Biden rallies for Democrats, slams ‘semi-fascism’ in GOP

President Joe Biden and Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore attend the Democratic National Committee rally in Rockville, Maryland, on August 25, 2022. (REUTERS)
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Updated 26 August 2022
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Biden rallies for Democrats, slams ‘semi-fascism’ in GOP

  • Says he respects conservative Republicans but not the MAGA Republicans or Donald Trump
  • Republican National Committee calls Biden’s comments “despicable”

 

ROCKVILLE, Maryland: President Joe Biden called on Democrats Thursday “to vote to literally save democracy once again” — and compared Republican ideology to “semi-fascism” — as he led a kickoff rally and a fundraiser in Maryland 75 days out from the midterm elections.
Addressing an overflow crowd of thousands at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Biden said: “Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of your kids from gun violence is on the ballot, and it’s not hyperbole, the very survival of our planet is on the ballot.”
“You have to choose,” Biden added. “Will we be a country that moves forward or a country that moves backward?”
The events, in the safely Democratic Washington suburbs, were meant to ease Biden into what White House aides say will be an aggressive season of championing his policy victories and aiding his party’s candidates. He is aiming to turn months of accomplishments into political energy as Democrats have seen their hopes rebound amid the legacy-defining burst of action by Biden and Congress.
From bipartisan action on gun control, infrastructure and domestic technology manufacturing to Democrats-only efforts to tackle climate change and health care costs, Biden highlighted the achievements of the party’s unified but razor-thin control of Washington. And he tried to sharpen the contrast with Republicans, who once seemed poised for sizable victories in November.
Just months ago, as inflation soared, Biden’s poll numbers soured and his agenda stalled, Democrats braced for significant losses. But the intense voter reaction to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and a productive summer on issues of core concern to Democrats have the party feeling like it is finally on the offensive heading into the Nov. 8 vote, even as the president remains unpopular.
Ahead of the rally, Biden raised about $1 million at an event with about 100 donors for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund in the backyard of a lavish Bethesda home.
After his speech at the rally, Biden lingered with the largely mask-free crowd for nearly 30 minutes, diving back into the style of campaigning that had been disrupted for Democrats for more than two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. The president, who was identified as a close contact of first lady Jill Biden on Wednesday when she was diagnosed with a “rebound” case of the virus, did not appear to wear a face covering as he posed for selfies and hugged supporters.
Biden’s Thursday events come a day after the president moved to fulfill a long-delayed campaign pledge to forgive federal student loans for lower- and middle-income borrowers — a move that Democrats believe will animate younger and Black and Latino voters.
Republicans, though, saw their own political advantage in the move, casting it as an unfair giveaway to would-be Democratic voters.
“President Biden’s inflation is crushing working families, and his answer is to give away even more government money to elites with higher salaries,” said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. “Democrats are literally using working Americans’ money to try to buy themselves some enthusiasm from their political base.”
Biden on Thursday expanded on his effort to paint Republicans as the “ultra-MAGA” party — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — opposing his agenda and embracing conservative ideological proposals as well as Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.
“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” Biden told donors at the fundraiser. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”
“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden said later. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”
The Republican National Committee called Biden’s comments “Despicable.”
“Biden forced Americans out of their jobs, transferred money from working families to Harvard lawyers, and sent our country into a recession while families can’t afford gas and groceries,” said spokesperson Nathan Brand. “Democrats don’t care about suffering Americans — they never did.”
Since the June Supreme Court ruling removing women’s constitutional protections for abortion, Democrats have seen a boost in donations, polling and performance in special elections for open congressional seats. The latest came Tuesday in a Hudson Valley swing district that, in a Republican wave year, should have been an easy GOP win. Instead, Democrat Pat Ryan, who campaigned on a platform of standing up for abortion rights, defeated Republican Marc Molinaro.
“MAGA Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women,” Biden said, noting the resonance of the abortion issue with women voters as some in the GOP push a national ban on the procedure. “Let me tell you something: They are about to find out.”
The shift is giving Democrats a new sense that a Republican sweep of the House is no longer such a sure bet, particularly battle-tested incumbents polling better than Biden work their districts.
Meanwhile, Democrats have benefited from Republican candidates who won primaries but are struggling in the general campaign. Trump-backed Senate candidates have complicated the GOP’s chances in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, while several Trump-aligned candidates in House races were not always the party’s first choice.
Trump’s grip on the GOP remains strong and has perhaps even become tighter in the aftermath of the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home.
JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority Project, an outside group that is working to elect Democrats to the Senate, said the Republican candidates are “getting caught up in the Trump tornado once again — that is exactly what voters of both parties don’t want.”
Biden’s political event, sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, comes as the president and members of his Cabinet are set to embark on what the White House has billed as the “Building a Better America Tour” to promote “the benefits of the President’s accomplishments and the Inflation Reduction Act to the American people and highlight the contrast with Congressional Republicans’ vision.”
Meanwhile, the White House has benefited from a steady decline in gasoline prices, which, while still elevated, have dropped daily since mid-June.
“Our critics say inflation,” Biden said, dismissing GOP attacks that his policies resulted in inflation being at a 40-year high. “You mean the global inflation caused by the worldwide pandemic and Putin’s war in Ukraine?”
In Maryland, Biden was joined by gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore and a host of other officials on the ballot. Moore, introducing Biden, said his Trump-backed rival “Dan Cox is not an opponent. He’s a threat.”
Months ago, Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection fights sought to make themselves scarce when Biden came to town, though White House aides said Biden could still be an asset by elevating issues that resonate with voters and sharpening the distinction with Republicans.
Now, allies see the fortunes beginning to change and the president as more of a direct asset to campaigns.
“Joe Biden is not the ballot technically,” said House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer. “But Joe Biden is on the ballot, and Joe Biden needs your support.”
 

