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    European monitors: US election was fair but must try harder on voting rights

    The election arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has brought out its final report on the 2020 US presidential election, concluding that it was well organised under the circumstances and there was no significant fraud.The report also found that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and refusal to accept defeat undermined public faith in democratic institutions, and warned the US has long-term problems with providing equal voting rights for all.As is routine for OSCE member states, its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sent a team out to observe the run-up, election day itself and the aftermath. Its report notes that voting infrastructure in the US is chronically underfunded, and the extra $400m disbursed to deal with the challenge of voting in a pandemic was insufficient.A total of 101 million Americans, 64% of all 2020 voters, cast an early ballot, but despite that unprecedented number, the report found that “early voting was generally well organised and implemented professionally”.“The number and scale of substantiated cases of fraud associated to absentee ballots were negligible,” it said.One of the main problems with the election and its aftermath, according to the findings, was the incumbent president.“On many occasions, President Trump created an impression of refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, claiming that the electoral process was systematically rigged,” the report said.“Such statements by an incumbent president weaken public confidence in state institutions and were perceived by many as increasing the potential for politically motivated violence after the elections.”The ODIHR report did not take an explicit view on Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol riot on 6 January and for which he was impeached a second time. But it noted that at his rally immediately beforehand, Trump “persisted in his accusations that the election had been stolen, urging his supporters to pressure representatives to overturn the counting of electoral college votes”.The ODIHR was most scathing about the state of voting rights in the US. It notes that after the supreme court invalidated key parts of the Voting Rights Act, “some states enacted laws which effectively compromised voting rights for some disadvantaged groups”.An estimated 5.2 million citizens are effectively disenfranchised due to a criminal conviction, even though half have served their sentences.The report concluded: “These restrictions on the voting rights of ex-felons and felons contravene principles of universal suffrage and the principle of proportionality in the restriction of rights, as provided for by OSCE commitments and other international standards.”The ODIHR made 38 recommendations on how to improve US democracy. It called on American politicians to stop using “inflammatory or discriminatory rhetoric”, and for all people with criminal convictions to have their voting rights restored on completion of their sentence.It also said US authorities should work on reducing the number of unregistered voters, by reducing “burdensome procedures and obstacles” to registration that have been erected in some states, draw up district boundaries on non-partisan principles, and review the electoral college system so that it confirms with the “principle of equality of the vote”. More

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    Senate leaders announce Trump impeachment trial rules – video

    On the eve of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority and minority leaders, have laid out the framework for the trial. ’All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,’ Schumer said. Each side will have 16 hours to present their arguments and the trial will break on Friday afternoon and resume on Sunday afternoon
    Trump impeachment: Schumer says agreement reached on rules for trial – live More

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    Georgia opens investigation into Trump effort to overturn election results

    The Georgia secretary of state’s office opened an investigation on Monday into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, according to a new report.The office of Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, had faced calls to open an investigation after Trump was recorded in a 2 January phone call pressuring Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results based on unfounded voter fraud claims.“The secretary of state’s office investigates complaints it receives,” said Walter Jones, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, describing the investigation as “fact-finding and administrative”, Reuters reported.“Any further legal efforts will be left to the attorney general,” he said.Legal experts said Trump’s phone calls might have violated at least three state criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, and intentional interference with performance of election duties.The felony and misdemeanor violations are punishable by fines or imprisonment.In the 2 January phone call, Trump urged Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn his Georgia loss to Joe Biden.The transcript quotes Trump telling Raffensperger: “All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,” which is the number Trump needed to win.Trump made another phone call in December to Georgia’s chief elections investigator, Raffensperger’s office told Reuters.Additionally, two Democratic members of Congress – Kathleen Rice, of New York, and Ted Lieu, of California – have asked in a 4 January letter to the FBI for a criminal investigation into Trump’s call to Raffensperger.On 6 January – the day of the US Capitol riots – Trump bragged about the call in a speech to supporters: “People love that conversation because it says what’s going on,* he said. “These people are crooked.”The push for investigations is one illustration of the legal perils facing Trump since he lost the constitutional protections that shield sitting presidents from prosecution.Trump now faces nearly a dozen legal battles, including a criminal inquiry by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, into his business dealings, and several civil lawsuits.Trump has described the investigations into his family business as politically motivated.David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s state election board, had planned to introduce a motion at Wednesday’s board meeting urging the state attorney general, Chris Carr, and Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, to open a criminal investigation into Trump’s phone calls with election officials.He said such a move would be unnecessary if the secretary of state’s office had opened an investigation. “If they’ve done this, I won’t need to make my motion,” Worley said.“This is the normal thing that should happen when a complaint is filed. If a complaint is filed, an investigation is started. That’s how it works.” More

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    Peer is asked to investigate the activities of extreme right and left

