ATLANTA: Move over Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Republicans have a new campaign boogeyman. Well, sort of new.
It’s more of an encore for Nancy Pelosi, the 77-year-old House Democratic leader who spent four years as the nation’s first female speaker, lost her majority in 2010 and now wants the gavel again. In that quest, the California lawmaker and fundraiser extraordinaire finds herself as the GOP’s preferred face of a Democratic Party trying to upend Republicans’ monopoly control in Washington.
Republicans are testing their approach in a pair of special House races where the specter of a second Pelosi speakership is intended to excite — or scare — Republican voters and sway independents enough to counter surging opposition to President Donald Trump. And the strategy could be a defining theme of the 2018 midterm elections.
“Nancy Pelosi and liberal politicians are flooding into Georgia to try and stop our Republican majority,” a national GOP television spot blares in a suburban Atlanta congressional district where 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff nearly won a multiparty primary outright.
Ossoff still could claim a June runoff victory that would jolt Washington, and his opponent, Republican Karen Handel, warns he’d be Pelosi’s “rubber stamp.”
In Montana, a grainy black-and-white television image of Pelosi greets voters mulling another Democratic upset bid. “Rob Quist talks folksy, but his record is more Nancy Pelosi than Montana,” a voiceover warns of the singer-turned-candidate.
Trump himself has joined in. “Ossoff is funded by Nancy Pelosi,” who wants “to land a blow against my presidency,” reads a fundraising e-mail the president signed on Handel’s behalf.
And when the US Chamber of Commerce endorsed Handel, the organization’s political chief, Rob Engstrom, bemoaned Pelosi’s “failed legacy as speaker.”
Pelosi has proven effective as a prolific fundraiser and a leader capable of rallying Democrats to deliver major legislation for then-President Barack Obama. As speaker, she muscled through the 2010 health care law and the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul — complex laws the likes of which her Republican successors have been unable to handle.
Pelosi frames the attacks as proof Republicans have no affirmative case. “It shows the bankruptcy of their own initiatives,” she said recently on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when shown ad clips.
Ossoff calls them “tired” and repeated his pledge to be independent. Reminded that Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders held a fundraiser for him in Washington on March 16, he said, “I’m a Democrat running for Congress.”
The coordinated GOP assault certainly resonates with voters like Matt West, a Georgia financial planner. West, 45, says his first-round vote for Handel wasn’t about her or Trump, but about national Democrats. “I just don’t believe that he’d stand up to Nancy Pelosi if the district wanted him to,” West says of Ossoff.
Some Democrats say Pelosi and other party leaders walk into stereotypes about liberals, making it harder to argue that Trump and Republicans hurt middle-class households.
“It gets very difficult when most of our leadership, almost exclusively, are coastal. That’s an issue,” argues Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who unsuccessfully challenged Pelosi for minority leader last fall.
Former Rep. John Barrow of Georgia, a Democrat, argues the dynamics reflect gerrymandered districts and a campaign process that punishes moderates. Democrats will likely have to win some of those Republican-friendly districts to net the two dozen House seats they’d need for a majority.
Barrow weathered the 2010 Republican onslaught but ultimately lost in 2014, after years of Republicans branding him as an Obama-Pelosi tool — though he never voted for Pelosi as speaker, instead casting symbolic votes for civil rights leader John Lewis, another Georgia congressman.
“Both parties are tightly in the grip of the most partisan voters,” which necessarily yields a more extreme Congress, Barrow said. “I can’t tell you how many folks I had tell me, ‘John, you’d be our man for the job, but I just can’t do anything to support Obama and Pelosi.’“
Republicans have long caricatured Pelosi, who hails from a liberal San Francisco district, just as Democrats have used polarizing GOP figures like Sarah Palin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to raise money and excite loyal liberals.
The difference this time, though, is Republicans having to navigate through the politics created by their own uniquely polarizing president by making Pelosi an almost singular counter now that Obama is out of office.
Trump lost the national popular vote by almost 3 million, and he has Gallup job approval ratings lower than any recent president so early in his tenure. Republicans also attribute to Trump the national fundraising deluge for Ossoff, who’s on track to collect more than $10 million ahead of his June 20 runoff, and with the surprisingly close GOP victory margin in an April special House election in Kansas.
