Tag Archives : Build House

Kinzinger says Trump would probably lie under oath to Jan. 6 committee

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday said he saw little value in attempting to have Donald Trump testify before the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol because he did not trust the former president would tell the truth, even under oath.

“Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t mind not telling the truth, let’s just put that mildly. He lies all the time, I wouldn’t put it past him to even lie under oath, so I’m not sure what the value is there,” Kinzinger said Sunday on CBS “Face the Nation.” 

While Kinzinger told host Margaret Brennan he doesn’t see value in having the former president testify in person before the panel, he said he would like to hear the perspective of former Vice President Mike Pence.

“I think it would be important to hear everything he has to say,” Kinzinger said, though he said he wasn’t sure if he preferred a subpoena for Pence to testify in person or a request for a transcribed interview. “That said, I’m not sure we get a ton more out of him than what his staff has already told us.”

The former vice president’s chief of staff Marc Short testified before the committee in January. On CBS last week, Short said it would set a “very risky precedent” to ask his former boss to talk to the committee.

Kinzinger said Sunday that the committee’s eighth public hearing, scheduled for Thursday, is the end of this “grouping,” but that he expects to have more hearings as new information surfaces.

“I think the thing to keep in mind is this – this investigation is not winding down. We may be towards the end of this tranche of hearings, we may have more hearings in the future, and the investigation is still ongoing. So we’re getting to the bottom of what we need to know,” he said.  

“As you saw with Cassidy Hutchinson, if we get information that the American people need to know, we may end up bringing up more hearings at that time, too.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Abortion fight comes to Senate, House floors

Legislative battles over abortion access are heating up in the House and Senate as Democrats look to raise pressure on Republicans.

A round of bills aimed at protecting abortion access that were introduced by Democrats were considered on Capitol Hill this week, leading to the first instances of lawmakers butting heads over such legislation since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month.

Though the bills are unlikely to pass in the evenly divided Senate, where they would require bipartisan support to overcome the legislative filibuster, Democrats are pushing for action in the aftermath of the court’s decision and seeking to get Republican members of Congress on the record objecting to legislation on the issue in an apparent attempt to paint GOP lawmakers as going to extremes to stop abortions.

Republicans have in turn accused Democrats of fear-mongering when they argue that the GOP will seek to block access to contraception and try to enact a nationwide abortion ban.

A bill that would codify protections for abortion access into federal law — the Women’s Health Protection Act — was passed by the House 219-209 almost entirely along party lines on Friday after previously being approved by the chamber in September. Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas) voted against the measure, along with all Republican members apart from two who did not vote.

Republican lawmakers lambasted the legislation as a form of government overreach during debate over it on Friday, with several members referring to it as the “abortion on demand until birth act.” Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) argued it stripped away state laws that protected women from coercion to terminate their pregnancies and claimed it would force pro-life physicians to perform abortions.

The House also on Friday passed a bill 223-205 that would protect out-of-state travel for abortion services, with three Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Fred Upton (Mich.) — joining Democrats in voting for the measure.

Democratic lawmakers slammed their GOP colleagues for opposing the bill.

“It is absolutely important to get Republicans on the record to how far they will go to restrict a woman’s right,” Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) told The Hill. “Are they really saying that women should not be allowed to travel to another state to get a medical procedure?”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) communications director Henry Connelly tweeted shortly after the vote, “Genuinely very scary that 205 House Republicans just voted to enable states to arrest, fine or sue women for traveling to get an abortion *even where it is still legal.*”

GOP opposition means both bills are unlikely to pass in the evenly divided Senate, where they will need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster. The upper chamber has already failed to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act twice since September, and this week a Republican senator blocked a separate bill seeking to protect those traveling across state lines to get abortions.

Democratic senators on Tuesday unveiled legislation that would bar state legislatures from banning or restricting interstate travel to obtain abortions in states where they are still allowed. The bill was quickly brought up for a unanimous consent vote on the Senate floor just days after it was introduced, only to be blocked by Republican Sen. James Lankford (Okla.).

Lankford sought to center the debate over the bill on the life of the fetus, saying in remarks opposing the legislation, “The conversation today is not just about women. There are two people in this conversation — a child with ten fingers and ten toes and a beating heart and DNA that is uniquely different than mom’s DNA or the dad’s DNA.”

Democratic lawmakers, in contrast, looked to emphasize the rights of pregnant people.

Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) both described the bill as protecting privacy rights, with Gillibrand explicitly saying it was “not about a medical procedure,” but about privacy for pregnant people as well as their freedom to travel across state lines.

A number of Democrats, including President Biden, have called for the Senate to carve out an exception to the filibuster to codify abortion rights after Roe was overturned. Chu, the sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, reiterated her support for eliminating the filibuster in order to pass the bill, blaming the Senate’s two Republican pro-abortion rights members — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — for it being stalled. A change to the filibuster would require the support of all 50 Democratic senators, however, and Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have opposed altering the rule.

As congressional Democrats seek to pass abortion protections, party leaders like Biden and Pelosi have been encouraging Americans to vote in the upcoming midterms in order to ensure abortion access.

Biden criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe early this month, saying, “The court now practically dares the women of America to go to the ballot box and restore the very rights they’ve just taken away.”

The president had previously called on voters to elect more pro-choice lawmakers when the Women’s Health Protection Act failed to pass in a Senate vote earlier this year.

“We actually need to do all things,” Chu said of the multiple approaches Democrats are taking to protect abortion access. “There have been marches and demonstrations and rallies all across America on a continuous basis for these three weeks. We need to do that and we also need to point to the elections.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Obama economic adviser on recession risks: 'I’m not that much more worried than I am normally'

Jason Furman, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Obama, said on Sunday that he thinks a recession is “certainly possible,” but he is not as pessimistic as some other economic forecasters.

“I’m not that much more worried than I am normally,” Furman told CBS “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan. 

“But I don’t have any confidence in that, in part because the economic signals are really unclear in the first half of the year,” he said.

Annual inflation ending in June hit a nearly 41-year high of 9.1 percent, with oil prices helping drive the surge. 

Many economists have been increasing their predictions of a recession in recent weeks as the Federal Reserve rapidly raises interest rates to cool demand and stem inflation, pointing to supply-side constraints on commodities like oil that have been further strained by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Furman on Sunday noted that job growth has continued even after the Fed’s recent rate hikes. 

He also pointed to a decline in consumer sentiment while strong spending continued simultaneously, although consumer spending did fall in May when adjusted for inflation.

“It’s hard to square a lot of these contradictory signals right now,” Furman said.

Furman acknowledged that the risks of a recession are “certainly more likely” than they normally are, but he rejected the idea of a recession being a “foregone conclusion.”

That remark is on par with Biden administration officials, who in recent weeks have said a recession is “not inevitable” and have downplayed some economists’ projections.

“But I’m looking through a cloudy rearview mirror, trying to guess what’s going to happen ahead of us,” Furman told Brennan.

Source: TEST FEED1

Lofgren says next Jan. 6 hearing will focus on riot 'minute by minute'

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on Sunday said the next public hearing by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will focus on how the rioting unfolded “minute-by-minute.”

In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, Lofgren said Thursday’s hearing will shine a light on what happened throughout the day of the attempted insurrection.

‘We hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn’t happen on that day, and people can make their own judgment,” Lofgren said.

Lawmakers on the panel have already accused Trump of failing to call off the riot for hours despite repeated calls from several allies to do so. Thursday’s hearing may reveal more evidence of what the former president was doing that day.

The House panel also presented evidence that Trump may have encouraged armed rioters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the testimony of a former White House aide. A former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified Trump also lunged for the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle demanding his Secret Service detail take him to the Capitol to join his supporters.

The agency has said they would respond to the committee about Hutchinson’s account but so far has not done so.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office sent a letter to lawmakers saying they were unable to recover “many” text messages from the Secret Service because the agency had deleted them as part of a department-wide device replacement program.

The House panel has subpoenaed the Secret Service for the text messages and other information, which they expect to get by Tuesday.

The Secret Service denied they deleted messages maliciously, but Lofgren told Raddartz it was “crazy” the federal agency didn’t backup the data.

“I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That’s crazy. I don’t know why that would be,” she said. “We need to get this information to get the full picture.”

Lofgren said lawmakers will continue to investigate the Capitol attack and will issue a preliminary report and a final report by the end of the year.

“We’re going to plow ahead and get our job done, find all of the facts and then lay all the facts out for the American people,” she said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Three essential initiatives to defend democracy against corruption

The expression “all politics is local,” meaning that a politician’s success hinges on his or her ability to understand and influence the issues of constituents, held true for generations. In today’s world, however, the increasingly globalized nature of corruption subverts local democratic politics and processes. 

