Summary
- Joe Biden delivered an impassioned pitch for his infrastructure plan in Crystal Lake, Illinois. The president argued the bipartisan infrastructure framework, as well as his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, would provide critical investments in early education, affordable childcare options and renewable energy sources. “We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,” Biden said. “We see it with our own eyes, and it’s time to act.”
- Donald Trump is filing class-action lawsuits against the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google. The former president has consistently accused Facebook and Twitter of censorship since January, when he was banned from the platforms for inciting the Capitol insurrection. Most legal experts say the case lacks merit.
- The president of Haiti was assassinated in an early-morning raid that shocked the Haitian people and leaders around the world. The president, Jovenel Moïse, was killed by members of an armed group that reportedly claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Biden condemned the assassination as a “heinous” crime.
- Crews have ended the search for survivors in the Miami condo collapse. The death toll in the Surfside condo building collapse rose after more bodies were discovered in the rubble today. Dozens remain unaccounted for nearly two weeks after the building collapsed.
- Biden held a meeting with key interagency leaders to address the recent series of ransomware attacks on major companies. The meeting comes on the heels of the Kaseya ransomware attack, which has affected hundreds of companies around the world. The Republican National Committee also confirmed yesterday that its computer servers were targeted by hackers believed to be connected to the Russian government.
- Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in Washington DC. Giuliani has also been suspended from practicing law in New York after a court rule that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public” in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 elections in favor of Donald Trump.
– Joan E Greve and Maanvi Singh
Updated
Thirty-six states and Washington DC have alleged that the Google Play Store policies violate antitrust laws, and are suing the tech company.
“Google has served as the gatekeeper of the internet for many years, but, more recently, it has also become the gatekeeper of our digital devices — resulting in all of us paying more for the software we use every day,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
“Once again, we are seeing Google use its dominance to illegally quash competition and profit to the tune of billions.”
Policies that charge app developers a 30% commission for subscription purchases, exclusionary contracts and misleading security warnings that shut out competitors in Android app distribution lead to higher app prices that hurt consumers, the attorneys allege in a lawsuit.
States have filed three other lawsuits against the tech giant, over its efforts to monopolize search and its monopoly of advertising technology.
Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in Washington, DC.
Giuliani has also been suspended from practicing law in New York after a court rule that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public” in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 elections in favor of Donald Trump.
The former president’s lawyer and confidante claimed rampant fraud during the 2020 presidential election without proof. He will not be allowed from practicing law in Washington until New York resolves its case.
The bar suspensions show just how far Giuliani has fallen from his pinnacle as an attorney who served in the number 3 spot in the Justice Department, and as the US attorney in Manhattan.
Darnella Frazier’s uncle killed by police car pursuing robbery suspect
The AP reports:
The teenager who recorded the last moments of George Floyd’s life in a video that helped launch a global protest movement against racial injustice said her uncle has died in a crash involving a Minneapolis police car.
Darnella Frazier said in a Facebook post that Leneal Lamont Frazier died early on Tuesday after his vehicle was struck by a squad car police said was pursuing another driver linked to several robberies.
Frazier was not involved in the pursuit and his niece questioned why police were conducting a high-speed chase on a residential road.
“Another black man lost his life in the hands of the police!” Frazier wrote. “Minneapolis police has cost my whole family a big loss. Today has been a day full of heartbreak and sadness.”
According to police, the squad car and two other vehicles collided about 12.30am after the suspect fled from a traffic stop. The driver of one of the other vehicles was taken to North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale, where he later died. The officer involved in the crash was treated at a hospital.
Read more:
Opinion: The climate crisis will create two classes
Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a hydrologist and climatologist, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, writes:
The unprecedented heatwaves sweeping over the planet recently are harbingers of the heatwaves of the future.
The US National Climate Assessment noted that the period since 1950 in the south-western US has been hotter than any comparable period in the past 600 years, and temperatures continue to rise. Heat stress is already the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States, worse than hurricanes, tornadoes or floods. In Europe, more than 20,000 people, mostly elderly, are already estimated to die annually from exposure to extreme heat. This problem is most severe in poorer communities that lack shade trees, air conditioning and cooling shelters.
