So the feeling is that the less successful, less smart people are trapped by a government who doesn’t understand what their problems are.”

    Noorlander agrees the main topic they’ve been talking about recently is the position of the farmers in the Netherlands, because of “the pollution and environmental rules mainly made in Brussels by the EU, they were pushing against that.”

    “They want farmers to have a place in the Netherlands. That’s their main topic but it became broader in these last few months. It’s become the vote of people living in these farming areas, outside the big cities, against the people in the big cities making the policies and being more international.”

    The Farmer-Citizen Movement was established four years ago in response to the government’s proposals for tackling nitrogen emissions.

    The Dutch government launched a drive to slash emissions in half by 2030, pointing the finger at industrial agriculture for rising levels of pollution that were threating the country’s biodiversity.

    The BBB party has fought back against the measures – which include buying farmers out and reducing livestock numbers – instead placing emphasis on the farmers’ livelihoods that are at risk of being destroyed.

    Farmers have protested against the government’s green policies by blocking government buildings with tractors and dumping manure on motorways.

    Meeus believes that this week’s election win for the BBB means the agenda to tackle the nitrogen crisis is now in “big trouble.”

    “This vote obviously is a statement from a big chunk of the voters to say no to that policy,” he said.

    According to Ciarán O’Connor, a Senior Analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says the BBB have built a platform off the back of the protest movement for their party being the representative of the ‘true people.’

    The BBB, he says, “have been one of the leading driving forces behind getting people out to protest but also shaping the ideologies and beliefs that power a lot of the movement; rejecting or disputing climate change or, at least, measures that would negatively impact farmers livelihoods and businesses; wider EU skepticism; burgeoning anti-immigration and anti-Islam views too.”

    Former US President Donald Trump has promoted the protest at various points during his speeches in the past year. At a rally in Florida last July, he told crowds: “Farmers in the Netherlands of all places are courageously opposing the climate tyranny of the Dutch government.”

    The Farmer-Citizen Movement has also won support from the far-right.

    A report from The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism describes how what began as local protests got the attention of extremists and conspiracists, in particular seeing it as proof of the so-called “Great Reset” theory of global elites using the masses for their own benefit.

    According to O’Connor, the movement aligns with a populist viewpoint of climate action as a new form of tyranny imposed by out-of-touch governments over ordinary citizens.

    “One of the tactics used by the Dutch farmers’ protest movement has been using tractors to create blockades. International interest in the farmers’ protest movement, and this method of protest, really grew in 2022 not long after the Canadian trucker convoy that was organized and promoted by a number of far-right figures in Canada, the US and internationally too,” he said.

    “For many far-right figures, this movement was viewed as the next iteration of that ‘convoy’ type of protest and they viewed it as a people’s protest mobilising against tyrannical or out-of-touch governments.”

    For some analysts, however, for the far right to claim the Dutch protests is premature.

    “I wasn’t incredibly impressed by that,” Meeus said. “Generally the perception of the problem that was in the heads of the far-right people from Canada and the United States was pretty far off, as far as I’ve seen.

    “It remains to be seen whether the Farmer-Citizen Movement will present itself as a far-right party.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Hundreds protest clampdown on same-sex parents in Milan | CNN

    Hundreds protest clampdown on same-sex parents in Milan | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Rome, Italy
    CNN
     — 

    Hundreds took to the streets of Milan on Saturday to protest against moves by Italy’s new right-wing government to restrict the rights of same-sex parents.

    The demonstration, called “Hands Off Our Sons and Daughters,” took place in the historical Piazza della Scala pedestrian square and was organized by LGBTQ+ groups across the country.

    “You explain to my son that I am not his mother,” read one protest sign. Others held up ballpoint pens, used to sign birth registrations, in protest.

    Also present at the protests was Milan’s mayor Giuseppe Sala, who had earlier tweeted his support of same-sex families.

    Organizers estimated around 10,000 people took part while Milan city officials gave more modest estimates of hundreds.

    In 2016 Italy became the last country in Europe to legalize same-sex unions but it still does not recognize “stepchildren adoption” or surrogacy, which rights groups say is because of opposition from the Catholic Church.

    Its government led by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, places a strong emphasis on traditional family values.

    Same-sex parents who wish to register their children born by surrogacy abroad have often had to just put one parental name on official birth registrations or take their cases to family court.

    Several cities, including the capital Rome and Milan, had instituted a Parent 1/Parent 2 policy on birth registrations rather than the traditional mother/father designations, but last week the Interior Ministry ordered the city of Milan to stop the practice.

    The Italian Interior Ministry said it would order other cities’ birth registrars to also halt the practice.

    Last week, the Italian senate voted against a measure introduced by the European Commission to make the recognition of same-sex parents mandatory.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • French workers may have to retire at 64 and many are in uproar. Here’s why | CNN

    French workers may have to retire at 64 and many are in uproar. Here’s why | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    Impromptu protests broke out in Paris and across several French cities Thursday evening following a move by the government to force through reforms of the pension system that will push up the retirement age from 62 to 64.

