US economy; If agreement is not reached by the end of May, between Republicans and Democrats on debt ceiling, US economy could collapse.

fierce standoff is underway between the Democrats and Republicans, who want the White House to agree to sweeping public spending cuts as well as other reforms.

Top Republican leaders are due to meet US President Joe Biden on Tuesday at the White House to try to resolve the dispute.

Read more at: https: //www.dw.com

US political establishment: Republican Chaos in trying to elect McCartney as Congress Chair

The first day of the 118th Congress ended Tuesday without a new House speaker.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed to secure enough votes to become speaker of the House on three ballots Tuesday, heightening tumult around the new GOP majority. For the first time in a century, the House was unable to pick a speaker on the first vote.

Voting is expected to resume Wednesday.

Read more at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/01/02/house-speaker-vote-explained/10912271002/

USA: Republicans strike again - this time against the Biden student loan forgiveniss progam

With already 22 million former students applying for the Biden student loan forgiveness  program it was suddenly temporarily halted by 6 Republican states for a variety of nebulous reasons. Hopefully,  when these duped students go to vote on November 8, they will remember which political party dealt them this devastating blow.

Read more at: https: //www,eu-digest.blogspot.com

US Politics: Is Donald Trump ultimately more of an asset or a liability to the Republican Party?

He’s great for the Republican Party… He provides them cover to do all sorts of stuff to further the conservative right agenda and all the media pays attention to is his petty narcissistic crap.

Read more at:: Is Donald Trump ultimately more of an asset or a liability to the Republican Party? - Quora

US Politics: Trump Reportedly Now Fuming He Endorsed Dr. Oz For Senate

He’s going to “f**king lose” unless something drastically changes, Trump has complained about his pick, two sources who have discussed November’s midterm elections with Trump told the publication.

Read more at: Trump Reportedly Now Fuming He Endorsed Dr. Oz For Senate | HuffPost Latest News

USA: Trump and Evangelical Christianity Are An American Disgrace - by Shannon Ashley

What was once the inspiring dream of living in America has now become a living nightmare. But guess what? I am not surprised. Our country has been ripped apart by a white evangelical Christian agenda: power at any price. And a price paid by anyone but them.

They willingly and happily aligned themselves with what is undoubtedly one of the most sleazy men in American history, and they call him good. They even call him chosen by God.

People like me were skeptical from the start. We asked what “good fruit” exists in Trump’s life. They told us to be kind because Donald Trump is just a baby Christian. We asked about his foul and hateful tongue which routinely lashes out at women, black and brown folks, or anyone else he doesn’t like and they told us it was old news.

Fake news. That he had somehow changed, but they never gave us any proof.

They said God was doing good things through Donald Trump. What good things?

Were the evangelicals lying or wilfully ignorant? Did they ever really believe the garbage excuses they made for this bully of a president? The shoddy businessman with a history of forcing the poor out of their homes?

Read more at: Trump and Evangelical Christianity Are An American Disgrace | by Shannon Ashley | Honestly Yours | Medium

US 2024 elections: Why Donald Trump is Republicans' worst nightmare in 2024

"Trump is confiding in allies that he intends to run again in 2024 with one contingency: that he still has a good bill of health, according to two sources close to the former president. That means Trump is going to hang over the Republican Party despite its attempts to rebrand during his exile and its blockade of a Trump-centric investigation into January's insurrection."

In short: As of today, Trump plans to run for president in 2024. Which would be an utter disaster for Republicans -- and, what's worse, one they almost certainly can't prevent.

Read more at: Why Donald Trump is Republicans' worst nightmare in 2024 - CNNPolitics

USA: Republicans offer contrasting views on gun law reform - by Jesse Naranjo

A pair of House Republicans on Sunday offered widely contrasting views of whether lawmakers should pursue changes to gun law in the wake of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks said Americans feared losing their Second Amendment rights and that any changes to laws must not infringe on them.

It’s not clear what, if anything, motivated the shooter in Texas to kill young children.

Brooks’ comments marked a significant contrast from the position taken by Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who in interviews on CNN’s “State of the Union” and ABC’s “This Week” said his views on gun laws have evolved recently. The moderate Republican said among other changes he was open to raising the age to purchase long guns to 21.

“If you look at this shooting, you look at Buffalo, you look at Parkland and all these others, there are people taking these guns, these ARs, under the age of 21,” Kinzinger told CNN host Dana Bash. “Can we stop all of it? No. Can we mitigate it, certainly. And we should be doing that now.”

Asked whether he stilled opposed a ban on sales of the type of firearm used in many recent shooting, Kinzinger said he was open to it, depending on the specifics. But he was adamant that supporters of the Second Amendment such as himself should be coming to the table with “reasonable” solutions.

“My side’s not doing that. My side’s not coming forward with reasonable ways to defend an amendment that we think is very important,” Kinzinger said. “And so I’m looking at this going, fine, if people are going to put forward solutions about certifying maybe who can buy an assault weapon, I’m certainly open to that.”

