The consequences of war, seen from the sky.
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Monday, 8 May 2023
Trump rejects last chance to testify at New York civil trial
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump rejected his last chance Sunday to testify at a civil trial where a longtime advice columnist has accused him of raping her in a luxury department store dressing room in 1996.
Trump, a Republican candidate for president in 2024, was given until 5 p.m. Sunday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was filed.
It was not a surprise. Trump has not shown up once during the two-week Manhattan trial where writer E. Jean Carroll testified for several days, repeating claims she first made publicly in a 2019 memoir. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages totaling millions of dollars.
The jury has also watched lengthy excerpts from an October videotaped deposition in which Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever really knowing her.
Without Trump’s testimony, lawyers were scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, with deliberations likely to begin on Tuesday.
After prosecutors rested their case Thursday, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina immediately rested the defense case as well without calling any witnesses. He did not request additional time for Trump to decide to testify. Tacopina declined in an email to comment after the deadline passed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump extra time to change his mind and request to testify, though the judge did not promise he would grant such a request to reopen the defense case so Trump could take the stand.
At the time, Kaplan noted that he’d heard about news reports Thursday in which Trump told reporters while visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably attend” the trial. Trump also criticized Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, as an “extremely hostile” and “rough judge” who “doesn’t like me very much.”
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Biden's approval rating hits new low
President Joe Biden’s approval sank to a new low, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found, two weeks after the president announced his reelection campaign.
Biden’s approval rating dipped to 36 percent, down from February and just below his previous low in 2022. A significantly higher percentage of people — 56 percent — disapprove of the job the president has done so far, and the majority of the Democrats surveyed (58 percent) said they would rather Democrats pick someone else to be the presidential nominee.
Allowing for the fact that it was a single poll, the polling seemingly offered a number of reasons for Biden and his supporters to be nervous heading into the 2024 presidential election, though there were warning signs for former President Donald Trump as well.
For Biden, part of the issue is the president’s age and acuity. Twenty-six percent said Biden, who is 80, is too old for another term, and an additional 43 percent said both Biden and Trump, who is 76, are too old. Only 28 percent said that neither is too old for another four years in the White House.
When asked if Biden “has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president,” only 32 percent said they believe he does, while 63 percent said they do not. Of those who said he does not, 94 percent were Republicans, 69 percent were independents and 21 percent were Democrats.
Biden has repeatedly pushed back against criticism of his age. “I feel good,” he said at a Rose Garden press conference late last month. “And I feel excited about the prospects, and I think we’re on the verge of really turning the corner in a way we haven’t in a long time.”
The poll also showed Biden lagging behind Trump, the current front-runner to be the GOP nominee, in a head-to-head match-up. If Biden and Trump were the candidates, 38 percent said they would definitely or probably vote for the president, compared to 44 percent who would definitely or probably back Trump.
And Biden fell behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a head-to-head matchup, nabbing 37 percent to DeSantis’ 42 percent. DeSantis has not yet entered the presidential race, though he is widely expected to.
One specific issue where voters prefer Trump to Biden: the economy. When pitted against his 2020 presidential rival on handling the economy, Trump boasted higher approval than Biden, with 54 percent saying they viewed his handling of the economy more favorably, and just 36 percent saying Biden has done the better job.
Trump came out on top when pitted against other Republican presidential hopefuls. But the poll also heralded some bad news for the former president, who is currently facing down felony charges and multiple on-going investigations.
Fifty-six percent said Trump should face criminal charges related to investigations into whether he tried to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election, including 90 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents and 16 percent of Republicans.
Fifty-four percent said he should face charges over his handling of classified documents, including 86 percent of Democrats, 58 percent of independents and 17 percent of Republicans; and 54 percent said he should be charged for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, including 91 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of independents and 16 percent of Republicans.
The poll, which was conducted by phone from April 28 to May 3, included responses from 1,006 adults across the country, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Of those adults, 900 were registered voters, 396 said they leaned Democratic and 438 said they leaned Republican.