Every one of these changes shows the fingerprints of human-caused climate change. In response, humans that can move will move. Just as millions migrated over the past half-century from the colder north to sunny, warm communities in Florida, Arizona, New Mexico and southern California, we will certainly see a massive reverse migration in the coming half century away from the coasts, extreme heat and water shortages to places thought to be more favorable. We’re already seeing refugees on the southern border of the US fleeing countries suffering from drought and disasters. If greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, some models suggest that more than a million climate refugees may move from Central America and Mexico to the United States. In April, the UN high commissioner for refugees released a report showing that climate- and weather-related disasters already displace more than 20 million people a year, and a report from the Australian Institute for Economics and Peace suggests that more than a billion people could be displaced by climate and weather disasters by 2050.
How bad will it get? I don’t know because I don’t know how long our politicians will dither before finally dealing with the climate crisis. I don’t know because there are natural factors that could slightly slow or, more likely, massively speed up, the rate of change, causing cascading and accelerating disasters faster than we can adapt. But we know enough now to invest in reducing the emissions of climate-changing gases and to begin to adapt to those impacts we can no longer avoid. These changes are coming and the costs, especially to those left behind, will be beyond anything our disaster management systems have had to deal with in the past.
Read more:
Crews have ended the search for survivors in the Miami condo collapse.
“Just based on the facts, there’s zero chance of survival,” assistant chief Ray Jadallah of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue told families, according to the New York Times, of the missing in a private briefing. “We need to bring closure,” Jadallah said.
Crews pulled 10 more bodies from the rubble today, as the official death toll rose to 46. Emergency workers said they were shifting from rescue to recovery mode, after two weeks of searching for survivors. The efforts continued despite Tropical Storm Elsa making landfall.
Updated
‘A slap in the face’: crime rise warnings ignore years of work by local organizers
Abené Clayton in Oakland:
As cities across the United States are recording significant increases in homicides this year, police departments and some politicians have pointed at criminal justice reforms, low morale in police departments and officer resignations to explain the surge. Pushes to defund police departments coupled with surging gun sales have led to lawlessness, they argue, and cities should bolster police budgets and hire more officers to combat the violence.
That analysis fails to fully explain the current dynamics of rising violence. It doesn’t factor in the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable communities and the disruption brought on by lockdowns to violence prevention strategies. Furthermore, research has shown that cities that increased police budgets were just as likely to see a rise in murders as cities that reduced them.
While Democrats and Republicans are invoking the murder of Black and brown people to make their political arguments, organizers from the most affected communities say their own voices and solutions are not being heard. Relying on arrests and prosecutions to reduce violent crime has helped fuel mass incarceration and has led to the overrepresentation of Black and Latinx people in the nation’s prisons and jails, organizers say, destabilizing many already underserved families and contributing to the cycle of gun violence in these communities. And the emphasis on arrests ignores the strides that have been made by grassroots violence prevention and victim advocacy groups in past years, efforts that have proven to save lives.
“It’s frustrating that this conversation is being leveraged and exploited to become a political conversation rather than one about the disparities that are now worse,” Hollins said. “It’s also a big slap in the face to the organizing that’s been done around violence.”
The recent conversations on crime and violence come at a time when non-police responses to gun violence have been gaining greater recognition from officials at every level. Joe Biden earmarked $5bn in his infrastructure plan for community-based intervention programs that target the small population of a city’s residents who are involved in the majority of violent incidents.
On 23 June, Biden also rolled out a plan to address increased gun crimes and other public safety concerns that would “crack down on rogue gun dealers” and provide additional funds for cities to hire more officers and pay their overtime. The plan also highlights the need for sustainable support to holistic violence prevention programs.
“They intervene before it’s too late, these interrupters,” Biden said. “They turn down the temperature, halt the cycle of retaliation and connect people to services. And it works. States should invest American Rescue Plan funds in those kinds of violent crime programs.”
The services and programs that have proved to help reduce shootings in past years are diverse, reaching people at different points in the gun violence cycle. Some work with police and some don’t. Some try to intervene before shootings occur. Others dispatch people in the aftermath to assist victims and prevent retaliation. Some programs provide financial assistance for burials and connections to counseling.
Research suggests that many of these programs in California have been very successful in saving lives and public funds. In 2012 the Department of Justice recommended that hospital-based violence intervention programs like Youth Alive! Oakland and the Wraparound Project in San Francisco should be developed across the US. Homicides in Oakland dropped by nearly half in the six years following the launch of an innovative police-community partnership called Operation Ceasefire in 2012. And in Stockton, California, a recent evaluation of Advance Peace, a violence interruption program, found it contributed to a 20% drop in gun homicides and assaults and saved the city between $42.3m and $110m in its first two years of existence while operating on less than $900,000 over that same period.