    While the proposed reforms of France’s cherished pensions system were already controversial, it was the manner in which the bill was approved – sidestepping a vote in the country’s lower house, where President Emmanuel Macron’s party crucially lacks an outright majority – that arguably sparked the most anger.

    And that fury is widespread in France.

    Figures from pollster IFOP show that 83% of young adults (18-24) and 78% of those aged over 35 found the government’s manner of passing the bill “unjustified.” Even among pro-Macron voters – those who voted for him in the first round of last year’s presidential election, before a runoff with his far-right adversary – a majority of 58% disagreed with how the law was passed, regardless of their thoughts about the reforms.

    Macron made social reforms, especially of the pensions system, a flagship policy of his 2022 re-election and it’s a subject he has championed for much of his time in office. However, Thursday’s move has so inflamed opposition across the political spectrum, that some are questioning the wisdom of his hunger for reforms.

    Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne conceded in an interview Thursday night with TF1 that the government initially aimed to avoid using Article 49.3 of the constitution to crowbar the reforms past the National Assembly. The “collective decision” to do so was taken at a meeting with the president, ministers and allied lawmakers mid-Thursday, she said.

    For Macron’s cabinet, the simple answer to the government’s commitment to reforms is money. The current system – relying on the working population to pay for a growing age group of retirees – is no longer fit for purpose, the government says.

    Labor minister Olivier Dussopt said that without immediate action the pensions deficit will reach more than $13 billion annually by 2027. Referencing opponents of the reforms, Dussopt told CNN affiliate BFMTV: “Do they imagine that if we pause the reforms, we will pause the deficit?”

    When the proposal was unveiled in January, the government said the reforms would balance the deficit in 2030, with a multi-billion dollar surplus to pay for measures allowing those in physically demanding jobs to retire early.

    For Budget Minister Gabriel Attal, the calculus is clear. “If we don’t do [the reforms] today, we will have to do much more brutal measures in the future,” he said Friday in an interview with broadcaster France Inter.

    “No pensions reform has made the French happy,” Pascal Perrineau, political scientist at Sciences Po university, told CNN on Friday.

    “Each time there is opposition from public opinion, then little by little the project passes and basically, public opinion is resigned to it,” he said, adding that the government’s failure was in its inability to sell the project to French people.

    They’re not the first to fall at that hurdle. Pensions reform has long been a thorny issue in France. In 1995, weeks-long mass protests forced the government of the day to abandon plans to reform public sector pensions. In 2010, millions took to the streets to oppose raising the retirement age by two years to 62 and in 2014 further reforms were met with wide protests.

    An anti-pension reform demonstrator writes

    For many in France, the pensions system, as with social support more generally, is viewed as the bedrock of the state’s responsibilities and relationship with its citizens.

    The post-World War II social system enshrined rights to a state-funded pension and healthcare, which have been jealously guarded since, in a country where the state has long played a proactive role in ensuring a certain standard of living.

    France has one of the lowest retirement ages in the industrialized world, spending more than most other countries on pensions at nearly 14% of economic output, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

    But as social discontent mounts over the surging cost of living, protesters at several strikes have repeated a common mantra to CNN: They are taxed heavily and want to preserve a right to a dignified old age.

    Macron is still early in his second term, having been re-elected in 2022, and still has four years to serve as the country’s leader. Despite any popular anger, his position is safe for now.

    However, Thursday’s use of Article 49.3 only reinforces past criticisms that he is out of touch with popular feeling and ambivalent to the will of the French public.

    Politicians to the far left and far right of Macron’s center-right party were quick to jump on his government’s move to skirt a parliamentary vote.

    “After the slap that the Prime Minister just gave the French people, by imposing a reform which they do not want, I think that Elisabeth Borne should go,” tweeted far-right politician Marine Le Pen on Thursday.

    Members of Parliament of left-wing coalition NUPES (New People's Ecologic and Social Union) hold placards as French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne addresses deputies to confirm the force through of the pension law without a parliament vote on Thursday.

    The leader of France’s far-left, Jean-Luc Melenchon was also quick to hammer the government, blasting the reforms as having “no parliamentary legitimacy” and calling for nationwide spontaneous strike action.

    For sure, popular anger over pension reforms will only complicate Macron’s intentions to introduce further reforms of the education and health sector – projects that were frozen by the Covid-19 pandemic – political scientist Perrineau told CNN.

    The current controversy could ultimately force Macron to negotiate more on future reforms, Perrineau warns – though he notes the French President is not known for compromise.

    His tendency to be “a little imperious, a little impatient” can make political negotiations harder, Perrineau said.

    That, he adds, is “perhaps the limit of Macronism.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link