Autocrats use and abuse state resources to corrode institutions, harass the democratic opposition and curtail domestic accountability systems. Leveraging the global financial system and its network of international enablers, autocrats are able to hide and grow these ill-gotten gains offshore, thus increasing their ability to fund domestic repression and even influence politics and elections in other countries. 

Recognition of the dangers of transnational corruption is growing. The inclusion of anti-corruption as one of the three core pillars of the Summit for Democracy is part of a broader global effort to rally the democratic community of nations. 

The dimensions and complexity of transnational crime defy quick fix solutions. Game-changing progress demands grand-scale solutions such as the following: 

• Stand with Ukraine. Simply put, Russia’s illegal invasion of a free and sovereign Ukraine is existential for the Ukrainian people: their sovereignty, freedoms and way of life are on the line. On an international scale, the stakes are similarly high: a battle for peace and rule of law pitched against the forces of warfare and kleptocracy. The assault that began on Feb. 24 is simply aggression by other means. For years, Putin used disinformation and “strategic corruption” to inflict damage on Ukraine’s democracy and economy.  If Ukraine maintains its sovereignty, autocrats might think twice before committing the sort of cross-border repression that is becoming increasingly common, whether it’s hijacking an airline, kidnapping a dissident, or (potentially) invading a free and democratic neighboring country. Thousands of Ukrainians have already made the ultimate sacrifice to defend rule of law in their country.  It’s up to the rest of the democratic world to stand with them, resolutely and unified. In the short-term, this means giving Ukrainians the tools they need to end Russia’s illegal assault. And, in the longer-term, it means shutting down the dark money havens, particularly in Europe and North America, that have long helped to finance the Kremlin’s capacity for repression. 
• Win the Information Space Race. Despite democracy’s intrinsic value and superior performance in delivering economic and social progress, the messaging on democracy’s dividends has been lost in translation. Kleptocrats draw on deep pockets in their efforts to repress and manipulate opinion. In 2021, Russia increased its propaganda budget to about $2.8 billion — a $460 million increase from previous years. In comparison, the U.S. Agency for Global Media —including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and other outlets — has an annual budget of about $840 million. Independent media is particularly crucial for anti-corruption activism and the autocrats know it. Journalists who report on corruption, such as Rappler CEO and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, are harassed in smear campaigns; women reporters and reformers bear a disproportionate share of the abuse. Recovering the information space so that it reflects integrity and freedom, rather than disinformation and repression, will require a massive and concerted clean-up effort in support of independent media, media literacy and harmonized platform transparency and regulation among other initiatives. The best analogy is a modern-day “Marshall Plan for the Information Space” that would draw on the resources and commitment of democratic actors around the globe. 
• Disrupt Debt, Democratically. The sovereign debt system is in desperate need of a democratic reset. The current state of opaque and unsustainable debt represents a major impediment to global development and rule of law.  Loans are often contracted without public knowledge.  Parliaments are similarly sidelined by governments and lenders eager to fast-track deals that may be in their interests, but not necessarily in the public’s interest. Opacity fuels corruption and expands authoritarian influence. The government of Mozambique borrowed and likely misused, without disclosing, loans from private banks totaling $1.3 billion. The world’s largest single creditor, China has been able to expand its influence through lending that features confidentiality clauses and the collateralization of strategic reserves. The development impacts are no less impactful. Unsustainable debt reduces funding for essential public services: In 2021, 25 of the world’s poorest countries spent more on debt service payments than on health, education and social protection combined. The key to preventing future cycles of debt distress is building transparency and accountability into the global sovereign debt regime. Lenders must be transparent: Government, multilateral and private creditors should consistently disclose loans and their terms within 30 days of contract signature. Likewise, borrower governments should hold accountable debt contracting processes, inclusive of public scrutiny and parliamentary approval.

Time is running out for democratic leaders to act decisively against transnational corruption. In order to defend democracy, political and civic leaders will need to deploy anti-corruption strategies that are at least as concerted, innovative, adaptive, and transnational as the corrupt networks themselves. Thus far, corrupt actors have been able to exploit fissures within and between democratic countries.  Moving forward, to fight kleptocracy and autocracy effectively, the democratic world must demonstrate unity of purpose and action.  