Read more at: Republicans offer contrasting views on gun law reform - POLITICO

USA - GOP : Turning outrage into power: How far right is changing GOP

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to have settled on a strategy to deal with a handful of Republican lawmakers who have stirred outrage with violent, racist and sometimes Islamophobic comments.

If you can’t police them, promote them.

The path to power for Republicans in Congress is now rooted in the capacity to generate outrage. The alarming language, and the fundraising haul it increasingly produces, is another example of how Donald Trump, the former president, has left his mark on politics, changing the way Republicans rise to influence and authority.

Read more at: Turning outrage into power: How far right is changing GOP | AP News

USA: Republicans are quietly rigging election maps to ensure permanent rule - by David Pepper

The long-term health of American democracy is in peril, to a degree far worse than people imagine. But not where most people are looking.

While many eyes go to Washington DC or Mar-a-Lago, the attack on democracy is actually most concentrated and coordinated in state capitals. Whether it’s gerrymandering or voter suppression or attacks on offices that provide needed checks and balances – the states have become widely undemocratic. As I outline in my book Laboratories of Autocracy, the consequences of this anti-democratic movement are only getting worse.

Read more at: Republicans are quietly rigging election maps to ensure permanent rule | David Pepper | The Guardian

‘USA: A core threat to our democracy’: threat of political violence growing across US - by Joan E Greve

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood on the House floor and implored her colleagues to hold Paul Gosar accountable for sharing an altered anime video showing him killing her and attacking Joe Biden.

“Our work here matters. Our example matters. There is meaning in our service,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her speech last week. “And as leaders in this country, when we incite violence with depictions

Read more: ‘A core threat to our democracy’: threat of political violence growing across US | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | The Guardian

USA: QAnon coalition wants to 'control the election system' - by April Siese

A Qanon conference held in Las Vegas last weekend saw far-right conspiracy-mongers lay out their ambitious plans to “take back the secretaries of state offices around the country,” according to Jim Marchant, who’s running for Nevada secretary of state. Marchant was among a handful of political hopefuls who’ve formed a coalition in hopes of solving the nonexistent issue of voter fraud.

“I can’t stress enough how important the secretary of state offices are. I think they are the most important elections in our country in 2022,” Marchant said at the “For God & Country Patriot Double Down” event. “And why is that? We control the election system. In 2022 we’re going to take back our country.”

The mastermind behind the coalition appears to be a fringe figure known by the name Juan O. Savin, whom many in the QAnon world believe to be JFK Jr. Savin rarely shows his face except for by accident while filming live streams, so it came as a surprise when he appeared at the conference and held court for upwards of an hour. Emcee Andre Popa pushed the theory despite the fact that yet another person suspected to be JFK Jr. was in attendance. Somehow Savin has the ear of prominent QAnon believers like Jim Caviezel, who welcomed Savin to the stage over the weekend with a warm embrace. It was Savin and Marchant who initially met shortly after the 2020 election to hatch their plan. They held their first meeting as a coalition in May, alongside backers like MyPillow and election fraud fetishist Mike Lindell, former Maria Butina lover and disgraced former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft.

Though the group appears to have lots of money behind it, there’s not a chance all four candidates who attended the conference—Rachel Hamm, Kristina Karamo, Mark Finchem, and Marchant—will win their elections.

Hamm is running for secretary of state in California, where she is largely predicted to lose simply because the state is so blue. She’s likely not helping her candidacy efforts by continuing to espouse her “prophetic” dreams that involve killing alleged witches and likening Donald Trump to a doting father trying to teach the country a lesson.

Marchant was previously endorsed by Trump during his failed 2020 bid for House representative in Nevada. He has yet to receive an endorsement for his Nevada secretary of state bid. Karamo, meanwhile, already has Trump’s blessing in her bid for Michigan secretary of state, as does Mark Finchem, who currently serves as an Arizona house representative and sees the secretary of state position as a way to help thwart alleged election wrongdoings.

There are 26 states with secretary of state positions up for election on the 2022 ballot. Now more than ever is a great time to get into politics and combat the fringe views of QAnon Republicans. Otherwise, these folks could be running an election in your own community.

Read more at: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/27/2060513/-QAnon-coalition-wants-to-control-the-election-system

USA: - disfunctional Political Establishment Government shutdown likely as Republicans fight against suspending the national debt

On Monday, the Senate will vote on legislation to continue funding the government and avoid a default on debt. However, reports say a Republican-led filibuster will likely block the legislation.

Read more at: Government shutdown likely as Republicans fight against suspending the national debt

USA - US economy:: Democrats dare GOP to vote against government funding bill

The federal government faces a looming shutdown at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, leaving lawmakers with little time to finagle a compromise over a suspension of the debt limit, which Democrats have attached to the must-pass spending bill.

Senate Republicans say they oppose suspending the debt limit because of additional spending measures Democrats are crafting -- even though doing so would pay for previous expenditures. But Senate Democrats worked with Republicans under the Trump administration to raise the debt limit on multiple occasions and say it's a bipartisan responsibility.

