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Barack Obama says Democrats need to avoid being a ‘buzzkill’

Apadana Central — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:55:45 +0000

Barack Obama says Democrats need to avoid being a ‘buzzkill’

Former President Barack Obama thinks Democrats can be a bit of a “buzzkill,” too easily offended over accidental slights and the complicated scenarios of modern life, he said in a podcast interview late last week.

“How does politics even – how is it even relevant to the things that I care most deeply about? My family, my kids, work that gives me satisfaction, having fun, not being a buzzkill, right?” Obama said in an interview with “Pod Save America.” “And sometimes Democrats are, right? You know, sometimes, people just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells. And they want some acknowledgment that life is messy and that all of us at any given moment can say things the wrong way, make mistakes.”

Obama is publicly addressing a concern voiced by Democratic strategists privately for quite some time now – that the liberal base of the party is so focused on “wokeness” and the possibility of offending certain interest groups that they lose the broader thread of speaking to what voters actually care about.

James Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist, has been more blunt – certainly than Obama – in denouncing the wokeness focus.

“We’re letting a noisy wing of our party define the rest of us,” Carville said last summer. “And my point is we can’t do that. I think these people are all kind of nice people. I think they’re very naive, and they’re all into language and identity. And that’s all right. They’re not storming the Capitol. But they’re not winning elections.”

And then, when Republicans won the Virginia governorship last November and scored other wins across the country, Carville laid the blame at the feet of the woke warriors within his party.

“Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey,” Carville told PBS’ Judy Woodruff at the time. “Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Washington. I mean, this ‘defund the police’ lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools. I mean that – people see that.”

He added: “Some of these people need to go to a ‘woke’ detox center or something. They’re expressing a language that people just don’t use, and there’s backlash and a frustration at that.”

While there may be some debate within Democratic circles about the focus on wokeness, there’s no question that Republicans see opportunity.

Ad after ad running in hotly contested midterm campaigns accuse Democrats of supporting measures to defund the police and the elimination of cash bail. One commercial running against Wisconsin Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes opens with fiery image of rioters accompanied by the words “Do you feel safe?” The ad ends by saying ominously: “Mandela Barnes: He stands with them, not us.”

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has built a successful national brand around his opposition to so-called woke culture. DeSantis signed a bill into law earlier this year called the “Stop Woke Act” that seeks to limit conversations about gender and race in the workplace and classroom.

“We believe an important component of freedom in the state of Florida is the freedom from having oppressive ideologies imposed upon you without your consent,” DeSantis said of the legislation. “And we decided to do something about it.”

House Republicans have picked up on that messaging. One part of their “Commitment to America” plan, for example, is aimed at “ensuring that only women can compete in women’s sports.”

To be clear: Obama isn’t saying that Democrats are entirely wrong in their focus on wokeness. Instead, he’s suggesting that they operate from a place of understanding for those who are still evolving in their thinking – and not assume the worst motives of them.

Obama cites his own mother-in-law as a case in point. “She’s 86, you know, and sometimes trying to get the right phraseology when we’re talking about issues, Michelle’s like, that’s like her trying to learn Spanish. It doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try to learn Spanish, but it means that sometimes she’s not gonna get the words right. And that’s OK, right?”

It’s that attitude of understanding that is “a little more real and a little more grounded,” according to Obama, that would help Democrats. He said it “goes a long way in counteracting what is the systematic propaganda that I think is being pumped out by Fox News and all these other outlets all the time.”

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U.S. plans new Iran sanctions related to metals, conventional arms

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 13:01:50 +0000

Media Agency in Battle Creek MI | FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, 1,200 km (746 miles) south of Tehran, August 21, 2010. Iran began fuelling its first nuclear power plant on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

Media Agency in Battle Creek MI, US | Apadana Media

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States plans to announce additional Iran sanctions on Friday related to conventional arms and to the metals industry, sources familiar with the matter said.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not provide details on the sanctions, the latest in a series that U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed on the Iranian economy to try to force Tehran into a new negotiation on curbing its nuclear program. The State and Treasury Departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the announcement.

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Iranian Guard drones in drill mirror those in Saudi attacks

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 11:37:13 +0000

US News Agency in MI | Iranian Guard drones in drill mirror in Saudi attacks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard conducted a drill Friday that saw “suicide drones” crash into targets and explode, triangle-shaped aircraft that strongly resembled those used in a 2019 attack in Saudi Arabia that temporarily cut the kingdom’s oil production by half.

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Iran has long denied launching the attack on the sites of Abqaiq and Khurais while Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels initially claimed the assault.