Kristen Sample is director, democratic governance, National Democratic Institute (NDI).

Source: TEST FEED1

White House COVID-19 coordinator says virus 'still evolving rapidly'

As variants continue to circulate and develop, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha says the U.S. has “got to stay on top of this virus” as it quickly evolves.

“We’re still in the middle of this pandemic,” Jha said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

The latest COVID-19 subvariant, BA.5, is the most highly transmissible to date, Jha said. It’s also “immune-evasive,” leading to high levels of reinfection and breakthrough infections. 

Vaccines are still effective at staving off severe illness, he added, but they’re not as protective against BA.5 compared to other iterations of the virus.

“If you got your booster, let’s say, last November or December, you don’t have as much protection against this virus as you’d like.”

Jha added that it’s “absolutely critical” for those over 50 years of age who have not received a shot this year to get one as soon as possible. “It will offer a very high degree of protection.”

“We’ve got to keep building new generations of vaccines. We’ve got to make sure we’re — we have adequate treatments. We can get through this but it is not — if we take our eye off our ball, we’ve got to really stay focused.”

The country is in a better place now than it was at the start of the Biden administration, Jha acknowledged, but “we still have work to do.”

Last week, the White House held a teleconference to address the new, highly transmissible BA.5 subvariant. 

“We are experiencing about 300 to 350 deaths a day.  That is unacceptable. It’s too high,” Jha said at the briefing, in conversation with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky and top health advisor Anthony Fauci.

The omicron variant and its subvariants have been “particularly problematic” for public health, Fauci said.

COVID-19 hospitalizations have doubled since early May, Walensky reported, over 5,000 admissions per day.

The experts emphasized that even those with a full vaccine regimen, as well as those infected with earlier BA.1 or BA.2 subvariants, are still at risk for BA.4 and BA.5 infections.

Source: TEST FEED1

Is COVID-19 living in your freezer?

(NEXSTAR) — As COVID-19 sub-variants continued sweeping across the U.S., new research suggests your body might not be the only place hosting the coronavirus. Yikes!

Researchers studied two animal coronoviruses’ ability to survive on various meats, including salmon, pork, chicken and beef during both refrigeration and freezing for one month, according to the data published by the American Society for Microbiology’s journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Scientists say the viruses — which were used as surrogates in place of COVID-19, as they are all similar — had greater survival on beef and pork. Chicken and salmon, they write, had greater reductions.

While the main mode of transmission of COVID-19 is widely known to be respiratory, the researchers note previous data shows coronaviruses can survive on even non frozen foods, like produce, and possibly infect someone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says food/food packaging transmission is unlikely, though the researchers write they believe more data is needed.

So how would COVID-19 end up in meat?

Researchers write that living conditions in markets and slaughterhouses, in addition to meat processing plants, that may transfer particles to meat, poultry and seafood during animal slaughter, processing, storage and transport.”

The study’s authors say their data needs more backing but that they hope their findings will emphasize the need for more safety measures in food production and packaging.

Source: TEST FEED1

Increasingly, people are tuning out the news — but likely not for the reason you think

Nobody likes journalists.

Hardly anyone one trusts them. Their work feels like an unending cascade of plagues, war, floods, and fire. And it’s gotten so bad that more and more people are now avidly avoiding the news completely.

All this rings true. But journalism and journalists aren’t the main bad guys. The real problem is not news itself, but the way our society consumes it — and the danger it represents is not just for the news business itself, but for our entire society as it becomes less informed about the critical issues of the day.

A report by Axios published this past week shows time spent on all forms of news content “plummeting” in the first half of this year. Many readers and viewers are simply dropping out. According to a Reuters study, they find the news overwhelming and hard to follow.

But — and this is no secret — the news has always been bad.

The New York Times recently revisited the crises and catastrophes of the last few decades to argue that, in many ways, today is actually better than yesterday.

The course of human events — and reporting about it — has usually been something less than an optimist’s paradise. What’s really changed is how people learn about those events.

News has always been neatly packaged for consumers, in one way or another. A physical newspaper is a package, a defined number of pages with a defined number of stories. The most important news is on page one, and gets less urgent as readers move through that day’s edition. Network evening newscasts — where stories are actually called “packages” — sum up all a viewer needs to know in 22 minutes.