Read more:
California braces for dangerously high temperatures in new heatwave
Erin McCormick in San Francisco:
A new heatwave is predicted to bring dangerously hot weather to California’s inland regions this week, as relentlessly high temperatures continue to torment the west coast.
Meteorologists are warning residents to prepare for “potentially record-breaking” temperatures as high as 115F (46C) in the Central Valley and 120F (49C) in desert areas like Palm Springs, with temperatures in Death Valley set to approach an all-time high. The heat is predicted to start to build on Wednesday and increase through the weekend.
“Temperatures are going to be about 10 degrees above normal for this time of year,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo a spokesperson for the California office of emergency services. “This will be a record-setting heatwave.”
The state is already facing extreme drought and fires spawned by the dry conditions. The fire situation could be intensified by gusty winds near the Oregon border and predicted lightning storms in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the forecasters said.
“The big story is the developing heat,” said Eric Schoening, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS). “This will be a long duration event, where it is not going to cool down much at night. So it is a dangerous time for the state.”
The warnings follow on the heels of last week’s record-setting heatwave in the normally-cool Pacific north-west, which left hundreds dead in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia from heat-related illness, and as North America emerges from the hottest June on record.
Read more:
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Joe Biden delivered an impassioned pitch for his infrastructure plan in Crystal Lake, Illinois. The president argued the bipartisan infrastructure framework, as well as his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, would provide critical investments in early education, affordable childcare options and renewable energy sources. “We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,” Biden said. “We see it with our own eyes, and it’s time to act.”
- Donald Trump is filing class-action lawsuits against the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google. The former president has consistently accused Facebook and Twitter of censorship since January, when he was banned from the platforms for inciting the Capitol insurrection. Most legal experts say the case lacks merit.
- The president of Haiti was assassinated in an early-morning raid that shocked the Haitian people and leaders around the world. The president, Jovenel Moïse, was killed by members of an armed group that reportedly claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Biden condemned the assassination as a “heinous” crime.
- The death toll in the Surfside condo building collapse rose to 46, after 10 more bodies were discovered in the rubble. Another 94 people remain unaccounted for nearly two weeks after the building collapsed.
- Biden held a meeting with key interagency leaders to address the recent series of ransomware attacks on major companies. The meeting comes on the heels of the Kaseya ransomware attack, which has affected hundreds of companies around the world. The Republican National Committee also confirmed yesterday that its computer servers were targeted by hackers believed to be connected to the Russian government.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Surfside condo building collapse death toll rises to 46
In case you missed it earlier today: the death toll in the Surfside condo building collapse rose to 46, after rescue crews recovered ten more bodies from the rubble.
The mayor of Miami-Dade county, Daniella Levine Cava, said that 32 of the victims have been identified. As of today, 94 people remain unaccounted for.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said that the search and rescue workers recovered an additional 10 victims from the rubble of the collapsed condo in Surfside, bringing the death toll to 46 https://t.co/PjOVUlbYIJ pic.twitter.com/McRG8KWIxh
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 7, 2021
Levine Cava repeatedly became emotional at a press conference today as she announced the updated death toll, describing the grief of the victims’ families and the anguish of those still waiting to hear about their missing loved ones.
“Our commitment to this mission is deeply personal. This is our community, our neighbors, our families,” Levine Cava said.
“And our first responders have truly searched that pile every single day since the collapse as if they’re searching for their own loved ones.”
During a press gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Illinois earlier today, Jen Psaki provided a few details on Joe Biden’s morning meeting with key interagency leaders to address recent ransomware attacks.
The White House press secretary told reporters, “In this meeting, they provided an update on their ongoing work: surge capacity, resilience and reporting, addressing payment systems, and our ongoing efforts to combat ransomware.”
Psaki said the administration did not have “anything new to report in terms of attribution” or operational actions, but she noted that Biden “reserves the right to respond against any ransomware networks and those that harbor them”.
Before leaving for Illinois, Biden was asked for his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin after the series of ransomware attacks, some of which have been blamed on hackers based in Russia. Biden replied, “I will deliver it to him.”
Joe Biden will soon start making his way back to Washington after delivering a speech on infrastructure in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has also released a statement on Biden’s conversation with Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot earlier today.
“During a greet with Mayor Lightfoot on the airport tarmac, President Biden expressed his personal support for the two ATF officials and the Chicago police officer who were shot earlier today,” Psaki said.
