The historical echoes of Trump's Alaska summit
Something similar is about to unfold in Alaska this week. Donald Trump is to meet Vladimir Putin to decide the fate of Ukraine between them. The White House hinted at the weekend that Volodomyr Zelensky may be invited as well, but this is not confirmed. Nor is it certain that the Russian leader would turn up if he is.
Mr Trump has been determined since assuming the presidency to end the conflict but seems to take the view that to do so it is Ukraine that will have to give way. He has already stated that any deal would involve 'territory swaps', which presumably involves ceding land occupied by Russia since 2014 and expanded since the invasion. But President Zelensky simply cannot accept that, not after the sacrifices his country has made trying to recapture the territory and stop further Russian advances.
It is hard to understand what President Trump is trying to achieve beyond the optics of being seen to broker some sort of ceasefire, however one-sided.
Only last week he was threatening secondary sanctions against countries like India buying up cheap Russian oil. Now he is preparing to reward the aggressor with a meeting on US soil. The Russian leader must be as delighted with the outcome as Stalin was 80 years ago.
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The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
CNN's resident MAGA defender keeps getting his past Jan. 6 condemnation thrown back in his face
In January 2021, CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings was unwavering in his criticism of Donald Trump following the Capitol riots, saying that the president 'caused this insurrection with his lies and conspiracy theories' and 'every Republican must condemn it.' Now that Jennings is the network's resident MAGA defender and Trump has federally taken over Washington while deploying the National Guard into the city because of a so-called 'crime emergency,' the longtime GOP strategist is now getting his past anti-Trump criticism of January 6 thrown back in his face. And, quite frankly, he is not thrilled about it. Hours after the president held his Monday press conference announcing that he was seizing control of the D.C. police department and mobilizing the military to patrol the city's streets to 'rescue' the nation's capital from 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,' Jennings appeared on CNN NewsNight to discuss Trump's widely criticized move. Spurred into action by images of former DOGE staffer Edward 'Big Balls' Coristine bloodied following an attempted carjacking and Fox News reports about crime in D.C., Trump has called his move 'Liberation Day in D.C.' while giving the green light to law enforcement to 'do whatever the hell they want.' Critics, meanwhile, have noted that despite the president's rhetoric about 'out-of-control' crime, violent crime has rapidly declined in the city over the past two years and is at a 30-year low. During the Monday night CNN panel discussion, Jennings was unsurprisingly applauding the president's decision as being tough on crime while showing support for law enforcement, prompting fellow panelist Tara Setmayer to take issue with the idea that Trump 'backs the blue' by referencing Jennings' prior condemnation of January 6. 'You look at what Donald Trump did and what MAGA has done to the police officers who defended our Capitol on January 6th,' Setmayer, a former GOP strategist and Never-Trump conservative, declared. 'You want to talk about spitting in the face? Donald Trump spit in the face of every single one of those officers who took that oath to protect and serve on January 6th when he pardoned those insurrectionist bastards and who wanted to take down our Capitol and stop the free and fair, peaceful transfer of power.' One of the president's first acts after his second inauguration was to issue a blanket pardon to roughly 1,600 rioters who were charged with crimes during the attack on the Capitol, including many who were jailed for violently attacking police officers. 'And so how dare people sit here and say that he backs the blue? He abdicated that, because you know what? He did not protect or defend the Constitution and he violated his oath of office,' she continued. 'You know, who said that? You did after January 6th. And that's exactly what he continues to do right now with the way he is throwing around our military, our police, talking about moving us to other states. This is something people should be very concerned about.' Indeed, shortly after a MAGA mob stormed the Capitol on January 6 in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory, Jennings wrote a scathing opinion piece for CNN chastising the president and any Republican who didn't rebuke Trump's actions. 'I'm ashamed and embarrassed for our country, and for any Republican who fails to condemn this shameful behavior,' Jennings stated at the time. In an on-air appearance the night of the riot, Jennings also suggested that Trump had become such a threat to the country that he may need to abdicate his office immediately. On Monday night, however, Jennings was seemingly stunned into silence and merely held his hand to his chin after Setmayer aired her receipts, prompting anchor Anny Phillip to move on to another guest. Several minutes later, though, Phillip circled back to the right-wing pundit to see if he wanted to finally jump back in. 'I want to give Scott a moment because he has not said a single thing,' the CNN host said. Saying that 'what happened to the cops that day was a disgrace,' Jennings then pivoted to defending Trump's federal takeover of Washington and deployment of the National Guard, adding that 'the only city' that Trump really has control of is Washington. 'If he controls D.C., why didn't he do it on January 6th?' Setmayer shot back. 