 


Panama resumes flights to Venezuela, allowing for migrant returns

Updated 11 sec ago
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Panama resumes flights to Venezuela, allowing for migrant returns

Venezuela suspended air links with Panama in July 2024
The resumption of flights is expected to facilitate the repatriation from Panama of Venezuelan migrants deported from the US

PANAMA CITY: Panama’s civil aviation authority on Thursday announced that it would resume flights with Venezuela after nearly a year, facilitating the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants expelled from the United States.

Venezuela suspended air links with Panama in July 2024 over its refusal to recognize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s victory in presidential elections.

The two countries at the time also suspended diplomatic relations.

The resumption of flights is expected to facilitate the repatriation from Panama of Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States.

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said earlier he had received a proposal from Caracas to resume flights between the two countries.

“I will evaluate it very carefully right away,” he told his weekly press conference, adding “it is in Panama’s best interest to open commercial flights to Venezuela.”

Mulino however ruled out restoring diplomatic relations with the Caribbean nation.

Panama is one of a handful of countries that has agreed to act as a stopover for migrants expelled from the United States by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Under the plan, Panama holds the migrants in closed shelters while waiting for them to be repatriated to their homelands.

Many of those expelled so far have been from Venezuela and other South American countries.

Panama has also been grappling with a reverse flow of thousands of migrants returning home through Central America after failing to gain entry to the Untied States.

In the absence of flights between Panama and Venezuela, many of the migrants were left to organize their own transport home, either by boat or overland through the treacherous Darien jungle on Panama’s border with Colombia.

Homeland Security blocking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students

Updated 8 min 13 sec ago
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Homeland Security blocking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students

  • Kristi Noem: ‘This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus’

US President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, and will force existing students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the department to terminate the Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, the department said in a statement.
Harvard called the action illegal.

The move comes after Harvard refused to provide information Noem had previously demanded about some foreign student visa holders who attend the university, the department said.

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.”

Harvard said the move a retaliatory action that threatens serious harm to the university.

“The government’s action is unlawful. We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University – and this nation – immeasurably, the university said in as statement. “

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The move marks a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent institutional targets.

The Republican president has undertaken an extraordinary effort to revamp private colleges and schools across the US that he says foster anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies. He has criticized Harvard in particular for hiring prominent Democrats to teaching or leadership positions.


No new direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks are scheduled, Kremlin says

Updated 22 May 2025
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No new direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks are scheduled, Kremlin says

  • “There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
  • The major prisoner swap is a “quite laborious process” that “requires some time”

MOSCOW: Russia and Ukraine have no direct peace talks scheduled, the Kremlin said Thursday, nearly a week after their first face-to-face session since shortly after Moscow’s invasion in 2022 and days after US President Donald Trump said they would start ceasefire negotiations “immediately.”

“There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “They are yet to be agreed upon.”

During two hours of talks in Istanbul on May 16, Kyiv and Moscow agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, in what would be their biggest such swap. Apart from that step, the meeting delivered no significant breakthrough.

Several months of intensified US and European pressure on the two sides to accept a ceasefire and negotiate a settlement have yielded little progress. Meanwhile, Russia is readying a summer offensive to capture more Ukrainian land, Ukrainian government and military analysts say.