However, the United States, Saudi Arabia and U.N. experts believe the drones were Iranian, likely launched amid an escalating series of incidents stemming from President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

The Guard’s decision to use the drones on Friday alongside a series of missile drills comes as Iran tries to pressure President-elect Joe Biden over the nuclear accord, which he has said America could re-enter.

Tehran recently seized a South Korean oil tanker and begun enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels, as the U.S. sent B-52 bombers, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine into the region as a deterrent in Trump’s final days as president.

“The nuclear issue is likely to be the Biden administration’s first foreign policy test,” wrote Simon Henderson, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy. “Ultimately, the United States holds the best hand, but Iran may still be able to play the game quite well, even with a weak hand.”

Iranian state television described the drill as taking place in the country’s vast central desert, the latest in a series of snap exercises called amid the escalating tensions over its nuclear program. The footage showed four of the unmanned, triangle-shaped drones flying in a tight formation.

Another scene showed the drones smash into targets Iran described as being “hypothetical enemy bases” and detonate. One target appeared to be a missile vehicle — a telling target in a region where American forces and their Gulf Arab allies rely on Patriot missile batteries for defense.

Looking at the footage frame by frame, the triangle-shape drone appeared to have two fins on either side. This strongly resembles the so-called “Delta” drones used both in the Abqaiq and Khurais assault in September 2019, as well as a May 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia’s crucial East-West pipeline. Saudi Arabia showed damaged drones to journalists after the attacks, while U.N. experts included images of the drone in a report.

Experts refer to such bomb-carrying drones as “loitering munitions.” The drone flies to a destination, likely programmed before its flight, and either explodes in the air over the target or on impact against it.

Iranian officials did not acknowledge the resemblance, nor did they immediately identify the drones used.

“The message of this drill is our might and firm determination to defend our sovereignty, our holy ruling system and our values against the enemies of Islam and Iran,” said Gen. Hossein Salami, the Guard’s top commander.

The Guard also launched solid-fuel ballistic missiles named Dezful and Zolfaghar during the drill, with state TV repeatedly airing imagery of the simultaneous launch of eight missiles from truck-based launchers.

Iran’s missile program has a 2,000-kilometer (1,250-mile) range, far enough to reach archenemy Israel and U.S. military bases in the region. Last January, after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general in a drone strike in Baghdad, Tehran retaliated by firing a barrage of ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops, which saw dozens of troops injured with concussions.

___

Associated Press journalists Amir Vahdat and Mehdi Fattahi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

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U.S. hits Iran with fresh sanctions as Trump term nears end

Marjaneh Rouhani — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 18:11:56 +0000

Latest News | US News | World News: President Trump holds campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia, U.S., on the eve of the run-off election to decide both of Georgia’s Senate seats January 4, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis

January 5, 2021

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Tuesday blacklisted a Chinese company that makes elements for steel production, 12 Iranian steel and metals makers and three foreign-based sales agents of a major Iranian metals and mining holding company, seeking to deprive Iran of revenues as U.S. President Donald Trump’s term winds down.

In a statement, the U.S. Treasury Department named the China-based company as Kaifeng Pingmei New Carbon Materials Technology Co Ltd. (KFCC), saying it specialized in the manufacture of carbon materials and provided thousands of metric tonnes of materials to Iranian steel companies between December 2019 and June 2020.

Among the 12 Iranian companies blacklisted are the Pasargad Steel Complex and the Gilan Steel Complex Co, both of which were designated under Executive Order 13871 for operating in the Iranian steel sector.

The others are: Iran-based Middle East Mines and Mineral Industries Development Holding Co (MIDHCO), Khazar Steel Co, Vian Steel Complex, South Rouhina Steel Complex, Yazd Industrial Constructional Steel Rolling Mill, West Alborz Steel Complex, Esfarayen Industrial Complex, Bonab Steel Industry Complex, Sirjan Iranian Steel and Zarand Iranian Steel Co.

The Treasury said it was also designating MIDHCO’s Germany-based subsidiary GMI Projects Hamburg GmbH, its China-based World Mining Industry Co Ltd and U.K.-based GMI Projects Ltd for being owned or controlled by MIDHCO.

“The Trump Administration remains committed to denying revenue flowing to the Iranian regime as it continues to sponsor terrorist groups, support oppressive regimes, and seek weapons of mass destruction,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement. Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, when Democrat President-elect Joe Biden is to be sworn in to succeed him.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu; writiing by Arshad Mohammed; editing by Doina Chiacu and Jonathan Oatis)

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From embargo to embrace, Saudi Arabia pushes Gulf detente

Marjaneh Rouhani — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 18:11:03 +0000

US News Agency | Apadana Media | Gulf leaders arrive in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia for GCC summit

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomes Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani upon his arrival to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) 41st Summit in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia January 5, 2021. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY

January 5, 2021

By Aziz El Yaakoubi

US News Agency | Apadana Media

AL-ULA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Embracing Qatar’s ruler, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince pushed a deal to end a bitter row with Doha at a Gulf Arab summit on Tuesday to try to shore up an anti-Iran front, although a final declaration contained only a general pledge of solidarity.

