Feed aggregator

President Donald Trump is not backing down after earlier telling the mostly US-born lawmakers to "go back" to the countries they came from.

While you were enjoying your Fourth of July weekend, I was attending a national conference on socialism.Why? Because socialism is having its moment on the left.Since there’s often confusion as to what socialism really is, I decided to attend the Socialism 2019 conference at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend.The conference, which had the tag line “No Borders, No Bosses, No Binaries,” contained a cross-section of the most pertinent hard-left thought in America. Among the sponsors were the Democratic Socialists of America and Jacobin, a quarterly socialist magazine.The walls of the various conference rooms were adorned with posters of Karl Marx and various depictions of socialist thinkers and causes. Most of the conference attendees appeared to be white, but identity politics were a major theme throughout—especially in regard to gender.At the registration desk, attendees were given the option of attaching a “preferred pronoun” sticker on their name tags.In addition, the multiple-occupancy men’s and women’s restrooms were relabeled as “gender neutral,” and men and women were using both. Interestingly enough, the signs above the doors were still labeled with the traditional “men’s” and “women’s” signs until they were covered over with home-made labels.One of the paper labels read: “This bathroom has been liberated from the gender binary!”While the panelists and attendees were certainly radical, and often expressed contempt for the Democratic Party establishment, it was nevertheless clear how seamlessly they blended traditional Marxist thought with the agenda of what’s becoming the mainstream left.

A leftward moving party is hungry for change. Just like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris’ past will prove to be a liability‘Harris is talking about financial industry abuses, but she’s doing fundraisers with a Wells Fargo executive.’ Photograph: Vernon Ogrodnek/APThe first pair of Democratic presidential primary debates showed how wide open the field is. Former vice-president Joe Biden came in with a comfortable lead, but stumbled during the debates and has dropped in the polls since.California senator Kamala Harris emerged the victor after the debate, confronting Biden on his past chummy relations with segregationist senators and vehement opposition to busing policies meant to integrate public schools. According to one poll, she’s now within two points of him.Joe Biden had a couple things going for him: he was connected to a popular Obama administration and he is still widely perceived as being electable. For stalwart Democratic voters, preventing a second term for Trump and an ever-rightward moving Republican party is a key priority.Biden might have stood out with his relatively conservative stances on healthcare, the environment, financial regulations and other issues that the Democratic base cared about – but at least he seemed like a safe bet to take on Trump. But now with the former vice-president crumbling under debate pressure and committing a seemingly endless string of gaffes, his electability may now be in question.The Biden team is constantly talking about “Obama-Biden” accomplishments, trying to inexorably tie him to the first black president’s legacy, but the more people find out about his own record, the more they’re turned off by it. The same will be true of Kamala Harris, a candidate who says all the right things on the debate stage, is surging in the polls, but will soon find out that positive attention may soon turn into negative scrutiny.> Harris is talking about financial industry abuses, but she’s doing fundraisers with a Wells Fargo executiveHarris is talking about financial industry abuses, but she’s doing fundraisers with a Wells Fargo executive. Though often glibly compared to Obama, Harris’s policy triangulations, donor-base ties, and questionable political past are all reminiscent of Hillary Clinton. Take her stance on what was once seemingly her strongest policy stances. Harris was an initial endorser of Bernie Sanders’s 2017 healthcare bill, which would have set up a Medicare for All, single-payer system. Such a plan would get rid of private insurance middlemen, and improve health outcomes and efficiency across the country. “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on,” she said at a January town hall.Discussing her mother’s battle with colon cancer, Harris declared that “healthcare should be a right.”When candidates were asked during the debate whether they would “abolish private insurance in favor of a government-run plan”, she joined Bernie Sanders in raising her hand. That’s all fine and good, a brave stance that could have been followed up with an explanation telling millions of curious Americans that they can still keep seeing their regular doctors, only in our future universal healthcare system they no longer will have to deal with insurance companies and the accompanying hefty deductible and premium payments.Instead, she beat a hasty retreat. The morning after the debate, she said she had misunderstood the question and certainly believed the private insurance would continue to play a role providing supplementary coverage. In other words, she would keep around the same companies responsible for our failed healthcare system and allow them to rally their forces to undermine a Medicare for All plan. (Most Americans favor getting rid of private insurance, when told they can keep their doctors.)It’s no wonder that likely Democratic voters see Bernie Sanders as the best candidate to handle health policy – agree or disagree, he’s consistent, and has been standing firm for single-payer as others vacillate. Why trust newcomers to progressive stances over someone who has been saying the same thing for decades?Part of Harris’s dilemma must stem from the fact that she sees that her party’s voters are moving leftward, and sees Biden’s centrist vulnerabilities, but is at the same time reliant on far-from-progressive campaign donors. A recent New York Times headline captures the situation well: “Wall Street Donors Are Swooning for Mayor Pete. (And They Like Biden and Harris, Too.)”Harris is talking about financial industry abuses, but she’s doing fundraisers with a Wells Fargo executive, Miguel Bustos, implicated in the company’s fake accounts scandal. When it comes time to take on big banking interests, is it unreasonable to assume that she’ll be less willing to challenge the sector than, say, Senator Warren?And let’s not forget about racial justice, an issue Harris expertly used to contest Biden’s record. But what will happen when people start to pay closer attention to her history as California attorney general. Harris can talk about her past as a young black girl who personally benefited from school integration. But what about the young black people she sent to prison for drug violations? What about the poor mothers trying to get by in a society that gives them no support that Harris threatened to jail and fine if their kids didn’t show up on time to school?Some political evolutions are genuine, and Harris’s “law-and-order” past wasn’t out of place in the Democratic party at the time. But that old wisdom is now being called into question. It’s hard to imagine that a party tacking to the left in an increasingly polarized country is about to elect a criminal prosecutor as its nominee.For now, Sanders is still among the frontrunners but has some ground to make up. His debate performance was mediocre, and he needs to appeal better to older voters still in the Biden camp. But by having a record that matches his rhetoric and by avoiding monied interests, he’s showing that campaigns can be run on a very different basis than Harris is running hers.Bernie Sanders raised $24m in the second quarter of 2019. The workers that donated to him the most were teachers. His largest sum came from Walmart workers. That shouldn’t be a surprise – when other candidates were holding lavish fundraisers, Sanders was raising hell at a Walmart shareholder meeting, denouncing the Walton family’s greed and calling for the company to pay a living wage to its employees.That’s how you break from a stale establishment consensus. That’s how you actually show Americans that you’re different and that you care. That’s the type of angry and earnest politics that can beat President Trump. Kamala Harris isn’t just not leftwing enough to be the Democratic party’s nominee, she’s also not bold enough to win a presidential election and bring about the change we desperately need. * Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin magazine and a Guardian US columnist. He is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality

China's Huawei Technologies said it would invest $3.1 billion in Italy over the next three years, as the Chinese telecoms giant called on Rome to ensure the "transparent, efficient and fair" use of its 'golden power' on 5G network development. Speaking at an event in Milan on Monday, the chief executive of the telecoms giant's Italian unit, Thomas Miao, said Italy's golden power - which allows the state to intervene in the private sector in the defence of national security - should be extended to all vendors in the European Union.

The simple act of walking has become a display of defiance for a young Iranian woman who often moves in Tehran's streets without a compulsory headscarf, or hijab. With every step, she risks harassment or even arrest by Iran's morality police whose job is to enforce the strict dress code imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The hijab debate has further polarized Iranians at a time when the country is buckling under unprecedented U.S. sanctions imposed since the Trump administration pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers last year.

Indian space chiefs pressed to quickly set a new date to launch a landmark moon mission after aborting one liftoff Monday just 56 minutes ahead of schedule, media reports said. The Chandrayaan-2 -- or Moon Chariot 2 -- rocket, a key part of India's ambitious space programme, could still blast off on July 29 or 30, media reports said. If that is not possible the launch would have to wait until September or beyond.

Former ICE Acting Director Tom Homan reacts on 'Fox & Friends' to fighting back against attacks by House Democrats on Capitol Hill.