Putin’s proposals
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this week that Moscow would “propose and is ready to work with” Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining the framework for “a possible future peace treaty.”

Putin has effectively rejected a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine has accepted. He has linked the possibility to a halt in Ukraine’s mobilization effort and a freeze on Western arms shipments to Kyiv as part of a comprehensive settlement.

European leaders have accused Putin of dragging his feet in peace efforts while he tries to press his bigger army’s battlefield initiative and capture more Ukrainian land.

The major prisoner swap is a “quite laborious process” that “requires some time,” Peskov said.

But he added: “The work is continuing at a quick pace, everybody is interested in doing it quickly.”

Peskov told Russia’s Interfax news agency that Moscow had provided Kyiv with a list of prisoners it wants released. “We have not yet received a counter list from Kyiv. We are waiting,” he told Interfax.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that preparations are underway for the potential prisoner exchange, which he described as “perhaps the only real result” of the talks in Turkiye.

Peskov disputed a report Thursday in The Wall Street Journal that Trump told European leaders after his phone call with Putin on Monday that the Russian leader wasn’t interested in talks because he thinks that Moscow is winning.

“We know what Trump told Putin, we don’t know what Trump told the Europeans. We know President Trump’s official statement,” Peskov said. “What we know contrasts with what was written in the article you mentioned.”

Russian capital targeted by drones for the second night

Apart from the continuing war of attrition along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, which has killed tens of thousands of troops on both sides, Russia and Ukraine have been firing dozens of long-range drones at each other’s territory almost daily.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it shot down 105 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 35 over the Moscow region. It was the second straight night that Kyiv’s forces have targeted the Russian capital.

More than 160 flights were delayed at three of Moscow’s four main airports, the city’s transport prosecutor said, as officials grounded planes citing concerns for passenger safety.

The attack prompted some regions to turn off mobile Internet signals, including the Oryol region southwest of Moscow, which was targeted heavily Wednesday.

The Defense Ministry claimed it downed 485 Ukrainian drones over several regions and the Black Sea between late Tuesday and early Thursday, including 63 over the Moscow region, in one of the biggest drone attacks.

It was not possible to verify the numbers.

Russia seeks a buffer zone on the border

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 128 drones overnight. Among the targets were Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, damaging an industrial facility, power lines, and several private homes, regional Gov. Serhii Lysak said on Telegram.

In Kyiv, debris from a Russian drone fell onto the grounds of a school in the capital’s Darnytskyi district, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. No injuries were reported.

Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s Kursk region killed a 50-year-old man and injured two others, acting regional Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said Thursday.

Putin visited the Kursk region on Tuesday for the first time since Moscow claimed that it drove Ukrainian forces out of the area last month. Kyiv officials denied the claim.

“Despite the liberation of our territory, the border region is still subject to enemy attacks,” Khinshtein warned residents on Telegram. “It is still dangerous to be there.”

Putin has said Russian forces have orders to create a “security buffer zone” along the border.

That would help prevent Ukraine from striking areas inside Russia with artillery, Putin told a government meeting, but he gave no details of where the proposed buffer zone would be or how far it would stretch.

Putin said a year ago that a Russian offensive at the time aimed to create a buffer zone in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. That could have helped protect Russia’s Belgorod border region, where frequent Ukrainian attacks have embarrassed the Kremlin.


Malema, the radical politician in Trump’s South Africa video

Updated 22 May 2025
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Malema, the radical politician in Trump’s South Africa video

  • In a tense Oval Office meeting, Ramaphosa and his delegation distanced themselves from Malema’s rhetoric
  • Malema mocked the meeting at the White House on social media as ‘A group of older men meet in Washington to gossip about me’

JOHANNESBURG: A video projected by US President Donald Trump to support false claims of “persecution” of white South Africans prominently featured Julius Malema, a firebrand politician known for his radical rhetoric.

Trump ambushed President Cyril Ramaphosa with the 4:30-minute video shown in the Oval Office on Wednesday during talks at which South Africa wanted to salvage bilateral ties and push back on baseless claims from the United States about a “white genocide.”

Malema was the main character, seen in several clips wearing the red beret of his populist, marxist-inspired Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party and chanting calls to “cut the throat of whiteness” as well as a controversial anti-apartheid song “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer.”

Trump falsely said he was a government official, insinuating his inflammatory slogans reflected an official policy against South Africa’s white minority.