“He reiterated his commitment to working with the Mayor and leaders in Chicago in the fight against gun violence and conveyed that the Department of Justice would soon be in touch about the strike force announced just a few weeks ago that will be working with cities like Chicago.”
A Chicago police officer and two federal agents were shot on the Far South Side of the city early this morning. According to the Chicago Tribune, the three law enforcement officers were fired upon while sitting in an unmarked police vehicle on their way to conduct a joint investigation.
Before delivering his remarks on infrastructure at McHenry County College, Joe Biden visited the college’s child learning center, which provides childcare to students who are parents.
During the visit, one reporter asked Biden if he was concerned about Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s comments that he will wage a “hell of a fight” if Democrats attempt to pass an infrastructure bill along party lines.
In response, Biden pointed to the Republican leader’s positive comments about the president’s coronavirus relief package, joking, “Mitch McConnell loves our programs.”
President Biden on @LeaderMcConnell: "Mitch McConnell loves our programs...Look it up man, he’s bragging about it in Kentucky..." pic.twitter.com/Pnaxtv80r2
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 7, 2021
Biden’s comment appeared to be a reference to McConnell saying yesterday that the coronavirus relief package would bring a lot of money to Kentucky.
“You’re going to get a lot more money,” McConnell said at an event in his home state. “I didn’t vote for it. But you’re going to get a lot more money. Cities and counties in Kentucky will get close to $700 or $800 million.”
Speaking to reporters today, Biden said of McConnell, “Look it up man, he’s bragging about it in Kentucky.”
'We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,' Biden says in infrastructure pitch
Speaking in Crystal Lake, Illinois, Joe Biden delivered an impassioned pitch for his infrastructure proposals, saying the country needed to invest in early education, affordable childcare options and renewable energy sources.
The president emphasized that the bipartisan infrastructure framework and the Democratic reconciliation package would bolster the country’s response to the climate crisis.
Pres. Biden says the bipartisan infrastructure deal will address the climate crisis, but that his Build Back Better plan will take it further: "We can't wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis. We see it with our own eyes." pic.twitter.com/ZdSrUP5YrA
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 7, 2021
Issuing a warning about the dangerous weather patterns the US is seeing, Biden noted the country currently faces the threats of extreme heat, record drought and a looming wildfire season that could be the worst one yet.
“We can’t wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis,” Biden said. “We see it with our own eyes, and it’s time to act.”
As he wrapped up his speech at McHenry County College, the president acknowledged his remarks had gotten into the weeds of infrastructure policy.
“I know that’s a boring speech, but it’s an important speech,” Biden said.
Delivering a pitch for his infrastructure proposals, Joe Biden took a moment to criticize senator Ron Johnson, a Republican of Wisconsin, for questioning the reality of climate change.
“From 2010 to 2020, Illinois had 49 extreme weather events,” Biden said. “Although I heard today from a senator north of here that, a Republican senator, there is no global warming.”
CNN obtained a video of Johnson saying at a recent event with a Republican group that he believes climate change is “bullshit” (although he mouthed the expletive rather than saying it aloud).
Johnson’s comments ignore the scientific consensus that global temperatures are rising because of human activity.
Biden pitches reconciliation infrastructure bill: 'We need to invest in our people'
Joe Biden has started his speech at McHenry County College to promote his infrastructure proposals, including his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan.
The president mocked his predecessor, Donald Trump, for repeatedly announcing “infrastructure week” but ultimately failing to pass any major infrastructure bills during his four years in office.
“God willing, we’re not going to have 40 weeks of ‘infrastructure week.’ Remember those?” Biden joked.
"We need to invest in people": Pres. Biden says while promoting his education, childcare and health care priorities during a visit to Illinois https://t.co/FcCfjbM7bM pic.twitter.com/rDD7yqkgi3
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 7, 2021
The president also emphasized the importance of “human infrastructure,” arguing the US absolutely must invest in critical areas like education and childcare.
“To truly deal everybody in this time, we need to invest in our people,” Biden said.
Many of Biden’s original infrastructure proposals were not included in the bipartisan infrastructure framework, so Democrats are working to craft a reconciliation bill to cover more of the president’s legislative priorities, including expanding access to affordable childcare.
If Democrats use reconciliation with the second infrastructure bill, they will not need any Republican support to pass the proposal.
Updated
Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, Illinois, to promote the bipartisan infrastructure framework and his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan.
Before his speech, Biden toured the community college to highlight how his economic proposals would help students and educators.