The kingdom’s foreign minister said Riyadh and its Arab allies agreed to restore ties with Doha to end a boycott imposed in mid-2017 and strengthen a Gulf Arab alliance against Tehran.

While the communique contained no detailed confirmation of a deal, the apparent breakthrough signalled hope for mending a rift between major U.S. allies two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office and at a time of regional tensions with Iran.

“There is political will and good faith” to guarantee implementation of the deal, Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud told a news conference, saying the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt had all agreed to restore ties with Doha.

The apparent deal followed mediation efforts by the United States and Kuwait, and a U.S. official said on Monday Qatar would suspend legal cases related to the boycott under the emerging deal.

Ahead of the gathering in the historic city of al-Ula, which was also attended by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Kuwait announced that Saudi Arabia would reopen its airspace and borders to Qatar. The other three nations have yet to announce similar moves.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, hugged at the airport tarmac before heading to the summit venue in a mirrored building reflecting the desert landscape.

Saudi de facto ruler Prince Mohammed, who chaired the short event instead of his father King Salman, said the al-Ula agreement “confirms Gulf, Arab and Islamic unity and stability”.

He also called for serious action by the global community to address a threat he said was posed by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and its “subversive and destructive plans”.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic, trade and travel ties with Qatar over allegations Doha supports terrorism, a charge it denies.

WORKING THE PHONES

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing for a resolution to the dispute that Washington sees as hindering efforts to contain Iran.

Kushner, tasked by Trump, his father-in-law, to work on ending the rift, was making phone calls on the emerging deal until the early hours of Monday, a U.S. official had said.

Diplomats and analysts said Riyadh was also pushing reluctant allies to show Biden that the kingdom is open to dialogue. Biden has said he will take a harder line with the kingdom over issues including its human rights record and the Yemen war.

“This (deal) is seemingly influenced by a desire to pre-empt pressure from an incoming Biden administration, more than a genuine commitment to conflict resolution,” said Emadeddin Badi, nonresident senior fellow at Atlantic Council.

“The détente within the GCC is very unlikely to significantly affect geopolitical dynamics beyond the Gulf.”

All the states are U.S. allies. Qatar hosts the region’s largest U.S. military base, Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE host U.S. troops.

Qatar says the boycott aims to curb its sovereignty.

The other countries had set Doha 13 demands, including closing Al Jazeera TV, shuttering a Turkish base, cutting links to the Muslim Brotherhood and downgrading ties with Iran.

(Additional reporting by Raya Jalabi in Dubai Writing by Ghaida Ghantous, Editing by Tom Hogue, John Stonestreet, Nick Macfie and Timothy Heritage)

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When will you get your stimulus payment?

Apadana Central — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:39:55 +0000

National Media Agency News | When will you get your stimulus payment?

The first payments started going out on December 29 and will continue to be sent through January 15. But anyone eligible who isn’t automatically sent the money by then will have to claim it on their 2020 tax return, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Congress included the $600 payments in a sweeping pandemic aid bill passed just before Christmas. President Donald Trump stalled the bill, calling for $2,000 payments though he had largely left negotiations up to lawmakers and his Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, then ultimately signed it into law after a week-long delay.

The money comes nearly eight months after the first round of stimulus payments, worth up to $1,200 per person, were sent as part of a larger coronavirus relief package passed last March. Many of the same people will receive the money again, but there are some small eligibility differences.

When and how will the money be sent?

Recipients may have seen a direct deposit pending in their bank account as early as December 29, but the funds became officially available January 4.

Paper checks or debit cards will be sent to those who don’t already have a bank account on file with the Internal Revenue Service. Checks also began going out last week.

Some people may not receive the money the same way as in the first round. If you received a preloaded debit card last year, the payment will not be added to that card. You’ll either receive a new card in the mail or a paper check.

The law requires the Internal Revenue Service to stop issuing the payments after January 15. Those not issued a payment by then will have wait to claim it on their 2020 tax return. The money will either increase your refund or reduce the taxes you owe. If the payment was sent to an old bank account, you will also have to wait to file your taxes in order to receive the money

People can check the status of both their first and second payments by using the Internal Revenue Service’s Get My Payment online tool.