Read more at: Democrats dare GOP to vote against government funding bill

USA: Biden's Hypocritical Afghanistan Critics Prove Ignorant About Afghan History

After years of ignoring it, pundits and reporters have rediscovered Afghanistan. They rend garments and tear hair over the immediate disaster, while preparing to spend months obsessing over what everyone expects to be coming horrors. They're openly advocating for a continuation of the longest war in American history, and never mind that the war was so successful that the government it supported collapsed before the last American troops had even pulled out. What they don't do is explain where they've been for the last decade and why they only seem to care now. What they don't do is provide historical context. With notable exceptions, what they don't do is ask the most basic of questions, and not only because to do so would expose their complicity in and ignorance of how it all came to this, rather it's primarily because having the attention spans of gnats they don't even know what questions to ask.

Afghanistan is not Joe Biden's fault. The anticipated coming horrors are not Joe Biden's fault. Former President George W. Bush recently criticized the pullout of American troops from Afghanistan, which breaks the scales of hypocrisy, given that it was his disastrous failures that ensured the war was unwinnable, after his administration's disastrous failures enabled the worst ever terrorist attack on U.S. soil, which triggered the war in the first place. The Washington Post editorial board recently criticized the pullout, but the Washington Post editorial board helped cheerlead and lie the U.S. into the illegal and immoral Iraq War, which ensured that the effort in Afghanistan would disastrously fail.

Read more at: Biden's Hypocritical Afghanistan Critics Prove Ignorant About Afghan History | Crooks and Liars

USA: U.S. Republicans vow to oppose Yellen’s G7 tax deal, casting doubt on its future - by David Morgan and David Lawder

Several top U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday rejected Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s G7 deal to impose a global minimum corporate tax and allow more countries to tax big multinational firms, raising questions about the U.S. ability to implement a broader global agreement.

The opposition from Republicans may push President Joe Biden to attempt to use budget procedures to pass the initiatives with only Democratic votes.

Read more at: U.S. Republicans vow to oppose Yellen’s G7 tax deal, casting doubt on its future | Reuters

USA:Jan. 6 Commission Fails In Senate Following GOP Opposition - by Brian Naylor

Bipartisan legislation to establish an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has failed in the Senate, as Republicans staged their first filibuster since President Biden took office to block the plan.

The final vote was 54-35, but Republicans withheld the votes necessary to bring the bill up for debate. Just six GOP senators joined with the Democrats on Friday, leaving the measure short of the 60 votes needed to proceed.

The proposed commission was modeled on the one established to investigate the 9/11 attacks — with 10 commissioners, five Democrats and five Republicans, who would have subpoena powers. A Democratic chair and Republican vice chair would have had to approve all subpoenas, with a final report due at the end of the year.

The measure was approved by the House 252-175 earlier this month, with 35 Republicans joining all Democrats in support of the plan.

Note EU-Digest: Scandalous.... "Republicans" protecting the principal "instigator" of this assault on US Capitol and democracy.

Read more at: Jan. 6 Commission Fails In Senate Following GOP Opposition : NPR

USA: CPAC Preview: Trump, Election Claims At Conservative Confab - "as even moderate Republicans join to glorify a charlatan"- by Domenico Montanaro

When the annual Conservative Political Action Conference — CPAC for short — kicks off Thursday in Orlando, Fla., it might as well be called TPAC.

That's because this year, it is all about Trump.

The former president will headline the event with a Sunday afternoon keynote address, his first speech since leaving office last month.

It comes as the Republican Party is struggling with its identity after Donald Trump's presidency. And yet CPAC, the largest gathering of conservative activists in the U.S., will still very much be a pro-Trump event.

Read more at: CPAC Preview: Trump, Election Claims At Conservative Confab : NPR

USA: Why such an imperfect union? – by Sheri Berman

The 2020 election was the most traumatic and dangerous in modern American history. Its legitimacy was indefensibly questioned by Republican elites and voters, helping to motivate an insurrection designed to block its outcome.

What explains the diametrically opposed narratives of the 2020 election advanced by Republicans and Democrats and the broader democratic dysfunction of which this is a manifestation? One common explanation focuses on ‘hyper-partisanship’ and polarisation.

In the decades following World War II in the United States, party identification and voter loyalty were relatively weak, Democratic and Republican voters and elites relatively ideologically heterogenous, and vote-switching or split-ticket voting (choosing different parties in national and state-level elections) relatively common. By the early 21st century, however, the situation had changed dramatically: partisan identities had become deeply felt and entrenched, Democratic and Republican elites and voters had become more ideologically homogenous and distinct from each other, and vote-switching and split-ticketing voting had become relatively uncommon.

Read more at: Why such an imperfect union? – Sheri Berman

USA: Can America handle the truth about Trump? - by Alex Brandon

There isn't much that's glorious in the history of America holding the rich and powerful accountable for their sins.

But even in the context of its past failures of reckoning — over slavery, the invasion of Iraq, the global financial meltdown, et cetera — the country's hesitation to adjudicate the last president's role in the deadly insurrection on Capitol Hill last month seems egregiously self-destructive.

Nevertheless, most Republicans, and even some of Donald Trump's most ferocious critics, have recommended just letting it go.

Read more at: Can America handle the truth about Trump? | CBC News