Biden saw the college’s manufacturing lab and child learning center, which is meant to provide childcare for college students who are also parents.
The president noted he was a single parent for five years after his first wife and daughter died in a car crash in 1972.
“I could not afford child care. But I had a family to help,” Biden said. “People can’t make it by themselves. This is really important.”
The blog will have more updates on the president’s remarks, so stay tuned.
The White House has just announced that the king and queen of Jordan will visit Washington with their son, the crown prince, later this month.
“The President and the First Lady look forward to welcoming His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan, Her Majesty Queen Rania, and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hussein to the White House on July 19, 2021,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a statement.
“His Majesty’s visit will highlight the enduring and strategic partnership between the United States and Jordan, a key security partner and ally of the United States. It will be an opportunity to discuss the many challenges facing the Middle East and showcase Jordan’s leadership role in promoting peace and stability in the region.”
Psaki added that Joe Biden will use the meeting as an opportunity to “strengthen bilateral cooperation on multiple political, security, and economic issues”.
King Abdullah has already started a three-week visit to the US, and his team previously indicated he meant to meet with Biden during the trip. The meeting will make King Abdullah the first Arab leader to visit the White House since Biden took office.
Reuters reports:
The staunch U.S. ally will lobby senior officials for an extension of a five-year $6.4 billion aid package that ends next year to help shore up Jordan’s struggling economy, the official added.
Washington is Jordan’s single largest source of bilateral assistance, providing more than $1.5 billion every year, and the kingdom ranks among the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid, U.S. diplomats say.
Not vastly surprisingly, the Republican National Committee is fundraising off Trump’s announcement of lawsuits against the tech platforms from which he is suspended.
Also, an interesting nugget from NBC News, given what was talked about at Bedminster just now:
NBC News: House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy plans to appoint Republicans to the Jan 6 select committee
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) July 7, 2021
And also also, this from CNN, quoting the Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger, one of few in his party willing to oppose Donald Trump and to call for proper investigation of 6 January and all that.
“I think the vast majority, if not all of my colleagues, believe that this was a Trump-incited insurrection. But when you’re in a tribe, if you say something truthful, that gets you kicked out of the tribe, you keep your head down, and you stay in the tribe.”
In light of the news this esteemed organ helped to break this morning, that Donald Trump reportedly told chief of staff John Kelly “Hitler did a lot of good things” (which Trump denies but for which the author Michael Bender has sources), it seems incumbent upon me to guide readers to an infamous previous flirtation between Trump and all things, well, Nazi.
After the Gold Rush is a justly famous piece from Vanity Fair in September 1990 by Marie Brenner. And a passage within its superb portrait of Trump’s failed first marriage and failing finances… reads as follows:
Donald Trump appears to take aspects of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office, Ivana [Trump] told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, “Heil Hitler,” possibly as a family joke.
Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.
“Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?” I asked Trump.
Trump hesitated. “Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”)
Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”
Is Ivana trying to convince her friends and lawyer that Trump is a crypto-Nazi? Trump is no reader or history buff. Perhaps his possession of Hitler’s speeches merely indicates an interest in Hitler’s genius at propaganda. The Führer often described his defeats at Stalingrad and in North Africa as great victories. Trump continues to endow his diminishing world with significance as well. “There’s nobody that has the cash flow that I have,” he told The Wall Street Journal long after he knew better. “I want to be king of cash.”
So, as they say, there’s that. And, of course, there’s this:
More analysis of what Trump is up to (in short, something) and what are the chances he succeeds (in short, next to nothing), helpfully rounded up by the Associated Press.
Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University in California, has according to the AP “studied more than 60 similar, failed lawsuits over the past few decades that sought to take on internet companies for terminating or suspending users’ accounts”.
He says: “They’ve argued everything under the sun, including First Amendment, and they get nowhere. Maybe he’s got a trick up his sleeve that will give him a leg up on the dozens of lawsuits before him. I doubt it.”
The AP adds: “Goldman said it’s likely Trump is pursuing the suits to garner attention. As president, Trump last year signed an executive order challenging Section 230” – the federal regulation that governs content on online platforms – another move “about sending a message to their base that they’re fighting on their behalf against the evil Silicon Valley tech giants”.
Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, chips in: “Frivolous class action litigation will not change the fact that users, even US Presidents, have to abide by the rules they agreed to.”
Our Washington bureau chief reports …
Donald Trump held a rambling press conference on Wednesday to announce legal action against Facebook, Twitter and Google, accusing the tech giants of censoring conservative voices.