That packaging is a kind of artifice, journalism’s way of trying to create for their consumers a sense of order on a random world. Network newscasts still end on an uplifting personal feature; newspapers have entire sections devoted to sports and the arts. This produces a neat and tidy portrait of life’s variety. “And that’s the way it is,” Walter Cronkite said in his sign-off each night on CBS. His viewers agreed.

But this news delivery method is in sharp decline. The big half-hour news programs lose more viewers each quarter. Subscriptions to physical newspapers keep falling. 

In their place is a growing jumble of headlines, updates, notifications, and tweets on smart phones and tablets, unmoored from any other update or notification coming along moments later. It’s an “unpackaged” news environment — and that makes it hard to for consumers to develop a comprehensive picture of politics, the nation, or the world.

Cable channels are one culprit. The 24/7 flow of programming hits viewers like a factoid-laden stream of consciousness. The need to keep an audience engaged all day means that every bit of breaking news is treated with the same importance and urgency. Constant live shots and analysis fill time cheaply and instantly, but don’t allow reporters breathing room to develop context or genuine perspective on any particular story or development.

As a result, television news is now America’s second least-trusted institution, just after Congress.

But the real villain is an entity that, admittedly, has become everyone’s favorite punching bag: social media. Most people don’t subscribe to a newspaper, not even digitally. According to one study, readers say the cost isn’t worth it when so much news is available for free.

In many cases, “free” means social media: shares from friends on Facebook, short videos on Tik Tok, time spent on Twitter. These apps throw alleged information around like rice at a wedding — it hits both people looking for it and not. It comes from legitimate news sources and illegitimate or unknown sources. It might look like real news or home video. A consumer can try to figure it out, or simply give up.

Readers and viewers would benefit from a return to readily accessible packaging from free reliable news sources. NBC Nightly News makes itself available each evening on You Tube, where it reaches close to 600,000 viewers — many in You Tube’s younger, male-skewing demographic. Other newscasts should try that. The networks all have free streaming news services, but they can be hard to find. Promoting these outlets more — and making them more visible — would help.  

And, in a radical move, perhaps national newspapers could rethink their high-priced subscription approach. Internet superpowers like Netflix are moving into a lower cost advertising-based format to attract people put off by rising subscription rates. But meanwhile, some online news outlets seem to downplay digital advertising — and focus mainly on subscribers. Digital ads can be a difficult, slow-growth business. Still, it’s possible to change the dynamic if more resources and creativity were devoted to that model instead of subscriptions.

Something needs to change. Right now, audiences — dazed and confused by contemporary news delivery systems — are walking away.

The last several years has shown how dangerous it is to be mis-informed in a democracy.

Living un-informed is no better.

Joe Ferullo is an award-winning media executive, producer and journalist and former executive vice president of programming for CBS Television Distribution. He was a news executive for NBC, a writer-producer for “Dateline NBC” and worked for ABC News. Follow him on Twitter @ironworker1.

Source: TEST FEED1

Kinzinger says its 'quite crazy' for Secret Service to have deleted Jan. 6 text messages

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday called it “quite crazy” if the Secret Service had in fact deleted text messages on the day before and on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Kinzinger, one of two Republicans sitting of the House select committee investigating the rioting on Jan. 6, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that it remains to be seen what the circumstances of the missing messages means.

“We’re going to know more Tuesday,” Kinzinger said, noting that the committee had issued a subpoena for the records, which the agency said are no longer available due to the replacement of devices.

Kinzinger said a statement by the Secret Service proved to be “conflicting” when the agency said only some of the records ha been deleted and anything relevant to the investigation had been turned over.

“In the very least, it is quite crazy that the Secret Service would actually end up deleting anything related to one of the more infamous days in American history, particularly when it comes to the role of the Secret Service.”

Last month, the House panel heard testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who said she heard that on Jan. 6 Trump lunged for the steering wheel and at an agent in his presidential vehicle demanding that he join his supporters at the Captiol.

Kinzinger said that while he would welcome hearing directly from the Secret Service, it is unlikely the panel will hear from anyone in the agency about testifying by its next hearing on Thursday.

Source: TEST FEED1

Fist-bumping repression: Campaign pledge falls to realpolitik — but was it worth it?

The picture of President Biden fist-bumping with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman is dispiriting. MBS is inextricably associated with, as the CIA concluded, ordering the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, an American journalist and Saudi critic.  