But Malema, 33, is an opposition politician, leader of the anti-capitalist and anti-US EFF that he founded in 2013 after being thrown out of the youth league of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), where he was accused of fomenting divisions.

He portrays himself as the defender of society’s most disadvantaged and has attracted largely young supporters angry at the large social inequalities that exist in South Africa 30 years after the end of apartheid.

Renowned for its theatrics, his party gained prominence advocating radical reforms including land redistribution and nationalizing key economic sectors.

But the party only came fourth in last year’s elections, with 9.5 percent of the vote, and it has lost popularity since, with several of its top brass leaving to join a new party of former president Jacob Zuma, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK).

In the tense Oval Office meeting, Ramaphosa and his delegation distanced themselves from Malema’s rhetoric.
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, a member of the center-right Democratic Alliance, told Trump he joined Ramaphosa’s multiparty coalition “precisely to keep these people out of power.”

“I’m the biggest target of that rabble-rouser,” businessman Johann Rupert told Trump.

The decades-old “Kill the Boer” rallying cry was born during the struggle against the brutal policies of white-minority rule, and its use since the end of apartheid in 1994 infuriates parties that represent white South Africans, with many attempting to get it banned.

A ban in 2010 was lifted after courts said it does not constitute hate speech and instead should be regarded in its historical context, and for the fact that it was being used by Malema only as a “provocative means of advancing his party’s political agenda.”

“But why wouldn’t you arrest that man?” Trump asked Ramaphosa Wednesday.

“In a Constitutional democracy... a person cannot be arrested when what they are doing is explicitly permitted in law,” political scientist Sandile Swana told AFP.

Although controversial, the vocal Malema was exerting the “fundamental rights of freedom of expression,” he said.

In the context of the anti-apartheid struggle, “Kill the Boer” had “nothing to do with the killing of a specific white man, but with the killing of the system of apartheid,” he said.

Malema mocked the meeting at the White House on social media as “A group of older men meet in Washington to gossip about me.”

The party later accused Ramaphosa of “betraying the struggle for land and dignity.”

“Surrounded by elites like Johann Rupert and John Steenhuisen, Ramaphosa denounced a liberation song upheld by South Africa’s highest courts and failed to defend the nation against the false narrative of white genocide,” it said.


German finance minister optimistic that G7 can agree joint communique on Ukraine support

Updated 22 May 2025
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German finance minister optimistic that G7 can agree joint communique on Ukraine support

  • “I am very positive that we will also reach a joint communique,” Klingbeil said
  • If Russia is not prepared to enter into serious negotiations with Ukraine, “we will consider further sanctions“

BANFF, Canada: German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil on Thursday said he was optimistic that the Group of Seven advanced economies could agree a joint communique showing support for Ukraine, amid a rift between the US and the rest of the G7 on the issue.

Sources earlier said it was unclear whether the delegations at G7 finance ministers’ consultations in Canada could agree on joint language, with one European source saying that US officials wanted to delete language describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “illegal.”

“I am very positive that we will also reach a joint communique,” Klingbeil said at a press conference in Banff, adding that if Russia is not prepared to enter into serious negotiations with Ukraine, “we will consider further sanctions.”

The EU and Britain this week announced new sanctions against Russia without waiting for Washington to join them, a day after President Donald Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin brought about neither a ceasefire in Ukraine nor fresh US sanctions.

European leaders have been lobbying intensely for the Trump administration to join them in imposing new sanctions if Russia rejected a ceasefire.

Klingbeil said that G7 finance ministers and their Ukrainian counterpart had concluded in a meeting that the conflict was “a brutal war” initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin and that support for Ukraine continued unabated.

“I am optimistic that in the end such formulations will also be included in the communique, but please wait for the exact wording, as I want to leave that to the Canadian presidency this afternoon,” he said.

TRADE SOLUTIONS

Klingbeil earlier on Wednesday met United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for a bilateral conversation and the two agreed to meet again in Washington.

“We have always discussed forward, how we can take steps together to find solutions,” Klingbeil said about the meeting, adding that Bessent’s invitation was a good sign.

Klingbeil warned, however, that if no agreement can be found with the United States on tariffs, “then we can expect turbulence on the markets again very quickly.”

The Trump administration has imposed a 25 percent tariff on US imports of steel, aluminum and cars, as well as a baseline 10 percent tariff on almost all countries, with additional “reciprocal” tariffs — making for a combined 20 percent in the EU’s case — lined up if negotiations during a 90-day pause fail.