Trump was once an irrepressible, agenda-setting force on social media but in the wake of the 6 January insurrection was banned from Twitter and suspended from Facebook until at least 2023 because of the risk of inciting further violence.
“We’re asking the US district court for the southern district of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people,” Trump said in a faux-presidential setting of blue lectern, white columns and a dozen US flags at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“We’re demanding an end to the shadow banning, a stop to the silencing, a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well. Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful. It’s unconstitutional, and it’s completely un-American. We all know that. We know that very, very well.”
Complaints of Silicon Valley-based tech platform censorship have become a familiar talking point on the political right but many of the most popular personalities on sites such as Facebook are conservatives, such as Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro.
Even so, Trump said that, in conjunction with the new America First Policy Institute (AFPI) think tank, he is filing a class action lawsuit against tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter as well as their chief executives Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey.
“In addition, we are asking the court to impose punitive damages on these social media giants,” he continued during remarks that zigzagged through various subjects. “We’re going to hold big tech very accountable. This is the first of numerous other lawsuits, I assume, that would follow.
“But this is the lead, and I think it’s going to be a very, very important game changer for our country. It will be a pivotal battle in the defense of the first amendment and, in the end, I am confident that we will achieve a historic victory for American freedom and at the same time, freedom of speech.”
The lawsuit faces tough odds. Under a law known as Section 230, internet companies are generally allowed to moderate their content by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in “good faith”.
Updated
Over in the slightly less dramatic world of the business of governing, Joe Biden will today visit a community college in Illinois, to tout his plan to pay for “human infrastructure” investment by raising taxes on corporations.
Air Force One has touched down at O’Hare, and Biden is on his way to McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, near Chicago.
Biden wants investment in things that are not roads, bridges and other things some Republicans can deal with, which are covered by the $1.2tn deal which will soon pass through Congress – or die trying.
As Reuters helpfully puts it, Biden’s priorities include “tax rebates for parents, free preschool and community college, healthcare and clean energy subsidies as well as paid medical leave, financed by raising corporate taxes on US companies.
“Corporations currently supply less than 10% of US tax revenue, down from nearly 40% in the 1940s.”
Such investment will have to be achieved through Senate rules meant to allow Democrats to pass legislation with simple majority support – which they can achieve via Kamala Harris’s casting vote in a chamber split 50-50, which gives them about as much wriggle room as a ferret stuck the wrong way down a drainpipe.
The opposition is prepared. Republican minority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has promised a “hell of a fight for what this country ought to look like in the future” over tax and spending.
Rachelle Bernstein, chief tax counsel for a retail lobby group, told Reuters: “We don’t think it is good to use a corporate tax increase to finance spending.”
A succinct reaction to Trump’s claims about the first amendment from noted law professor Steve Vladeck, on one of the social media platforms from which Trump is banned and which he is now suing for allegedly violating his first amendment rights:
The First Amendment does *not* apply to non-governmental actors. Full stop. https://t.co/FAmXafuOZZ
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) July 7, 2021
Don’t be taken in by the “what if it does” retort.
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) July 7, 2021
The “state action” doctrine is about as firmly embedded a principle of constitutional law as there is. To overturn it would have incredibly broad consequences — many of which the current Supreme Court would be loath to embrace.
Trump was thrown off Facebook and Twitter, of course, because of what happened at the US Capitol on 6 January. He has announced his lawsuits. You can read the following by Sam Levine:
Hours after the US Capitol was secured against a violent insurrection on 6 January, the Senate reconvened in a late-night session to move ahead with certifying Joe Biden’s electoral college victory. It was a dramatic moment designed to send a clear message: democracy would prevail.
“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins,” the then vice-president, Mike Pence, said as senators reconvened. “As we reconvene in this chamber, the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy.”
“They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed,” Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said on the Senate floor.
But while the attack on the Capitol failed on 6 January, the attack on US democracy has continued unabated. It continued immediately after the riot, when Republican lawmakers continued to object to the electoral college results in that late-night session, and has only grown in the six months that followed.
Trump has wrapped up events at Bedminster with a plea for the mainstream media to cover crime in cities.
“Just talk about the crime,” he says, talking about the crime, and telling the press it has to “get its credibility back”.
I suppose I can’t resist this – this from a man who reportedly told his chief of staff “Hitler did a lot of good things”.
Donald Trump is talking at his golf club in New Jersey, announcing he is suing Facebook, Twitter and Google, accusing the tech giants of censoring him.