A man has been charged with killing a polar bear and leaving the body to rot outside his home in Alaska for five months.Christopher Gordon, 35, allegedly shot the animal dead when it ventured into his front yard to try and eat some butchered whale meat.He then failed to report the polar bear carcass or attempt to “harvest” it for food between December 2018 and May this year.Gordon also allowed the bear to be covered with snow, which resulted in one of its legs being ripped off by a passing snowplough.Finally, on 22 May, he burned the carcass at the village dump in Kaktovik.He is now facing up to one year in prison and a $100,000 (£80,000) fine if convicted of the federal crime of “knowingly taking a polar bear in a manner unlawful under the Marine Mammal Protection Act”.Prosecutors say that the killing of the bear was not done in legal self defence and that he “left the harvestable remains to waste”.“Gordon allegedly left butchered whale meat outside in front of his yard of his residence for a substantial period of time, which attracted polar bear, as well as other animals to his front yard,” said federal prosecutor Ryan Tansey.“He then allegedly shot and killed the polar bear because it was trying to eat the improperly stored whale meat.”Gordon has also been charged with the state offence of wasteful taking of a marine animal.The investigation was carried out by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.Gordon declined to comment about the case and is scheduled to appear in court in Fairbanks in August.Kaktovik, with a population of just over 250, has experienced increasing encroachment by polar bears in recent years due to the disappearing Arctic sea ice.As a result it has become a popular tourist destination, with more than 2,000 people visiting the village during 2017.“These bears are getting used to people,” said council member Mike Gallagher. ”They’re domesticated.”Additional reporting by Associated Press

Former Vice President Joe Biden will spend much of the coming week talking about his approach to health care. On Monday, Biden is unveiling a plan that would add a "public option" to the 2010 health care overhaul known as "Obamacare," with expanded coverage paid for by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Biden's almost singular focus on former President Barack Obama's health care law has been on display recently in early voting states.

Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker was set to unveil a plan on Monday to greatly increase funding for elderly Americans needing long-term health care, and also to increase funding for people who look after them. Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey, was due to tell a forum in the early voting state of Iowa that he would make a dramatic investment in care for people with long-term health care needs if he was elected president. One of the core parts of Booker's plan would be to provide funds so that low- and middle-income Americans could have the choice to age in their own homes, and increase pay for care workers to look after them.

A Canadian citizen detained in China is being held on drug-related offences, Beijing said Monday, at a time of tense relations between the two countries. News of the latest arrest comes amid a diplomatic crisis sparked by the detention of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer for Chinese tech giant Huawei, in Vancouver on a US extradition bid. "The Shandong Provincial Public Security Bureau recently seized a drug-related case involving foreign students," said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a press briefing.

Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate hit 175 percent in June, official data showed Monday, stoking fears of a return of the hyperinflation that wiped out savings ten years ago when the economy collapsed. Official inflation is the highest since hyperinflation forced the government to abandon the Zimbabwe dollar in 2009. "The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of June 2019 as measured by the all items consumer price index stood at 175.66 percent while that of May 2019 was 97.85 percent," the Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency said in a statement.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As Britain’s Conservative Party tears itself apart over Brexit, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn might be expected to be enjoying a big lead in the opinion polls.Instead, the opposition is embroiled in a crisis every bit as deep as that facing the embattled government. At the European election, the Labour party put in its worst national performance in almost a century. A recent poll by YouGov put the party in fourth place, trailing not only the Conservatives but the Brexit Party and Liberal Democrats, too.Corbyn, a lifelong euroskeptic socialist, has been reluctant to oppose Brexit, leaving the party unable to capitalize on the unpopularity of leaving the European Union. At the same time, his party has been dogged by allegations of anti-Semitism – a scandal that has prompted lawmakers and supporters to resign in disgust.Given the continued impasse in parliament over Brexit, an early general election is no longer a remote possibility. Many Labour supporters are wondering if Corbyn is best-placed to lead his party into a vote – especially if his opponent is Boris Johnson instead of the more wooden Theresa May. He may, though, be almost impossible to dislodge.Labour has struggled to find a policy on Brexit that doesn’t alienate at least part of its base: Most of the party’s MPs represent leave-voting constituencies, yet the majority of Labour voters wanted to remain in the EU.The policy of “constructive ambiguity,” in which Labour both promised to deliver on the Brexit referendum and leave all options open, had been an attempt to bridge this divide. But the grim opinion polls have finally forced Corbyn to take a position. Many disaffected Labor voters are lending their support, at least temporarily, to the remain-supporting Liberal Democrats.Pushed by the five largest Labour-affiliated unions last week, Corbyn has pledged to hold a second referendum on any Brexit put forward by a Tory government. In that scenario, Corbyn’s party would campaign to remain in the EU. But if Labour were to get elected, the leader won’t say what the party would do. This about-face feels too little, too late.Corbyn’s problems run deeper than just Brexit; they go to questions of trust and competence. Back in May, Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission began an investigation into anti-Semitism in the Labour party.  Last week, the BBC’s Panorama program broadcast an hour-long investigation into the issue. The party claimed it was a hatchet job, but viewers will draw their own conclusions from the chilling testimonies of party insiders who claimed that anti-Semitism isn’t only rife, but institutionalized. Following the program, a group of leading Jewish intellectuals published a letter saying the party faces “a taint of international, historic shame.” It’s hard for Labour to be credible on any other issue if it can’t move beyond this one.It’s not hard to see why this issue has dogged Corbyn since he became leader. He has, at times in his political career, seemed more interested in Palestinian causes than British voters; his presence at a wreath-laying ceremony in Tunisia in 2014 (in which individuals believed to have been behind the 1972 Munich Olympic killings were also honored) offended and infuriated many.The persistence of the anti-Semitism charges suggest either he has very limited real control over his party or he has cared too little. Removing him, however, would be difficult.Corbyn faced down a leadership challenge after the Brexit referendum, where at least part of the blame for the result was laid at the feet of a leader who had barely bothered to campaign for his party’s Remain position. He brushed aside resignations from his shadow cabinet and a non-binding no-confidence vote that saw 172 Labour MPs vote against him to only 40 in favor.While Corbyn has come under increasing criticism from within the parliamentary party (including from Deputy Leader Tom Watson), anyone seeking to challenge him needs the support of 20% of Labour MPs to be nominated. Even if a challenger cleared that hurdle, beating Corbyn in a vote of party members would be an even bigger ask.Corbyn has remade the party in his image after becoming leader, building up the membership with loyalists from the Momentum group, a powerful left-wing grassroots movement that is increasingly independent and aggressive. On Friday, the group announced a nationwide campaign to oust Labour MPs that don’t meet with its approval and replace them with local activists.That is the heart of the Labour crisis: Its moderate parliamentary party is at odds with its hard-left base of members and socialist affiliates. These latter groups hold the leader’s fate in their hand, but aren’t representative of the wider voting public. The party has always been a broad church, but that unity presupposes a leader who can appeal across the various divides in a way Corbyn hasn’t.Corbyn’s politics of grievance may have worked well against May – at the 2017 election, Labour saw its largest increase in vote share since 1945. They might have worked well against May again; but against Johnson's message of exuberant optimism, they risk looking dour and defeatist.For all Corbyn’s shortcomings, the party looks to be stuck with him. Just as the Brexit party has benefited from the turmoil in the Conservative party, so the Liberal Democrats are likely to benefit from Labour’s crisis of leadership.To contact the author of this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

U.S. President Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, NBC News reported https://nbcnews.to/2XPQJ4B on Monday. Trump retreated on Thursday from adding a contentious question on citizenship to the 2020 census, but insisted he was not giving up his fight to count how many noncitizens are in the country and ordered government agencies to mine their databases. Although Trump has previously been frustrated with Ross, in particular over some failed trade negotiations, the 81-year-old commerce secretary has so far kept his job.