As Barrow, the former Georgia congressman, noted, the Pelosi effect is concentrated with a House congressional map drawn by many GOP-controlled legislatures that created more districts where she is an easy target.
“Trump may not be that popular here,” said Georgia Republican Greg Williams, who backed Handel’s top GOP opponent. But naming Pelosi, he said, is “a dog whistle for conservatives.”
With Obama, Clinton gone, GOP revives Pelosi as boogeyman
With Obama, Clinton gone, GOP revives Pelosi as boogeyman
France’s prison population reaches all-time high
Over the past year, France’s prison population grew by 6,000 inmates, taking the occupancy rate to 133.7 percent.
The record overcrowding has even seen 23 out of France’s 186 detention facilities operating at more than twice their capacity.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population.
The hard-line minister announced in mid-May a plan to build a high-security prison in French Guiana — an overseas territory situated north of Brazil — for the most “dangerous” criminals, including drug kingpins.
Prison overcrowding is “bad for absolutely everyone,” said Darmanin in late April, citing the “appalling conditions” for prisoners and “the insecurity and violence” faced by prison officers.
A series of coordinated attacks on French prisons in April saw assailants torching cars, spraying the entrance of one prison with automatic gunfire, and leaving mysterious inscriptions.
The assaults embarrassed the right-leaning government, whose tough-talking ministers — Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau — have vowed to step up the fight against narcotics.
And in late April, lawmakers approved a major new bill to combat drug-related crime, with some of France’s most dangerous drug traffickers facing detention in high-security prison units in the coming months.
France ranks among the worst countries in Europe for prison overcrowding, placing third behind Cyprus and Romania, according to a Council of Europe study published in June 2024.
Evacuation order for 11 villages on Ukraine border with Russia
- Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian
KYIV: Authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday ordered the mandatory evacuation of 11 villages because of bombardments, as Kyiv feared a Russian offensive there.
“This decision takes into account the constant threat to civilian lives because of the bombardments of border communities,” Sumy’s administration said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian.
Russia in recent weeks has claimed to have taken several villages in the northeastern region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 soldiers nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s border guard service, Andriy Demchenko, on Thursday said that Russia was poised to “attempt an attack” on Sumy.
He said the Russian troop build-up began when Moscow’s forces fought Ukrainian soldiers who last year had entered the Russian side of the border, in the Kursk region.
Russia has recently retaken control of virtually all of Kursk.
Currently, Russia — which launched its all-out invasion in February 2022 — controls around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. The ongoing conflict has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides.
Washington has been leading diplomatic efforts to try to bring about a ceasefire, but Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of not wanting peace.
The Kremlin has proposed further negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, after a May 16 round of talks that yielded little beyond a large prisoner-of-war exchange.
Kyiv has not yet said whether it will attend the Istanbul meeting, and is demanding that Moscow drop its opposition to an immediate truce.
Afghanistan welcomes upgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan
- The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries have cooled in recent months
- Tensions fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans
KABUL: Afghanistan has welcomed the decision to upgrade diplomatic relations with Pakistan, where the Taliban government’s foreign minister is due to travel in the coming days, his office said on Saturday.
The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries, as relations between the Taliban authorities and Pakistan – already rocky – have cooled in recent months, fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans.
Pakistan’s top diplomat on Friday said the charge d’affaires stationed in Kabul would be elevated to the rank of ambassador, with Kabul later announcing its representative in Islamabad would also be upgraded.
“This elevation in diplomatic representation between Afghanistan & Pakistan paves the way for enhanced bilateral cooperation in multiple domains,” the Aghan foreign ministry said on X.
Kabul’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is due to visit Pakistan “in the coming days,” ministry spokesman Zia Ahmad Takal said.
Muttaqi met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in May in Beijing as part of a trilateral meeting with their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Wang afterwards announced Kabul and Islamabad’s intention to exchange ambassadors and expressed Beijing’s willingness “to continue to assist with improving Afghanistan-Pakistan ties.”
Dar hailed the “positive trajectory” of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations on Friday, saying the upgrading of their representatives would “promote further exchanges between two fraternal countries.”
Only a handful of countries – including China – have agreed to host Taliban government ambassadors since their return to power in 2021, with no country yet formally recognizing the administration.
Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.
China rebukes Macron's comparison of Ukraine and Taiwan
- China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair
SINGAPORE: China hit back at French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday for drawing a connection between the Ukraine conflict and the fate of Taiwan, saying the two issues are "different in nature, and not comparable at all".
"Comparing the Taiwan question with the Ukraine issue is unacceptable," China's embassy in Singapore said on social media, a day after Macron warned Asian defence officials in Singapore not to view Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a far-away problem.
"If we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without any restriction, without any constraint, without any reaction of the global order, how would you phrase what could happen in Taiwan?" Macron told the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier annual security forum.
"What would you do the day something happens in the Philippines?"
China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair. There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory."
While Taiwan considers itself a sovereign nation, China has said it will not rule out using force to bring it under its control.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned Saturday at the same forum in Singapore that China was "credibly preparing" to use military force to upend the balance of power in Asia, adding the Chinese military was building the capabilities to invade Taiwan and "rehearsing for the real deal".
South Koreans rally for presidential hopefuls days before vote
- All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race
SEOUL: Thousands of supporters of South Korea’s two leading presidential candidates rallied on Saturday in Seoul, days before a vote triggered by the ex-leader’s disastrous declaration of martial law.
Tuesday’s election caps months of political turmoil sparked by Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief suspension of civilian rule in December, for which he was impeached and removed from office.
All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race, with a recent Gallup survey showing 49 percent of respondents viewed him as the best candidate.
Kim Moon-soo, from the conservative People Power Party (PPP) that Yoon left this month, trailed behind at 35 percent.
Organizers from both camps told police they expected tens of thousands of supporters to rally in Seoul on Saturday.
In Seocho, in the south of the capital, Lee supporters gathered holding signs condemning Yoon’s “insurrection.”
“I believe the outcome of the presidential election is already decided,” Lee Kyung-joon, a Lee supporter, told AFP.
“I came to today’s rally to help condemn the forces involved in the martial law attempt,” he added, referring to ex-president Yoon’s political allies.
Yoon is currently on trial for insurrection, and Kwon Oh-hyeok, one of the organizers of Saturday’s rally, said a Lee victory in the June 3 vote was crucial to holding him accountable.
“Isn’t the People Power Party’s decision to run in the snap election — triggered by Yoon’s removal from office — an insult and a betrayal of the people?” Kwon told rally participants.
“Fellow citizens, we must win by a landslide to deliver the justice this moment demands.”
On the other side of town, in Gwanghwamun Square, conservatives — including supporters of disgraced ex-leader Yoon — filled the streets holding signs that read “Yoon Again” and “Early voting is invalid!“
Yoon’s martial law attempt, which he claimed was necessary to “root out” pro-North Korean, “anti-state” forces, emboldened a wave of extreme supporters including far-right YouTubers and radical religious figures.
Many have spread unverified content online, including allegations of Chinese espionage and fraud within South Korea’s electoral system.
That sentiment was on full display at Saturday’s rally, where protesters called for the dissolution of the National Election Commission over a series of mishaps during the two-day early voting period this week.
“People believe the root of all these problems lies with the National Election Commission, and that it should be held accountable,” conservative protester Rhee Kang-san told AFP.
Both frontrunner Lee of the liberal Democratic Party and conservative challenger Kim have cast the race as a battle for the soul of the country.
More than a third of those eligible cast their ballots in early voting on Thursday and Friday, according to the election commission.
Overseas voting reached a record high, with nearly four-fifths of the 1.97 million eligible voters casting their ballots last week.
Experts say that regardless of who wins, South Korea’s polarization is likely to deepen.
If Lee wins, the conservatives “will do whatever it takes to undermine him and his government, whether their logic makes sense or not,” political analyst Park Sang-byung told AFP.
“Unless the PPP distances itself from Yoon’s extremist base, it could turn to misinformation — such as unfounded claims of election fraud — to mobilize the right against Lee. That’s a troubling prospect,” he said.
Whoever succeeds Yoon will also have to grapple with a worsening economic downturn, one of the world’s lowest birth rates, the soaring cost of living and bellicose neighbor North Korea.
He will also have to navigate a mounting superpower standoff between the United States, South Korea’s traditional security guarantor, and China, its largest trade partner.