He is standing alongside members of the relatively new America First Policy Institute (AFPI) think tank, a group that news website Axios describes as a “constellation of Trump administration stars”, who launched a 35-person nonprofit group in April with the mission of perpetuating the former president’s populist policies.
A statement from AFPI said it: “applauds the class action lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida by Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, and other brave patriots representing Americans who have had their First Amendment rights violated by Defendants Facebook, Inc., Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter, Inc., Jack Dorsey, Google LLC, and Sundar Pichai.”
The statement continued that “these elites and their firms ride roughshod over some of the most fundamental American rights: the right to speak, the right to be heard, and the right to democratic representation. This lawsuit is not the end of that fight: it is a beginning.”
However, Trump was banned from the platforms because he and his behind-the-scenes cohorts were posting dangerous misinformation and using language that could insight violence.
He was initially suspended from Facebook in January for 24 hours, then the ban was to be indefinite and, on the latest decision from the company’s oversight board, the ban will remain until at least two years after it began.
Zuckerberg said Trump’s suspension came as a consequence of his support for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6.
In a post to Facebook at the time, Zuckerberg said:“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.”
After spreading lies and insults via his Twitter account throughout his presidency, Trump was banned by the platform in February of this year, with the company saying it is a permanent ban.
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Trump sues Facebook, Twitter, Google, claiming 'censorship'
Donald Trump just confirmed he is filing a lawsuit against US technology giants Facebook, Twitter and Google.
The former president will serve as the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit, claiming he has been wrongfully censored by the companies
When he was still president, Trump was suspended from Twitter and Facebook after his followers stormed the Capitol building in an insurrection on 6 January this year aimed at stopping the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The companies cited concerns that he would incite further violence.
“This censorship is yet another blatant violation of the US constitution,” Trump said at a live event in New Jersey moments ago.
Currently, Trump can no longer post on either Facebook or Twitter.
Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, Reuters has more on this, and also contributed to the above report. The news agency writes:
Internet companies are generally exempt from liability for the material that users post. The law, which provides a legal “safe harbor” for internet companies, also allows social media platforms to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in “good faith.”
But Trump and other politicians have long argued that Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms have abused that protection and should lose their immunity or at least have to earn it by satisfying requirements set by the government.
Google and Twitter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Facebook declined comment on the suit.Trump is set to make the announcement at an event at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course Wednesday morning.
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Biden condemns 'heinous' assassination of Haiti's president
Joe Biden called the situation in Haiti very worrisome and said more information was needed on the death of the country’s president.
Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by unidentified attackers in his private residence overnight.
The US president, in a statement, said the US condemned the “heinous” act of Moïse’s murder. Biden said the US stands with Haiti.
Biden statement on the assassination of Haiti's president: "We condemn this heinous act...The United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti, and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti. " pic.twitter.com/XtKFMyU9KL
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) July 7, 2021
Local reports said the international airport in Port-au-Prince has been closed, Reuters reported.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, also condemned the assassination and called for those responsible to be brought to justice, his spokesman said in a statement.
“The secretary general calls on all Haitians to preserve the constitutional order, remain united in the face of this abhorrent act and reject all violence,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
“The United Nations will continue to stand with the government and the people of Haiti.”
Biden is on a trip to Illinois today to discuss his efforts to get a major infrastructure bill passed with bipartisan support.
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Trump to file lawsuits against Twitter and Facebook CEOs - report
Donald Trump intends to file class-action lawsuits against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, according to a new report.
Axios reports:
It’s the latest escalation in Trump’s yearslong battle with Twitter and Facebook over free speech and censorship. Trump is completely banned from Twitter and is banned from Facebook for another two years. ...
Trump’s legal effort is supported by the America First Policy Institute, a non-profit focused on perpetuating Trump’s policies. ...
Class action lawsuits would enable him to sue the two tech CEOs on behalf of a broader group of people that he argues have been censored by biased policies.
To date, Trump and other conservative critics have not presented any substantial evidence that either platform is biased against conservatives in its policies or implementation of them.
Trump is scheduled to hold a press conference in about 30 minutes, and he is expected to announce the lawsuits at the event.
As Axios notes, this is only the latest data point in Trump’s long history of suing his opponents.
The White House described the assassination of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, as a “horrific crime” and expressed support for the people of Haiti during this difficult time.
Press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the assassination during her appearance on CNN this morning.
