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Tag: Senator

  • Australian senator calls Queen Elizabeth II a colonizer whilst taking oath

    Indigenous Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe on Monday referred to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as a coloniser and swore allegiance reluctantly whilst taking the oath of place of job because the not too long ago elected lawmaker.

    The 96-year-old Queen is Australia’s head of state and Thorpe resentfully swore allegiance to the queen by way of elevating her proper fist in a Black Energy salute as a mark of protest.

    Vegetables Senator Thorpe stated, “I sovereign, Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be able to be devoted and I endure true allegiance to the colonizing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

    This Indigenous Australian senator referred to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as a coloniser, when she used to be taking her oath of place of job within the Senate percent.twitter.com/4QjCO4dYSv

    — Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 1, 2022

    She used to be then reprimanded by way of the chamber’s president, Sue Strains.

    “Senator Thorpe, Senator Thorpe, you might be required to recite the oath as imprinted on the card,” stated Sue Strains.

    Vegetables senator Lidia Thorpe then needed to redo her oath of allegiance within the Senate after prefixing the Queen as a “coloniser”.

    After reciting the pledge as required, Thorpe posted a tweet pronouncing, “Sovereignty by no means ceded.”

    Sovereignty by no means ceded. https://t.co/OowLrlUApy

    — Senator Lidia Thorpe (@SenatorThorpe) August 1, 2022

    Australia used to be a British colony for over 100 years. Right through the duration, hundreds of local Australians have been killed and communities have been displaced wholesale. The rustic received de facto independence in 1901, however hasn’t ever develop into an absolutely fledged republic.

    A number of polls display maximum Australians are in prefer of being a republic, however there’s little settlement on how a head of state will have to be selected. There used to be a row over whether or not the queen’s alternative can be selected by way of contributors of parliament or the general public.

    The problem used to be once more dropped at mild on the closing election, when well known republican Anthony Albanese used to be elected top minister. He briefly appointed the rustic’s first “minister of the republic.”

    “I do give a boost to a republic,” Albanese instructed CNN on Sunday. Then again, he added that there’s already a promised referendum on giving local Australians an institutional position in policymaking and every other referendum must wait.

    “Our precedence this time period is the popularity of First Countries other folks in our Charter,” Albanese stated.

    — ENDS —

  • No, Sen. Ted Cruz Hasn’t Posted Similar Tweets After 12 Mass Shootings

    CLAIM: A compilation of screenshots presentations that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has tweeted same messages after 12 mass shootings within the U.S. from 2012 to 2022.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The picture starts with an actual message Cruz tweeted following Tuesday’s capturing at an Uvalde, Texas, fundamental faculty, however the next 11 tweets were fabricated to seem like he used the very same message with a unique town title each and every time. A seek of Cruz’s lively Twitter accounts, internet archives and a database of deleted tweets, presentations he didn’t time and again tweet the similar message.

    THE FACTS: Within the days following the mass capturing in Uvalde during which a gunman fatally shot 19 youngsters and two academics, some social media customers are expressing frustration on the frequency of mass shootings within the U.S. and criticizing officers’ responses to them.

    One submit circulating within the aftermath falsely claimed that Cruz, a Republican senator, were recycling same messages of make stronger for sufferers following different massacres, handiest swapping within the title of town the place the mass shootings happened each and every time.

    The submit options a picture appearing 12 tweets purportedly from Cruz. The primary screenshot reads, “Heidi & I are fervently lifting up in prayer the kids and households within the horrific capturing in Uvalde. We’re in shut touch with native officers, however the correct main points are nonetheless unfolding. Thanks to heroic legislation enforcement & first responders for appearing so abruptly.”

    The remainder of the tweets proven use the similar textual content however substitute “Uvalde” with other places. The places indexed are New York, Sacramento, Indianapolis, Rochester, El Paso, Virginia Seashore, Pittsburgh, Parkland, Las Vegas, Orlando and Newtown. The timestamp of each and every tweet additionally adjustments.

    “Those mass shootings occur such a lot that Ted Cruz truly were given a template able to tweet each time they happen,” one Twitter consumer mentioned Thursday, together with the photograph that purported to turn a selection of the nearly-identical posts. The tweet had received greater than 16,000 retweets and 40,000 likes as of Friday morning.

    The textual content within the first tweet, appearing Cruz’s reaction to Uvalde, is actual. However the date within the fabricated screenshot is mistaken. Cruz tweeted his message on Might 24, now not Might 25.

    The remainder of the purported tweets incorporated within the symbol aren’t correct, in step with complex Twitter searches and exams of internet archives such because the WayBack System, and a ProPublica database that incorporates Cruz’s deleted tweets since 2013.

    Whilst Cruz has used some words more than one occasions in tweets about mass shootings — as an example “lifting up in prayer,” and addressing the “neighborhood” and “first responders” — he has now not used an same template.

    And Cruz didn’t tweet in any respect from both his non-public Twitter account nor his senator account in keeping with the mass shootings that took place in Sacramento, Indianapolis, Rochester, Virginia Seashore and Parkland.