'Why didn't he do it on January 6th when he sat there and let them take over the Capitol? He had the opportunity, but he didn't.' Two days later, another longtime political strategist would once again confront Jennings on his harsh criticism of the president's behavior on January 6 as it related to Trump now invoking the D.C. Home Rule Act. This time around, however, Jennings didn't sit in silence and instead lashed out with personal attacks. 'I think in Washington, D.C., you're gonna have to have substantial reductions in violence, substantial reductions in murder, substantial reductions in carjackings, and people are generally gonna feel like they can walk around and not be under threat all the time,' he said, boasting about the number of arrests that have occurred since the takeover. Julie Roginsky, a Democratic operative and former Fox News pundit, snarked that she was 'old enough' to remember when Jennings was 'appalled as the rest of us were on January 6th,' leading the former Mitch McConnell adviser to cut her off. 'Because January 6th happened, should we not enforce the law today?' Jennings sneered, resulting in a heated back-and-forth in which the GOP commentator accused Roginsky of engaging in a 'silly argument.' At one point, Phillip jumped in to ask Jennings to allow Roginsky to finish her point, only for the conservative pundit to grouse that he's 'not gonna allow it' if Roginsky kept taking 'potshots' at him. 'Scott, I know you're thirsty for that seat, but let me finish,' Roginsky snapped back, referencing reports that Jennings is considering a Senate run in Kentucky to replace the retiring McConnell. 'What are you thirsty for? Some kind of relevance out here? I mean, I don't even know what you do for a living,' he fumed in response. An undeterred Roginsky, though, continued on with her point following the broadside from Jennings. 'Can I just finish what I was about to say, which is that on January 6th, [Trump] could have deployed the National Guard. He chose not to. Now today, because somebody named Big Balls got beat up, allegedly, he wants to deploy the National Guard to a place that has had a 30-year low in violence. And we all know that he's doing this because it's a power grab.' Noting that Trump 'could have done this when this district was actually in danger on January 6th' but didn't, Roginsky said the president 'didn't give a d*mn' about 'backing the blue' then before invoking Jennings' past comments. 'And you agreed, back on January 6, he didn't give a d*mn about those police officers and about the safety of people in Washington, D.C.,' she concluded. 'Today, because he wants a power grab, he's doing this despite the fact that every statistic shows that Washington, D. C. has not been safer in the last 30 years.' Meanwhile, other progressives have called for CNN panelists to continue to challenge Jennings with his own words during discussions about the president's current actions in Washington. 'Not sure why every liberal pundit on CNN, confronted by Jennings, doesn't just read out every night his own words from Jan 6th back to him,' Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan, who recently got into a heated exchange with a NewsNation anchor after invoking January 6, tweeted. 'Jennings called it an insurrection by domestic terrorists caused by Donald Trump. Remind him. Every. Single. Night.'
The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
Supermarket gunman who targeted Black people wants charges dropped, says grand jury was too white
Attorneys for the gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket say the federal charges against him should be dropped because there weren't enough Black people and other minority groups on the grand jury that indicted him. A judge is scheduled to hear arguments Thursday on Payton Gendron's claim that the selection process for the grand jury was flawed. Gendron, who is white, could face the death penalty if convicted in the 2022 mass shooting at a Tops supermarket, which he targeted because of its location in a primarily Black neighborhood. Those killed ranged in age from 32 to 86. Three others were wounded. He is serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty in November 2022 to multiple state charges, including murder. A trial on the pending federal hate crime and weapons counts is expected to begin next year. Gendron's lawyers argue in a court filing that Black and Hispanic people and men are 'systemically and significantly underrepresented' in the lists from which jurors are selected in the Buffalo area. 'To illustrate this point, the grand jury that indicted Payton Gendron was drawn from a pool from which approximately one third of the Black persons expected and one third of the Hispanic/Latino persons expected,' Gendron's lawyers wrote. Exacerbating the problem, they said, was that the data sources used by a vendor to pull the lists together weren't preserved. As a result, Gendron's legal rights to a grand jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community were violated, they said, so the charges should be dismissed. Prosecutors said the arguments 'fail both as a matter of law and fact.' In a written response, the U.S. Attorney's office said Gendron didn't prove a systematic underrepresentation that was caused by the district's jury plan. Any disparities in the racial makeup were within accepted guidance, they wrote, and not caused by the selection process, which draws from voter, driver, tax, disability and unemployment rolls. 'The defendant is charged with killing 10 Black people and injuring three other individuals as part of a racially motivated attack on a grocery store,' prosecutors wrote. 'He now demands that the court dismiss the indictment against him because, in his view, the implementation of the Western District of New York jury plan led to the underrepresentation of certain minority groups — including Black persons.' U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the defense's motion Thursday afternoon. Gendron's attorneys, in an earlier filing, argued that Gendron should be exempt from the death penalty because he was 18 years old at the time of the shooting, an age when the brain is still developing. That motion is pending.
