Evelyn Reynolds

Supporters of Rashida Tlaib are donating to and speaking out in defense of the progressive Democratic congresswoman following her censure from Congress, while the White House “strongly disagrees” with her use of the slogan “from the river to the sea”.Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, was censured on Tuesday over her criticism of Israel’s attacks in Gaza.In a 234 to 188 vote, 22 Democrats joined Republicans to pass a resolution punishing Tlaib for allegedly “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about the 7 October attack on Israel.Tlaib has long criticized Joe Biden’s support of Israel, but received intense backlash after her defense of the slogan.In a social media post on Friday, Tlaib defended the phrase as “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate”.The full slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, references the land that sits between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. While many recognize the slogan as a call for Palestinian liberation, others argue that the term has been used to call for the destruction of Israel and the persecution of Jewish people.The White House denounced Tlaib’s use of the slogan on Wednesday.“As it relates to that term, we’ve been very clear we strongly disagree,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during Wednesday’s press briefing, Reuters reported.But many supporters of Tlaib posted their thoughts to social media.Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, founder of the blog MuslimGirl.com, thanked Tlaib for her service and called out Congress for failing to pass a ceasefire.“Thank you for becoming the lesson for future generations – for solidifying the hypocrisy of this moment, when our Congress refused to vote for a ceasefire but instead to censure the ONLY Palestinian rep we have,” wrote Al-Khatahtbeh on X, formerly known as Twitter.Peter Beinart, a professor at the Newmark School of Journalism and editor-at-large for Jewish Currents, posted a message of support for Tlaib, adding that the congresswoman “exposes as a sham [other Democrats’] claim to defend human rights”.“She reminds them that their lack of courage is a choice,” Beinart said in a post to X.Others called for donations to Tlaib’s re-election campaign.Progressive legislators and groups have also rallied to demonstrate their support of Tlaib. The Missouri representative Cori Bush, who has also faced backlash for criticizing Israel, posted a message of support to X before Tuesday’s censure vote.“I stand with Rashida,” Bush said.The Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar called out the lack of discipline for Republican lawmakers who have publicly called for Gaza to be turned into a “parking lot”.“Where is the condemnation for that?? Where is the condemnation of the 10,000+ Palestinians dying?” wrote Omar on X.“We will continue to stand for the dignity and humanity of ALL in the face of inhumanity,” she said.Representative Alexandrio Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X that it was “not lost on anyone how many offensive, violent, and racist things people regularly hear members of Congress say, yet virtually the only one that gets censured for her political speech also happens to be the only Palestinian American. It does not reflect well. At all.”Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the progressive Pac Justice Democrats called Tlaib’s censure “shameful” and “unmistakably racist” in a statement to the Guardian.“It is utterly shameful and disgusting that we saw 22 Democrats who have seen 10,000 Palestinians getting murdered with bombs they voted to fund – and they couldn’t even stand with the single Palestinian woman in Congress when Republicans attacked her,” he said.“It is clear that the only thing they’re full of is a bloodlust for genocide and ethnic cleansing,” he added. “Every single one of these Democrats’ names should be remembered for their cowardice.”Such support has been tempered by hostility from Republicans and Democrats who voted to censure Tlaib, who has served in the US House since 2019.The Tennessee representative Marsha Blackburn replied to a statement from Tlaib via X.“As the only Palestinian American in Congress, you should want freedom for Palestinians, which starts with eradicating Hamas,” Blackburn said, in part.The Democratic representative Brad Schneider accused Tlaib of “inflammatory language that dangerously amplifies Hamas propaganda”, in a statement about his support of the censure.“I recognize this censure resolution is not a perfect resolution in its language or form, but unfortunately it is the only vehicle available to formally rebuke the dangerous disinformation and aspersions that Rep Tlaib continues to use and defend,” he said in a statement via X.Tlaib’s censure comes as more than 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, the territory’s health ministry said on Monday, the Associated Press reported.Israel has launched a series of airstrikes on the territory, including on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp. The UN human rights office has warned the attack “could amount to war crimes”.Israel attacked Gaza after Hamas fighters crossed into Israel from the territory and killed 1,400 people and took more than 200 hostages. Casualties on both sides have been mostly civilians. More