“It’s a horrific crime and we’re so sorry for the loss,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says about the Haitian president’s assassination. “And we stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed.” https://t.co/PoVy2klZSQ pic.twitter.com/tbdBEQtwjH
— CNN International (@cnni) July 7, 2021
“The message to the people of Haiti is this is a tragedy, it’s a horrific crime, and we’re so sorry for the loss that they are all suffering and going through as many of them are waking up this morning and hearing this news,” Psaki said.
“We stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed.”
Psaki noted the White House is “still gathering details” on the assassination, which happened in the early hours of this morning.
“It’s a tragedy. We stand with them, and it’s important that the people of Haiti know that,” Psaki said.
The US embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, issued a security alert after news broke that the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse, had been assassinated.
“Due to an ongoing security situation, the US Embassy is restricting its direct-hire US citizen staff to the Embassy compounds in Tabarre until further notice,” the alert says.
“The Embassy will be closed today, including for consular services. Please avoid unnecessary travel in this area at this time.”
Haiti president Jovenel Moïse assassinated
The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont and Tom Phillips report:
The president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, has been assassinated in his home by a group of armed men who also seriously injured his wife, according to a statement and comments made by the country’s interim prime minister.
Speaking on a local radio station, Claude Joseph confirmed that Moïse, 53, had been killed, saying the attack was carried out by an “armed commando group” that included foreigners.
According to some reports and video published in the Miami Herald and elsewhere, Moïse’s killers claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as they entered his guarded residence.
In videos circulating on social media, a man with an American accent is heard saying in English over a megaphone: “DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. Everybody back up, stand down.”
“These were mercenaries,” a high-ranking Haitian government official said.
The two cyber-attacks that both appear to be of Russian origin present a major test for the relationship between Joe Biden and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, just one month after the two leaders met in Geneva.
The New York Times notes:
The newest attacks appeared to cross many lines that Mr. Biden has said he would no longer tolerate. On the campaign trail last year, he put Russia ‘on notice’ that, as president, he would respond aggressively to counter any interference in American elections. Then in April, he called Mr. Putin to warn him about impending economic sanctions in response to the SolarWinds breach. ...
The issue has become so urgent that it has begun shifting the negotiations between Washington and Moscow, raising the control of digital weapons to a level of urgency previously seen largely in nuclear arms control negotiations.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters yesterday that US and Russian officials would meet again next week to discuss cyber-attacks.
“Since the meeting between President Biden and President Putin, we have undertaken expert-level talks that are continuing, and we expect to have another meeting next week focused on ransomware attacks,” Psaki said.
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Even as Joe Biden meets with senior advisers to discuss the Kaseya attack, new details are coming out about yet another cybe-rattack.
Bloomberg News broke the news yesterday that Russian state hackers breached the computer systems of the Republican National Committee last week.
Bloomberg reported:
The government hackers were part of a group known as APT 29 or Cozy Bear, according to the people. That group has been tied to Russia’s foreign intelligence service and has previously been accused of breaching the Democratic National Committee in 2016 and of carrying out a supply-chain cyberattack involving SolarWinds Corp., which infiltrated nine U.S. government agencies and was disclosed in December.
It’s not known what data the hackers viewed or stole, if anything.
The hack is the latest indication that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, seems to be ignoring Joe Biden’s warnings against interfering in US politics.
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Biden to hold interagency meeting to discuss latest ransomware attack
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Joe Biden will hold a meeting this morning with key interagency leaders to discuss the administration’s response to the latest ransomware attack.
The Guardian’s Kari Paul has more details on the attack:
Hackers last week infiltrated a Florida-based information technology firm and deployed a ransomware attack, seizing troves of data and demanding $70m in payment for its return.
The hack of the Kaseya firm, which is already being called ‘the biggest ransomware attack on record’, has affected hundreds of businesses globally, including supermarkets in Sweden and schools in New Zealand. ...
Affiliates of the Russian hacker group REvil have claimed responsibility for the attack. REVil is the group that in June unleashed a major ransomware attack on the meat producer JBS, crippling the company and its supply until it paid a $11m ransom.
Biden said yesterday that his administration was still gathering information on the attack, and he planned to say more about how he would respond in the coming days.
The US president has previously indicated that he will hold Russia responsible for hosting these cyber-attackers, and the White House reiterated that stance yesterday.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “As the president made clear to President Putin when they met, if the Russian government cannot or will not take action against criminal actors residing in Russia, we will take action or reserve the right to take action on our own.”
The blog will have more details on the meeting coming up, so stay tuned.
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