Sean Gallup/GettyThe Russian intelligence agency behind 2016’s election attacks is training its sights on billionaire financier George Soros, The Daily Beast has learned. The move comes hot on the heels of a surge in U.S.-focused hacking by Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate with similarities to 2016 in targeting and methodology. Laura Silber, chief communications officer for Soros’ Open Society Foundations, confirmed the hack attempt, but couldn’t provide additional details over the weekend. “We were aware of an attack,” Silber told the Daily Beast.Last month Microsoft quietly seized a new batch of 10 deceptive domain names the company says were set up by the hackers known as Fancy Bear,  the group intelligence officials and independent analysts have long attributed to Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU. Those web addresses imitate genuine domains used for Microsoft services like Sharepoint, an unmistakable sign that they were intended for use in phishing attacks, in which a victim is tricked into typing their password into a fake login page. Mueller Finally Solves Mysteries About Russia’s ‘Fancy Bear’ HackersOne domain targets a Singapore-based investment firm, and another references the Berlin anti-corruption organization Transparency International, which Russia has targeted before. Others are generic or ambiguous in their targeting.  But one seized domain, soros-my-sharepoint[.]com, jumps out as a clear reference to Soros, a past GRU target from Russia’s 2016 election interference.  An additional four phishing domains registered in the same time frame appear to target Soros’ Open Society Foundations, said Kyle Ehmke, an intelligence researcher at the Arlington, Virginia-based cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect.  Those domains haven’t been seized and ThreatConnect hasn’t found enough evidence to definitively link them to the Russian hackers, said Ehmke. The Kremlin’s targeting of Soros and his organization carries echoes of 2016, when the GRU dumped 2,500 files stolen from the Open Society Foundations for the debut of “DC Leaks”, the fake leak site the spies created for their 2016 election interference campaign. “SOROS INTERNAL FILES – BIG DATA”, the site announced at the time.Some of the stolen files were reportedly altered to create the appearance that Soros was secretly financing Russian opposition candidates, making the leak politically useful to Vladmir Putin. More importantly, the Soros dump earned DC Leaks instant credibility in American right-wing circles, where the 88-year-old Hungarian-American philanthropist plays the role of villainous global puppet-master in countless conspiracy theories. Russia’s Internet Research Agency—the so-called “troll farm, later indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller—pushed the same trope on its Facebook and Instagram feeds in the run-up to election day. One meme featured a close-up of Soros against a backdrop of anti-Trump picketers. “No lives matter for those who sponsoring [sic] anti Trump protests,” the caption read. Another imagined Soros confronting the late Senator John McCain. “Hey Johnny, I’m paying you a fortune. I don’t care how much cancer you have, get back to DC and backstab Trump.”The Soros targeting comes in the wave of what one expert describes as a fresh wave of Fancy Bear attempts against political nonprofits in the U.S. that ran from last December to March or April of this year, using similar tactics to the mass phishing campaign that famously ensnared Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief in 2016. “It’s a similar type of activity to what hit Podesta,” said Robert Johnston, the former Marine Corp captain who investigated the 2016 DNC breach, and now heads the financial cybersecurity firm Adlumin. “These were against political organizations and NGOs. The FBI has reached out to of bunch of them.”Putin’s Hackers Now Under Attack—From MicrosoftIn 2016 Microsoft sued Fancy Bear in federal court in Virginia and won, unopposed, an injunction allowing the company to seize any web addresses registered by the GRU’s hackers that imitate a Microsoft product or service.  The company has seized over 100 domains so far.Experts caution that Russia’s hackers have always cast a wide net, and there’s no way to tell what their motives are in revisiting old haunts now. It may be pure intelligence gathering, or the opening salvo of a 2020 election interference campaign.“We don't know whether they are ultimately looking to compromise targets for influence operations, internal intelligence uses, or both,” said Ehmke.Either way, Russia likely views its 2016 efforts as a success, and is certain to try for an encore. “I think you should absolutely anticipate a very vocal Russian interference in the 2020 elections,” said Johnston.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Peter Thiel gave the opening speech at the National Conservatism conference on Sunday, and took the opportunity to go after Google.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Monday Japan's reported accusations that South Korea had exported banned goods to North Korea posed a "grave challenge" amid a growing dispute over Japanese export curbs. Japan has tightened restrictions on the export of three materials used in high-tech equipment, citing "inadequate management" of sensitive items exported to South Korea. Japanese officials have cited "inadequate management" of sensitive items exported to South Korea as a reason behind the curbs, as well as lack of information sharing on export controls.

A Virginia state judge on Monday sentenced a self-professed neo-Nazi to a second life prison term for killing a demonstrator when he drove his car into a crowd protesting against white supremacists in Charlottesville two years ago. Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore sentenced James Fields, 22, to life plus 419 years, as recommended by the jury that found him guilty last December of murder plus eight counts of malicious wounding and a hit-and-run offense. Fields, a resident of Maumee, Ohio, who appeared in court on Monday in striped prison garb, had already received a separate life sentence without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty in March to federal hate-crime charges stemming from the violence in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017.

Most top candidates decided to skip this year's Netroots Nation, avoiding aggressive tactics from the activist left.