Yes, there has been progress on rights under the 36-year-old crown price — but he rules by fear: imprisoning, torturing or executing opponents and targeting Saudi critics beyond its border. He’s sought to intimidate or control neighboring countries and launched a disastrous war in Yemen.

MBS is an arrogant thug.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden vowed that the Saudi prince would be treated as a “pariah.” The president said he confronted MBS at a private meeting, holding him responsible for the Khashoggi murder; the prince denied responsibility.   

And yet, as disturbing as the optics may be, heads wiser than mine say there were compelling reasons for this weekend’s meeting. The oil-rich Saudis have the capability to alleviate soaring energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. shares intelligence with them. With its resources, Saudi Arabia is the most influential country in the Arab region. 

“If the United States wants to deal with the Arab world, it has to deal with Saudi Arabia,” says Frank Wisner, a former ambassador and top American diplomat.

I have little expertise in geopolitics — I’m a proud hack political reporter — and I haven’t been to Saudi Arabia in more than 30 years. 

It’s a markedly different place, most every visitor says. MBS is bringing some modernity — socially and economically — to this tribal kingdom. Women now are in the work force, some holding top jobs. Women are able to drive and don’t need permission from males for many, but not all, rights. Movies and entertainment now are allowed, and the repressive religious police have been curtailed.

MBS’s “Vision 2030” sees a prospering high tech, financial center — with a sparkling new city rising next to the Red Sea — while weaning off its dependency on oil. To achieve this, the crown prince is calling for $100 billion in foreign investments a year by the end of the decade.   

The Saudis, while claiming they have other options, would prefer to do this in concert with their longtime ally and protector, America. This is especially the case dealing with their arch enemy, Iran.

Yet for all the talk about seeking help from MBS, Biden has a lot of leverage in this relationship. The president is helping to facilitate a more permanent truce in the long war in Yemen, which, viewing it as a proxy war against Iran, has been a humanitarian and financial disaster. 

The Saudis need U.S. investment, notes Bruce Riedel, a Middle East adviser to several administrations and author of a book on the 75-year U.S.-Saudi relationship: “Saudi Arabia needs America much more than we need them. China won’t protect them from Iran, nor will Russia.”

Despite the enormous volume of American arms sales, the Yemen war showed that the Saudi military is not a crack fighting force. 

Domestically, while MBS’s reforms get much attention, the kingdom remains a very repressive regime. Women who speak out for more rights are imprisoned, sometimes tortured. They treat LGBTQ citizens as perverts. Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, a leading advocacy organization for political and human rights, says Saudi Arabia is “one of the worst places in the world for political freedom.”

The murder of Khashoggi in Turkey may be the most brutal transnational repression but it’s hardly isolated. Saad Aljabri, who was the number two person in Saudi Intelligence, wasn’t seen as an MBS loyalist; sensing the danger, he fled to Canada. He says the crown prince sent a hit squad to get him, but they were thwarted by Canadian authorities. He calls MBS a “psychopath.”

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote about a young Saudi teenager, Rakan Aldosseri, whose family sued for their claims in a refinery transaction; one of the defendants in the commercial deal was MBS. The son and his father, realizing the peril, managed a harrowing escape to America. Ignatius urged Biden to find “the strength and decency to say what Rakan — along with the Khashoggi family and so many thousands of other oppressed Saudis — have been waiting to hear: Enough is Enough.”

Any answer depends on whether the young prince has learned lessons from his deadly miscalculations and realizes his vision depends on a more transparent, less tyrannical country. 

A series of interviews he conducted with The Atlantic earlier this year isn’t encouraging. He unconvincingly denied any complicity in the Khashoggi murder: “If that’s the way we did things” — murdering authors of critical op-eds — “Khashoggi would not even be among the top 1,000 people on the list. If you’re going to go for another operation like that, for another person, it’s got to be professional and it’s got to be one of the top 1,000.” On whether Biden misunderstood him: “Simply, I do not care.”

Whatever the upshot of this weekend’s meeting, that doesn’t augur well.

We need to deal with bad guys like him with eyes open. “MBS is a reckless bully,” says Riedel. “The only change (in him) is the realization that his war in Yemen is a disaster for the Kingdom.”

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hosts Politics War Room with James Carville. Follow him on Twitter @AlHuntDC.

Source: TEST FEED1