The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
What a cheek! The US is in no position to lecture us about free speech
In the spirit of free speech, I suppose we have to allow other countries to express their concerns about life in Britain, even though it's none of their business and is diplomatic bad manners. However, it is impudent of the Trump administration, currently engaged in dismantling the constitution of the United States, to issue a patronising school report on the state of human rights in the United Kingdom. Every so often, the Americans, whose system of laws owes much to the British, like to tell us we're no longer a free people. 'Sod off' is the instinctive and succinct British reaction to such treatment, but I shall endeavour to elaborate. In the document, produced by the US State Department, Britain is chastised for a human rights scene that has apparently 'worsened' over the past year. From the lofty moral heights occupied by Donald Trump, 'specific areas of concern" are raised, including restrictions on political speech deemed "hateful" or "offensive". The Americans are especially censorious about the way the government responded to the horrendous murder of three children in Southport last year, and the subsequent violence. This constituted, or so we are lectured, an "especially grievous example of government censorship". The UK is thus ticked off: 'Censorship of ordinary Britons was increasingly routine, often targeted at political speech". Bloomin' cheek! What the Americans don't like is that we have laws against inciting racial, religious and certain other types of hatred. Well, first, tough. That's how we prefer to run things to promote a civilised multicultural society. Second, they might do well to consider our way, which is not to pretend that there is ever any such thing as 'absolute' free speech. Encouraging people to burn down a hotel of refugees is not, in Britain, a price worth paying for 'liberty'. Although never stated explicitly, it seems that the State Department is upset about the now totemic case of Lucy Connolly, colloquially regarded in both the UK and the US as 'locking someone up for a tweet'. Connolly was sentenced to 31 months' incarceration under laws consistent with international human rights obligations, which obviously include the protection of free speech. It was more than one message on social media that landed Connolly in the dock, the most famous of which went as follows: 'Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the bastards for all I care. While you're at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.' It was up for three hours and read 310,000 times so not trivial. But there's more. According to the recent court of appeal review of her case, and before the Southport attacks, Connolly posted a response to a video which had been shared online by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Laxley-Lennon, showing a black male being tackled to the ground for allegedly masturbating in public. She wrote: 'Somalian, I guess. Loads of them', with a vomiting emoji. On 3 August 2024, five days after the attacks, Connolly posted a further message in response to an anti-racism protest in Manchester: 'Oh good. I take it they will all be in line to sign up to house an illegal boat invader then. Oh sorry, refugee. Maybe sign a waiver to say they don't mind if it's one of their family that gets attacked, butchered, raped etc, by unvetted criminals. Not all heroes wear capes.' Two days later, Connolly sent a WhatsApp message to a friend saying: 'The raging tweet about burning down hotels has bit me on the arse lol.' She went on to say later that, if she got arrested, she would 'play the mental health card'. So that is some extra background on the case of Lucy Connolly, and nor should we forget that she was sending inflammatory messages during the worst civil disorder in years. Of course, the great irony about the 2024 riots is that they were caused by what you might call 'too much free speech'. The entirely false rumour promoted on social media was that the killer, Axel Rudakubana, was a Muslim asylum seeker who had virtually just got off a boat before setting off to commit a terrorist offence. None of that was true, but it was stated near enough as fact by people 'just asking questions' with no official interference or 'censorship' whatsoever in free speech Britain. There was no 'cover-up' of the perpetrator's status because Rudakubana was born in Britain. At his trial, it was established that his massacre was not motivated by any political, religious or racial motive but by an obsession with sadistic violence. Had this propaganda about Rudakubana been banned, a great deal of needless anger, distress, and damage would have been avoided. And what of America? Where you can be refused entry or deported for your political views, and without due process, violations of the ancient rule of habeas corpus. Where the president rules by decree and can attempt to strike out the birthright clause in the Constitution by executive order? Where the Supreme Court is packed with sympathetic judges who give him immunity from prosecution, and the president ignores court orders in any case. A land where there is no human rights legislation, no international commitments to the rights of man, where the media is cowed and the universities intimidated? Where the president dictates what is shown in museums, how history is taught and where the historic struggles of people of colour are disparaged as woke nonsense. A country where gerrymandering is a national sport. Where science is being abolished and statisticians sacked for reporting bad news. America is in a state of incipient authoritarian rule and is in no position to criticise anyone about freedom and liberty. The British should tell them all that, but we're too polite.