    The government has reportedly ordered an investigation into the extreme fringes on both ends of the political spectrum, with a peer tasked with offering recommendations to the prime minister and home secretary.The review will be led by John Woodcock, the former Labour MP who now sits in the upper chamber as Lord Walney and was appointed as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption last November.Announcing the review in an interview with the Telegraph, the unaffiliated peer cautioned that the UK must take notice of the rise of far-right groups in the US following the storming of the Capitol building last month.Woodcock stressed that there was “not an equivalence of threat between the far-left and the far-right” in the UK, with the latter a far bigger issue.In September, Home Office data showed that right-wing extremists now make up almost a fifth of terrorists in jail, rising from 33 in 2018/19 to 45 in the year to 30 June 2020 in England and Wales.Furthermore, last year’s annual figures for the government’s controversial Prevent scheme showed that the largest number of referrals related to far-right extremism.James Brokenshire, the security minister, warned that far-right terror posed “a growing threat”, which had been accelerated by the amplification of conspiracy theories online during the pandemic. Of the cases ultimately referred to the government’s Channel programme for specialist support, 302 (43%) were referred for rightwing radicalisation.Walney told the Telegraph that there had also been isolated incidents of some leftwing causes “overstepping the mark into antisocial behaviour”, and the activities of these groups would also be investigated.He said: “There have been a number of, at the moment isolated, examples of climate change activist groups, particularly Extinction Rebellion, overstepping the mark into antisocial behaviour. I think there’s been a recognition that, even among that movement, they have at times risked undermining their own cause.“I’m coming at this with an open mind, but with an understanding that there is clearly a potential for groups to develop into increasingly problematic areas.”The home secretary, Priti Patel, has previously claimed Extinction Rebellion activists are “so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals” who threaten key planks of national life.In a speech to the annual conference of the Police Superintendents’ Association last September, Patel said XR was “attempting to thwart the media’s right to publish without fear nor favour”, and claimed their campaign of civil disobedience was “a shameful attack on our way of life, our economy and the livelihoods of the hard-working majority”. More

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    Fox News cancels Lou Dobbs Tonight

    Fox Business Network has canceled the show of Lou Dobbs, the ardent Donald Trump supporter with a history of espousing misinformation who promoted baseless conspiracy theories of voting fraud after the election.
    Friday evening marked the final airing of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs’ regular weeknight program. The Fox host was a major contributor to the false narrative that the election was stolen and continued espousing those views on his program even after admitting that they lacked actual proof.
    “Eight weeks from the election and we still don’t have verifiable, tangible support for the crimes that everyone knows were committed,” he said on air in January.
    Dobbs, 75, has hosted the program since 2011. Trump considered it must-see TV and even reportedly patched the host through during key policy meetings.
    Dobbs is still considered the highest-rated host on the Fox Business Network, and he has remained under contract even though he is not expected to reappear on a new show. His show’s slot, which airs twice on weeknights, will now be filled with a show called Fox Business Tonight, which will feature Jackie DeAngelis and David Asman as hosts.
    News of the cancellation came one day after Dobbs, 75, was named as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, an election technology company and voting machine maker, which accuses Dobbs and other Fox News anchors of promoting unfounded claims that Smartmatic was involved in a scheme to hand the presidency to Joe Biden.
    Citing the fabricated reporting, Smartmatic sued to the tune of $2.7bn. The 285-page lawsuit, filed in New York state supreme court, claims the network launched a “disinformation campaign” against the company, whose voting machines were only used in Los Angeles county. Trump’s former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell who appeared as guests on the network, were also named in the defamation suit.
    Fox said the move to end Dobbs’ show had been in the works before the lawsuit.
    “As we said in October, Fox News Media regularly considers programming changes and plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate post-election, including on Fox Business,” a Fox News spokesperson said. “This is part of those planned changes.”
    On the Smartmatic lawsuit, Fox said on Thursday the network was “proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court”.
    Dobbs said he had no comment on Friday. More

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    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib deliver emotional speeches on US Capitol attack – video

    The congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib have delivered emotional testimonies about the 6 January US Capitol breach on the House floor.  Ocasio-Cortez called for the House to avoid quickly moving on from the insurrection, saying it would diminish the impact on survivors and avoid accountability for those killed. Tlaib referenced the death threats she had received before she was sworn in and pleaded for the rhetoric that led to the attack to be taken seriously More

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    House majority leader Hoyer walks poster of Greene's AR-15 post across House floor – video

    A fiercely divided House removed the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from both her committees Thursday, an unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she’d earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.
    During the debate, the House majority, leader Steny Hoyer, exhibited a Facebook post in which Greene is holding a gun next the faces of progressive congresswomen of color
    House votes to remove Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee roles
    Biden declares ‘diplomacy is back’ as he outlines foreign policy agenda at state department – live More

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    'America is back': Biden pledges return to diplomacy in US foreign policy – video

    Joe Biden outlined his vision for America’s foreign policy agenda in a speech at the state department. The president reiterated the need for America to strengthen its global alliances after four years of Donald Trump belittling those relationships.
    ‘We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again – not to meet yesterday’s challenges but today’s and tomorrow’s,’ Biden said. ‘We can’t do it alone.’
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