Who is eligible?

Eligibility is largely based on income. Individuals earning less than $75,000 a year will receive the full $600. Heads of household earning less than $112,500 and married couples filing jointly earning less than $150,000 are also due the full amount. They will receive $600 per child under the age of 17, which is $100 more than in the first round.

The payments start phasing out for people making more money, at a rate of $5 per $100 of additional income. Some people who received the first payment may be phased out of the second round because the payments are smaller.

They will phase out entirely at $87,000 for single filers without children and $174,000 for those married filing jointly without children, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.

Undocumented immigrants who don’t have Social Security numbers remain ineligible for the payments. But in a change from the first round, their spouses and children are now eligible as long as they have Social Security numbers.

Those who are claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return, like some college students, remain ineligible.

Lost your job? You may be able to claim more money

Both the first and second round payments are based on 2019 adjust gross incomes. That means that someone who saw their income drastically fall in 2020 may be eligible for more money than they first received.

If that’s the case, they may claim a “Recovery Rebate Credit” on their 2020 tax return. The credit eligibility and the credit amount will be based on the 2020 tax year income, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Those who may have earned more in 2020 than 2019 are not required to pay back money they have already received.

National Media Agency News | Apadana Media

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How to watch the Georgia runoff elections

Apadana Central — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:37:11 +0000

Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock are looking to defeat incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively.

US Elections | Georgia Elections | Georgia votes in crucial runoff elections

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The races will determine whether Republicans keep control of the Senate, which will greatly affect the kind of legislation President-elect Joe Biden would be able to pass through the chamber once he takes office later this month.

The Senate would be tied 50-50 Republicans and Democrats if Ossoff and Warnock both win their races, but Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be able to act as a tie-breaking vote, which would give control of the chamber to Democrats. If Republicans win either or both of the seats, the GOP will keep control of the chamber.

Biden, who won Georgia in the presidential election, and President Donald Trump both traveled to the state on Monday to campaign for their party’s candidates.

Here’s what you need to know about how to watch CNN’s election coverage.

Why are there runoff elections?

Under state law, Senate races advance to a runoff if no candidate surpasses 50% of the vote, as was the case for both of Georgia’s US Senate seats after the November election. Perdue received 49.73% of the vote and Ossoff received 47.95%, and Warnock received 32.9% compared with Loeffler’s 25.91% in the special election.

What time does CNN’s coverage start?

CNN’s coverage of the runoff elections starts at 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Tune in to CNN or CNN International, or watch on mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android, and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast and Android TV. You can also follow CNN’s live election coverage on CNN.com.

Who are the candidates?

Kelly Loeffler

In December 2019, Loeffler was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to take over the Senate seat previously held by Republican Johnny Isakson, who retired over health concerns. Loeffler, who was sworn in to office in January 2020, was a political novice, a prominent GOP donor and a businesswoman.

She was an executive at a financial services firm in Atlanta but left the post to serve in the Senate. She is also known as a co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. She had considered running for the Senate in 2014.

Loeffler is facing off against Warnock.

Raphael Warnock

Warnock, a Democrat, is a senior pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which has long been a haven for the Black freedom struggle. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became a co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father in 1960.

In a video announcing his candidacy last year, Warnock described his path from Savannah’s Kayton Homes housing project to the pulpit.

“Some might ask why a pastor thinks he should serve in the Senate,” said Warnock. “I’ve always thought that my impact doesn’t stop at the church door. That’s actually where it starts.”

Jon Ossoff

Ossoff, a Democrat, rose to national prominence during a 2017 special House election that the political newcomer nearly won in a longtime conservative stronghold in Georgia. He ultimately lost to Republican Karen Handel in what was at the time the most expensive House race in history.

Ossoff describes himself as a media executive, investigative journalist and small business owner on his campaign website. He began working with a former BBC journalist, Ron McCullagh, in 2013, and then used money from an inheritance to buy a stake in McCullagh’s investigative film company and renamed it Insight TWI, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The company has produced documentaries on mass killings and sexual slavery by ISIS, and a corruption investigation on judges in Ghana.

Ossoff is attempting to unseat Perdue.

David Perdue

Perdue, a close Trump ally, has served as a senator from Georgia since his election in 2014.

Perdue has served on the Armed Services, Banking, Budget, and Foreign Relations committees, according to his Senate website.

He had never run for public office before 2014, according to his Senate website, and prior to running for office was the CEO of Reebok athletic brand and Dollar General stores.