    The dates indexed within the fabricated screenshot falsely claiming to turn Cruz’s responses to shootings in Buffalo and Rochester also are mistaken. The date given for the Buffalo capturing is indexed as April 2022, when the capturing took place the following month, in Might. And the Rochester capturing is indexed as September 2021, however that capturing took place the yr prior, in 2020.

    A spokesman for Cruz didn’t right away reply to an emailed request for remark.

    This is a part of AP’s effort to handle extensively shared incorrect information, together with paintings with out of doors firms and organizations so as to add factual context to deceptive content material this is circulating on-line. Be told extra about fact-checking at AP.

  • Republician Senator Pushes GOP To Get ‘Louder’ On False Trump Claims

    PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota has been telling folks for the closing yr that the 2020 election was once honest, however this week he did one thing few different Republicans have dared — inform a countrywide target audience that.

    Now he needs extra Republicans would sign up for him.

    Rounds, who’s in his 2d Senate time period, has been telling native newspapers, radio presentations and Rotary golf equipment in South Dakota that he looked at the allegations of election fraud made by means of former President Donald Trump and, whilst there have been some “irregularities,” all of them got here up empty of the rest that might counter the fact that Trump misplaced. So, when ABC Information’ “This Week” requested the senator to seem on its Sunday display to speak about the Jan. 6, 2020, assault at the Capitol, Rounds mentioned his resolution was once easy: “Smartly, in fact I can.”

    However the backlash from talking was once swift. Rounds mentioned he wasn’t taking a look to pick out a struggle with Trump, however that’s precisely what came about. The previous president referred to as Rounds a “jerk” in a remark. Rounds stood by means of what he mentioned, and argued there are lots of extra Republicans like him — they usually wish to talk up.

    “If we need to stay the consider and acquire the consider of extra folks which are questioning, we need to almost definitely say it somewhat bit louder and in additional puts that many people usually both aren’t invited to speak or have selected to not get into the fray,” Rounds informed The Related Press in an interview this week.

    Rounds were given backup after Trump’s assault from a number of high-profile Republicans, together with Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell and fellow South Dakotan Sen. John Thune, who has had his personal run-ins with Trump. However with the GOP nonetheless in large part within the former president’s grip, it’s no longer transparent whether or not Rounds’ defiance represents a slip in that seize or whether or not he’s a lonely voice within the birthday celebration.

    Republicans have most commonly have shyed away from public communicate of the deadliest home assault on Congress within the country’s historical past, calling memorials and inquiries into the rise up “politicized.” And Trump has clung to the perception that the election was once stolen from him. In an interview Tuesday with Nationwide Public Radio, the previous president mentioned it was once an “merit” for Republicans to stay alleging fraud and that Rounds was once “completely flawed.”

    Some Republicans have anxious that Trump’s assaults will finally end up hurting the birthday celebration, miserable turnout by means of conservatives and harmful them in long term elections.

    That’s some extent Rounds made. He needs to transport on from Trump’s baseless election fraud claims, however no longer prior to making it transparent that Trump misplaced — honest and sq.. He mentioned the birthday celebration dangers shedding credibility and electorate if Trump is permitted to undermine consider within the democratic procedure.

    “We must be extra competitive in reassuring conservatives that their vote counts,” Rounds mentioned, including “to provide them reassurance that they are able to consider us and that we will be able to talk the reality. And although it’s the onerous reality that’s onerous to swallow, we’re no longer going to mislead them.”

    In South Dakota, the response to Trump’s assault on Rounds has up to now been muted in comparison to the backlash Thune confronted closing yr when Trump lashed out at him for pronouncing that the try to overturn the election would “cross down like a shot canine” within the Senate.

    Gov. Kristi Noem, who has aligned herself extra carefully with Trump than every other South Dakota baby-kisser, mentioned Tuesday she was once no longer conscious about the alternate between Rounds and Trump. And Jeff Holbrook, the chair of the Pennington County GOP, some of the state’s biggest county events that held “Prevent the Thieve” rallies in beef up of Trump after the 2020 election, mentioned he had noticed little response to Trump’s assault on Rounds.

    Rounds mentioned he has heard lots concerning the alternate, acknowledging that some response was once adverse, however he mentioned the “overwhelming majority” was once from folks thanking him for talking up.

    Trump jabbed at Rounds by means of pronouncing he handiest had braveness to make the ones remarks as a result of he doesn’t face reelection till 2026, and he pledged that he would by no means once more endorse Rounds.

    Rounds stated that some Republicans dealing with previous primaries would no longer “disappoint part of the bottom that truly does have a loyalty to the previous president.”

    However he argued it might be carried out, pointing to Thune, who lately mulled retirement prior to pronouncing closing week he would search some other time period. Regardless that Thune has a big marketing campaign fund and a reputedly transparent trail to reelection, he has drawn a handful of number one demanding situations from an rebel team of conservatives in the hunt for to unseat any individual who hasn’t purchased into the Trump emblem of politics.

    “He’s no longer searching for a struggle,” Rounds mentioned of Thune. “He simply needs to be truthful with the folks.”

    One in all Thune’s challengers, Bruce Whalen, had cautionary phrases for Rounds.

    “He must remember the fact that South Dakota is predominantly MAGA and there are simply such a lot of offended folks available in the market at the moment,” Whalen mentioned.