More than a year after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, handing states the power to decide if and how to ban abortion, voters have again overwhelmingly rejected attempts to curtail access to the procedure. A string of successes for abortion rights groups on Tuesday are raising hopes among Democrats that, despite recent dismal polls, the issue will lift their odds in 2024.In Ohio, the only state to hold an abortion-related ballot referendum in 2023, more than 56% of voters agreed to enshrine the right to the procedure into the state constitution. In Virginia, Democrats won back full control of the state legislature after Republicans campaigned on the promise of a “sensible limit” that would ban most abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy. In Kentucky, the incumbent Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, bested his anti-abortion Republican opponent. And in Pennsylvania, in a race dominated by talk of abortion, Democrats won a seat on the state supreme court.On Tuesday evening in downtown Columbus, Ohio, abortion rights advocates crowded into a hotel ballroom to watch as results streamed in. Once the vote was called in their favor, the conversation in the room immediately turned to the topic on everyone’s minds: what does the victory mean for next year? In 2024, abortion-related referendums may be on the ballot in roughly a dozen states, including in critical swing states like Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Iowa. Democrats will almost certainly lean on the issue to buoy their party in races for Congress and the White House. And Tuesday’s results in Ohio raise hopes that they might be able to pluck voters from the other side. While Joe Biden lost Ohio in 2020, garnering only about 45% of the vote, Issue 1, the proposal to add abortion rights into the state constitution, won with an estimated 56% of the vote on Tuesday. That sweep indicates that Republican voters are abandoning their party on this issue.“Abortion is a winning issue, including in states that are considered red,” said Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of Urge: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity. “Young people, black voters, rural voters – voters all across the state came out and we saw support in every single corner of the state. The lesson for other states is: don’t take anyone for granted. Don’t assume they’re gonna support you, but also don’t assume that they’re gonna oppose.”The issue turns voters out in high numbers, which could also prove a boon for Biden at a time of low enthusiasm: nearly 4 million people voted this year on Issue 1, according to early data from Ohio’s secretary of state office. That’s only slightly less than the 4.2 million people who turned out to vote in Ohio’s gubernatorial race last year – even though 2023 was considered an “off-off” election year.The failures in Ohio and Virginia also leave Republicans without a clear roadmap for messaging on abortion – an issue that led them to underperform in the 2022 midterms. In Ohio, opponents of the ballot initiative, Issue 1, focused much of their message not on the morality of abortion, but on the idea that Issue 1 threatened parents’ rights to know if their children underwent an abortion or gender-affirming care. (That claim is dubious, legal experts told the Guardian.) In Virginia, Republicans tried to take advantage of Americans’ lack of support for abortion in the second and third trimester by proposing to ban abortion past 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies.Both efforts were viewed as tests for next year – had either message won over voters, Republicans across the country may have adopted them in their own races in 2024. Now, their strategy is in question, and any course they choose risks alienating key constituencies. “If the GOP moves to the center on abortion, they’re afraid that they’ll lose conservative donors and base voters – who are the ones who tend to be the most passionate Republican voters, the ones who turn out the most reliably and also people who donate a lot of money,” said Mary Ziegler, a University of California, Davis School of Law professor who studies the legal history of reproduction. “Republicans have been trying to finesse that, with pretty much no success to date.”Despite being directly responsible for overturning Roe v Wade through his appointments to the supreme court, Donald Trump has attempted to stem the damage by distancing himself from much of his party, coming out against a national abortion ban. But polling shows that voters don’t necessarily trust Republicans who say they will not totally ban abortion. That may be in part due to their decades-long partnership with an anti-abortion movement that would like to eliminate the procedure entirely.Hours before polls closed on Tuesday, Jamie Curry, Ohio regional coordinator for the anti-abortion group Students for Life, tried to convince passing Ohio State University students that Issue 1 was too extreme. “You seem to be in favor of a commonsense, middle of the road, but there’s plenty of people who align more pro-choice and are voting no on this issue,” Curry told one student.But Curry’s message of moderation and compromise were contrasted by her group’s nearby poster board, which read: “All human beings are valuable persons, no matter their stage in life.”