Perdue’s term technically expired Sunday when a new Congress was sworn in, leaving his seat temporarily vacant, according to Sydney Butler, chief of staff to the secretary of the Senate — who oversees the chamber’s operations and procedures. Officials in Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s and Perdue’s offices say that even if he is projected the winner Tuesday, the seat will remain vacant until the runoff results are certified — which could take up to two weeks.

CNN’s Madison Park, Eric Bradner, Clare Foran, Donald Judd, Alex Rogers and Ryan Nobles contributed to this report.

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What’s happening at the Iran borders ?

Apadana Central — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 14:15:33 +0000

Iran the big loser in Nagorno-Karabakh war

LUKE COFFEY

November 13, 202020:12

12383

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A woman speaks on the phone as she prepares to leave an area once occupied by Armenian forces but soon to be turned over to Azerbaijan, in Yekhetnut, Nagorno-Karabakh, on Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. (AP)

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https://arab.news/z49hx

An almost three-decades-old conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh was brought to an end this week after 45 days of hard fighting.
The conflict had its origins in the collapse of the Soviet Union. During this period, ethnic Armenians living inside Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region tried to break away and join Armenia. Armenia took advantage of the chaos and invaded the region, capturing a sizable chunk of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory.
A ceasefire agreement was signed in 1994, which, for the most part, held — albeit there were occasional minor skirmishes over the years. That same year, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe established the so-called Minsk Group to help broker a final peace — but it failed to do so.
Having grown impatient over the lack of progress in peace talks and the bellicose rhetoric coming from Armenian leaders, Azerbaijan decided to act. Major fighting kicked off in late September and was brought to an end this week by an Azerbaijani victory. With the help of Turkish and Israeli drones, and a lot of bravery from its soldiers, Azerbaijan was able to liberate large swathes of its territory from Armenian occupation.
Armenia is estimated to have lost approximately 40 percent of its equipment, including hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles and pieces of artillery. It is likely that Azerbaijan ended up capturing more equipment from Armenia than it lost on the battlefield — probably one of the few cases in history of an army ending a war with more equipment than it started with.
Turkey and Russia played a big role in the conflict. Russia traditionally backs Armenia, but in this conflict took a standoffish approach to the dismay of Yerevan. Turkey has always been close to Azerbaijan and has been in a protracted geopolitical competition with Russia over places like Syria, Libya, and to a certain extent Ukraine in recent years.
The peace agreement announced earlier this week was brokered by Russia with Turkish influence behind the scenes. It led to the surrender of Armenian forces inside Azerbaijan and the deployment of a small Russian peacekeeping force to regions in Nagorno-Karabakh with a sizable Armenian minority. While a lot of the commentary has been focused on what Armenia’s defeat means for Turkey and Russia, one country that was a big loser in this conflict was Iran.

Iran will have to devote time, resources, and troops to adjust to the new geopolitical reality along its northern border with Azerbaijan.

Luke Coffey

For historical reasons Iran sees itself as entitled to a special status in the South Caucasus. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan were once part of the Persian empire. Today, Armenia and Iran enjoy cozy relations.
Azerbaijan is one of the predominately Shiite areas in the Muslim world that Iran has not been able to place under its influence. While relations between Baku and Tehran remain cordial on the surface, there is an underlying tension between the two. During the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s, Iran sided with Armenia as a way to marginalize Azerbaijan’s role in the region.
There are three reasons why Iran is a big loser in this conflict.
Firstly, it remains to be seen how Azerbaijan’s victory will play out with Iran’s sizable Azeri minority. Azeris are the second-largest ethnic group in Iran. During the conflict there was a lot of pro-Azerbaijani rhetoric and protests on social media and on the streets in support of Baku by ethnic Azeris. The Iranian regime was very careful to appear balanced during the conflict, but at the same time stifled many of these pro-Azerbaijani protests. There is a constant low-level push for self-determination and increased autonomy in northern Iran for the Azeri minority. Although this has not materialized into a mass movement for independence, it makes some in the Iranian leadership nervous.
Secondly, Iran will have to devote time, resources, and troops to adjust to the new geopolitical reality along its northern border with Azerbaijan. This could mean less Iranian focus on other places such as the Gulf and Syria. Part of the Azerbaijan-Iran state border has been under Armenian occupation since 1994. Now that this border is back under the control of Baku, a new security dynamic has been created between the two countries. Also, the presence of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers — now only 100 km from the Iranian border — is bound to make many in Tehran nervous. Although Russia and Iran have enjoyed good relations in recent times, the two have been rival powers in the region for centuries. Iran has already started to deploy more military assets along its northern border. It remains to be seen whether this is just a temporary measure or will become permanent due to the new security situation on the ground.
Finally, it is unclear how Azerbaijan’s success in the war will affect its bilateral relationship with Iran. Azerbaijan has strived to maintain cordial relations with Iran because it relied on access to Iranian airspace and territory to supply its autonomous region of Nakhchivan — an exclave of Azerbaijan nestling between Iran, Armenia and Turkey. In addition to transit rights, Azerbaijan also relied on Iran to provide natural gas to Nakhchivan. As part of the recent peace deal, Armenia is opening up a corridor through its territory to allow Azerbaijan to transport goods directly to Nakhchivan. In addition, earlier this year Turkey announced a new natural gas pipeline to supply Nakhchivan with energy. Iran is less important for Azerbaijan now and it is likely that the dynamics in the bilateral relationship will change in Baku’s favor.
Iran has many problems. A stagnant economy, political unrest at home, the fallout from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the never-ending costly interventions in places such as Syria and Iraq. The last thing Tehran needs right now is a change to the cozy status quo it has enjoyed in the South Caucasus for the past three decades.
Unfortunately for Iran, this is exactly what is happening.