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Sunday, 7 May 2023
Senate Republicans will stand firm on debt ceiling, Mike Lee says
Sen. Mike Lee said Sunday that Senate Republicans are firmly behind the debt bill that the Kevin McCarthy-led House recently passed, giving McCarthy leverage in his Tuesday meeting with President Joe Biden.
Speaking on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo," the Utah Republican said: "As Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House, meets with the White House, it's imperative that he arrive in a position of negotiating power."
Lee noted that "we've got 43 Republicans who have a signed a letter," including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, enough to block Democratic legislation on the debt ceiling. Lee said two other Republicans supported the letter but wouldn't sign "for strategic reasons."
The letter, which was sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, said Senate Republicans backed House Republicans in supporting “spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling.”
Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate but not enough to prevent a Republican filibuster on legislation.
"Whenever you've got 41 senators who are unwilling to bring debate to a close on any legislation, it cannot pass. We've now got more than enough to stop exactly the kind of legislation that Joe Biden wants," he said to Bartiromo.
Lee added: "What that means is that the White House is going to come to the table and enter into real talks with the House Republicans, starting with Speaker Kevin McCarthy," Lee said.
House Republicans passed legislation on April 24 that would allow for the debt ceiling to be raised but which would also attempt to put the brakes on federal spending in the future, as well as roll back or cut specific programs. The vote was 217-215.
Biden and other Democrats have said they are open to budget negotiations but want the debt ceiling treated as a separate issue, as it has been in the past. The expectation is that the the federal government will bump up against the debt ceiling at the start of June.
Bartiromo asked Lee if he was confident that McConnell and other Senate Republicans would stand firm. Lee said he expected they would.
"Even if we lost one or two here or there, we'd still be fine," Lee said, "and I don't think we're going to the lose any of them."
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Chief justice must implement strong ethics code, Sen. Dick Durbin says
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin on Sunday called on Chief Justice John Roberts to create a strong "code of conduct" for the Supreme Court.
"History is going to judge him by the decision he makes on this. He has the power to make the difference," the Illinois Democrat said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Durbin was speaking in response to the latest reporting by ProPublica about what Texas megadonor Harlan Crow has provided Justice Clarence Thomas over the years, including private-school tuition for a relative of Thomas'. (Thomas was the legal guardian of his relative.) Other news organizations have reported of ethical issues involving Thomas and other current members of the nation's top court.
"I keep calling on Chief Justice Roberts to make a move and say something and solve this problem," Durbin told host Jake Tapper. "He has the power to do it for the Roberts Court. But other justices can speak out as well."
Durbin also said "everything is on the table" but didn't offer any solutions that Congress could undertake on its own to impose policies on ethics for the nation's highest court. But he said a strong policy is definitely needed to rebuild the court's credibility.
"We need to change the image of this court. At this point it is at the lowest ebb in history," Durbin said.
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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema says she has no interest in becoming a Republican
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing challenges from the right and from the left, should she run for reelection in 2024. But the threat has not yet pushed the Democrat-turned-independent into the arms of the GOP.
Sinema is “absolutely” done with parties and will never join the Republican Party, she said Sunday during a pre-taped interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“Now that you're an independent, you'll never become a Republican?” host Margaret Brennan asked.
“No,” Sinema said, adding: “You don’t go from one broken party to another.”
Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in December 2022, has not said whether she plans to run for reelection in 2024.
“I’m not here to talk about elections today,” she Sunday when pressed about her plans.
If she does run, Sinema will, at the least, face challenges from Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Mark Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal County. But the senator has used her party transition to call for and end to the rise in the partisanship in Congress.
“I would suggest that what I tried to do in the United States Senate right is to show that we have differences, differences which should be celebrated,” Sinema said Sunday. “That's an important part of a democracy. But those differences shouldn't stop us from getting things done.”
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Wagner chief to Moscow: Swap in Chechens in Bakhmut
Russian mercenary leader has threatened to pull out of battle for the besieged Ukrainian city.
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