Luke Coffey is director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @LukeDCoffey

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News’ point-of-view

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Republicans narrow Democrats’ path to Senate majority by keeping key GOP seats

Apadana Central — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 09:46:50 +0000

Republicans have so far thwarted well-funded Democratic bids in Iowa, South Carolina, Kansas, Texas and Montana and taken back a Democratic seat in Alabama.

Democrats have captured a seat in Colorado, and have their sights set on several other Republican senators.

Republicans hold 53 Senate seats. Democrats need to win a net gain of three, and the White House, to take back the chamber.

A dozen Republican Senate seats were at risk, while only a couple Democratic senators had competitive contests.

President Donald Trump’s performance is crucial to Republicans’ chances of keeping the Senate.

Both parties have so far flipped a seat: Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones lost to former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville in a state Trump dominated. And former Gov. John Hickenlooper defeated Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, where Biden also triumphed over Trump.

With the parties offsetting those two seats, control of the Senate could come down to three races.

In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut and the husband of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, has led Republican Sen. Martha McSally in every CNN-approved public poll this year. McSally, who was appointed to fill the seat once held by the late Sen. John McCain, has run behind Trump, waffled in her public support for him and failed to excite some conservatives. The senator has repeatedly suggested that Kelly was beholden to China due to his participation in US-China forums, but Kelly has defended himself by pointing to his record as a captain in the Navy.

In Maine, state House speaker Sara Gideon is trying to oust Sen. Susan Collins, the last Republican member of Congress in New England. Since her first victory in 1996, Collins developed a Maine-centric, independent image, winning her last election with nearly 69% of the vote.

But her approval fell during the Trump era, due in part to her support of the 2017 GOP tax plan and the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Polls this fall show her behind in the race, as attack ads portray her as beholden to special interests.

Collins focused her message on what she has delivered for Maine, including financial relief for small businesses during the pandemic, and a promise that her seniority in the Senate could lead to more federal funding for her state. She also separated herself from Trump in a state he is very likely to lose, opposing Barrett and even declining to say who she would vote for president.

LIVE UPDATES: 2020 House and Senate races

And so the race for the Senate could come down to North Carolina, where Biden has established a slim advantage, according to a recent CNN poll.

Recent revelations of Senate Democratic candidate Cal Cunningham’s alleged extramarital affair have undercut the image he carefully crafted as a man of integrity who serves in the Army Reserve. But while voters disapproved, he still has an edge over Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.

Before the sex scandal emerged, Cunningham was up 42% to 37%, according to a Times/Siena poll from mid-September. Since then, CNN released a poll showing that Cunningham’s lead had narrowed to 47% to 44%, in large part because he had maintained his lead with women.

Denise Adams, a Winston-Salem City Council member, told CNN that women “realize what’s at stake,” adding that health care, abortion access and education funding are all on the ballot.

“I ain’t trying to call nobody’s pot kettle black,” she added. “Right now, Democrats in North Carolina are united, and our task ahead of us is to bring this baby home.”

Republicans have denied Democrats a number of pickup opportunities, including in hard-fought races in Iowa and Montana.

Republicans cheered a crucial victory in Iowa, where they had tied Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield to leaders in Washington like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with McConnell, had spent millions airing an ad warning that “the Theresa Greenfield-Nancy Pelosi health care plan could take away our employer-provided health insurance,” even though neither Democrat backs a single-payer proposal. Democrats had charged that Greenfield’s opponent, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, has changed, hitting her for campaign violations resulting in a Federal Election Commission fine and for buying a condo in Washington.

Ernst had also had a couple of missteps, backtracking on her suggestion that fewer people have died of Covid-19 than official health reports suggest and flubbing a debate question on the price of soybeans. But she had held slim leads in recent polls and Trump also won the state.

In another victory for the GOP, Republican Sen. Steve Daines will hold onto his seat, CNN projects, defeating Gov. Steve Bullock.

National Democrats had pushed for Bullock, the state’s two-term Democratic governor, to run, believing he would make a formidable challenger. His entry into the race made it a competitive contest, but ultimately, he came up short, conceding the race to Daines early Wednesday morning.

An intense fight for the Senate

Some political forecasters said Democrats were favored to win control of the Senate. Democratic candidates bet early on a message centered on protecting the Affordable Care Act, which they leaned into even more heavily as a pandemic heightened the health care concerns of the country.

Meanwhile, Republican candidates were tied to a historically unpopular President who put even red states in play. They said for months that their loss would lead to socialism, even though Democrats chose Joe Biden, the epitome of the establishment, as their presidential nominee.

Republicans hope that an economic rebound and the recent confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett will have reminded voters why they put the GOP in charge and save their Senate majority.

At a rally in Kentucky on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that if Democrats take back the chamber, they will abolish the filibuster to pass sweeping progressive legislation, pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices and grant statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. He promised that if he is reelected, those measures “will not come up in Mitch McConnell’s Senate.”

McConnell won his own re-election on Tuesday, defeating Democratic opponent Amy McGrath.

The Trump effect

Trump’s presidential approval rating has never hit 50%, according to Gallup, and he polled at 46% in October, lower than the three previous presidents who were reelected, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Trump has remained unpopular throughout his term. He did not build the “big, beautiful” wall, but separated thousands of migrant parents from their children. He signed a tax overhaul bill into law that provided a short-term boost to the economy but added more than a trillion to the debt. He failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He was impeached and acquitted of charges that he had used his power for political gain when he asked Ukraine to investigate Biden. He has praised Republican candidates who support him, even when they promote the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory that he is working to squash a secret cabal of pedophiles. He proposed a ban on Muslims traveling to the US. And he inflamed the racial divisions within the country after Charlottesville and the police killing of George Floyd. He ridiculed his opponents, whether they were women, minorities or senators in his own party in tough election races, like Collins, who he recently tweeted was “Not worth the work!”

Trump’s conduct has imperiled not only his own hold on the White House, but also GOP control of the Senate.

“Trump should stop tweeting about individual Republican candidates because all it does is confuse the base,” GOP strategist Scott Reed told CNN. “It doesn’t help anybody, except Twitter, and I don’t know why in the hell anybody would be helping Twitter right now.”

The steady unpopularity at the top of the ticket, along with the demographic changes of some Southern states, and a massive fundraising effort by Democrats sparked in part by the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, gave Democrats confidence that they could compete in conservative states.

Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue’s race against Democrat Jon Ossoff has turned increasingly nasty in the final weeks of the campaign.

Perdue, a 70-year-old former Fortune 500 CEO, has dismissed Ossoff, a 33-year-old media executive, as not knowing how to create or keep a job. Ossoff recently told CNN that Perdue’s butchering of Harris’ name at a campaign rally was “unquestionably” racist. At their recent debate, Ossoff called the senator a “crook” who was “fending off multiple federal investigations for insider trading” while attacking “the health of the people” who he represents. Perdue snapped back that the Democrat had worked for “the mouthpiece of terrorism and Communist China” — claims Ossoff called “ridiculous.” The candidates are also running against Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel, and if no one gets more than 50% on Election Day, the two top vote-getters will compete in a runoff on January 5.

Georgia GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s race will go to a runoff between her and Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. In the unusual melee election, the appointed senator faced multiple candidates, including GOP Rep. Doug Collins, who targeted the same swath of conservative voters as she did. Loeffler recently told CNN that there are “no” issues on which she disagreed with the President, leaving Warnock to claim liberal and more independent voters.

Republicans hope that John James, a Republican businessman who flew Army helicopters in the Iraq War, can defeat Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters and become the state’s first Black senator. But Peters led in the polls there, and the state is pivotal to Biden’s campaign strategy.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of the election cycle was in South Carolina, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Sen. Fritz Hollings retired 15 years ago. In the Senate elections since 2004, the South Carolina Democratic candidate never cracked 45% of the vote.

But in his race against GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, Democrat Jaime Harrison raised $57 million between July and September, the largest single-quarter total by any candidate in US Senate history, and lost.

Democrats have had a financial advantage in many other Senate races. Political groups have spent more than $1.7 billion to advertise in them, according to Kantar’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, 54% of which was spent by Democratic groups.

Some Republican strategists said that Democrats were throwing good money at bad races. McConnell easily won over Democrat Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot, despite groups on the left spending nearly $50 million on ads against him. Texas Sen. John Cornyn defeated MJ Hegar, a former Air Force helicopter pilot, despite being outraised by $6.7 million in the third fundraising quarter. And Senate Leadership Fund, the McConnell-aligned super PAC, spent over $16 million on ads in Kansas, a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in nearly 90 years, amid anemic fundraising by GOP Rep. Roger Marshall. Still, Marshall beat Democratic candidate Barbara Bollier.

“Yes, they’re being outspent heavily with all this national money,” said Reed, speaking of Republicans. “But at the end of the day, I’m convinced they’re going to hold the Senate.”

If Democrats do capture the Senate, it will be because of women.

A double-digit gender gap is clear in a number of Senate races, according to a series of New York Times/Siena College polls over the past two months. In Arizona, for example, Kelly led McSally overall, 50% to 43%. He was down several points among men but overcame it with a substantial 57% to 38% advantage among women.

Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY’s List, told CNN that Republican efforts to attack the Affordable Care Act, block legislation addressing the gender pay gap and their anti-abortion views have made the GOP unpopular with women. Schriock said that Trump’s behavior and “the chaos that he produces constantly” also don’t appeal to women.

“(It) is just not anything women voters are interested in right now,” she added.

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

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Analysis: Donald Trump’s call to halt vote counts is his most brazen swipe at democracy

Apadana Central — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 09:42:58 +0000

Donald Trump appeared in the East Room of the White House early on Wednesday morning to claim falsely that he had already beaten Democrat Joe Biden, and the election was being stolen from him in a massive act of fraud. He vowed to mount a challenge in the Supreme Court and declared that he had already won states that were still counting votes, including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

The election has not yet been won, and the President and the former vice president are still locked in a tight battle for the decisive states with millions of votes still being counted.

Trump’s remarks essentially amounted to a demand for the legally cast votes of American citizens not to be recorded in a historic act of disenfranchisement. And they brought closer the potential constitutional nightmare that many have feared since Donald Trump started to tarnish an election that he apparently worried he could lose months ago. His rhetorical broadside was also notable because it came at a moment of huge tension in a deeply divided nation — a time when a president, even one whose political fate is in the process of being written — could be expected to call for calm.

Donald Trump’s comments were especially remarkable since it appears that the President has a good chance of winning outstanding states in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan, which could hand him a second term. And the implication of his authoritarian remarks was that the President wants vote counting to stop in those states but to go on in Arizona, where he trails Biden.

They were also a warning sign of the kind of behavior that might be expected in a second term from a President who has survived impeachment and may be heading for a new mandate that he would view as a validation of his norm-crushing behavior. In some ways, Trump’s aggressive response to a night of nail-biting tension and a yet-to-be-decided result could also take the gloss from what would be a stunning political achievement if he wins reelection despite expectations that his handling of the pandemic would cause the country to turn against him.

“Millions and millions of people voted for us,” Trump said in the East Room. “A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people.”

Trump wary of early and mail-in votes

Donald Trump is angry that hundreds of thousands of mail-in and early votes — cast disproportionately by Democrats — are still being counted, leaving open the possibility that Biden could challenge Trump’s leads in the Midwest. But those votes were made in a way that is just as legitimate as the ballots that were lodged by voters showing up in their precincts in the traditional manner.

“We were getting ready for a big celebration. We were winning everything. And all of a sudden it was just called off,” Trump said. “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country.”

“Frankly we did win this election,” he said, despite millions of votes still outstanding.

The President made his televised statement after his opponent delivered his own remarks and said that all of the votes must be counted.

“It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who has won this election,” Biden told his crowd in Wilmington, Delaware.

Throughout his presidency, Trump has consistently taken aim at the institutions that have underpinned American government for decades. He has attacked the judiciary, the intelligence services and made clear for example that he believes that the Justice Department should be loyal to him rather than the law. He has even said that as president he has absolute power under the Constitution to do whatever he wants.

“I have an Article Two where I have the right to do whatever I want as President,” Trump declared last year.

It was not immediately clear on what grounds Trump planned to try to ask the Supreme Court to intervene in the election because, so far, he has not provided evidence for any voting irregularities.

“These are legally cast ballots or at least will be determined to be legally cast ballots by the appropriate local county and state officials,” Benjamin Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer, told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“And for a president to say we are going to disenfranchise those legally cast ballots — it really is extraordinary.”

The President’s statement sparked a sharp response from Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon.

” It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens,” she said in a written statement.

“The counting will not stop.”

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