“Republicans can spend their money saying that, ‘We are the moderates on this,’” said Joey Teitelbaum, vice-president of research for Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm. “But in voting for Democrats in Virginia and voting for Andy Beshear, where abortion was a major part of that race and the communications, voters are clearly saying, ‘We do not trust Republicans on this.’” More

Loudoun county, Virginia, attracted national headlines in 2021, when parents outraged over the alleged instruction of critical race theory and policies regarding transgender students shouted down officials at school board meetings.Republican Glenn Youngkin made the issue a central focus of his gubernatorial campaign in the months after, accusing Democrats of politicizing education to the detriment of students’ learning and blaming them for pandemic-related school closures. And he had hoped it would continue to work in Tuesday’s general election.“No more are we going to make parents stand outside of the room,” Youngkin told a crowd in Leesburg, part of Loudon county, on Monday. “We are going to put them at the head of the table in charge of our children’s lives.”But that message failed on Tuesday, as Democratic-endorsed candidates won a majority on the Loudoun county school board.The elections, in which every school board seat was up for grabs on Tuesday, had been framed as a test of the resiliency of parents’ rights as a campaign issue. Republicans had hoped to replicate Youngkin’s success in Loudoun county, which serves more than 80,000 students in a wealthy area located about an hour outside Washington. Instead, Loudoun county voters delivered a six-seat majority for Democratic-backed candidates on the nine-seat school board.The Democrats’ wins reflected their broader success on Tuesday, as they maintained their majority in the state senate and flipped control of the house of delegates. Despite Youngkin’s hopes that Republicans would take full control of the legislature, he will instead finish his gubernatorial term with a statehouse led by Democrats.Over the first two years of his governorship, Youngkin had pushed a series of controversial policies in schools to amplify his support of parents’ rights. On the day that he took office in 2022, Youngkin signed an executive order to “restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education”. Another order signed on the same day eliminated mask mandates for students in Virginia’s schools.“No day will be more vividly held in my mind than when I sat on those steps in our capitol, and I signed that bill that said that parents will decide if your child wears a mask in school,” Youngkin said on Monday. “Folks, children belong to parents, not to the state.”Republican-backed candidates championed a similar message in Loudoun county ahead of this year’s elections, pointing to the school board’s mismanagement of sexual assault allegations as evidence of the need for a change in leadership.The new Loudoun county school board will be composed solely of new members, as the two incumbents who ran on Tuesday both lost, and Republicans fell short in their efforts to take the majority.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs Democrats took a victory lap on Tuesday, some of them pointed to the results in Loudoun county as evidence that Youngkin’s message of parents’ rights no longer resonates with Virginia voters.“It’s always been obvious to those who paid attention that Republicans oversold their political advantage by weaponizing school board meetings with culture war issues,” the Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Glenn Youngkin’s politics have never been popular in Loudoun.”The disappointing results could spell trouble for Republicans as they look ahead to the 2024 elections, when control of the White House and Congress will be on the ballot. As one of the only states holding off-year elections, Virginia generally serves as a test of each party’s messaging before a presidential race.The results in Loudoun county and across the state of Virginia indicate that Republicans may need a new message. More

The New York Times released a poll on Monday showing Donald Trump beating Joe Biden in several key states, and progressives across the country started to panic. The next day, actual voters in actual states cast actual ballots, and suddenly Democratic prospects don’t look nearly as bleak. In state after state, Democrats and progressives swept to victory, affirming the findings from decades of demographic and electoral data showing that the majority of Americans prefer the more multiracial and inclusive vision of Democrats to the angry and punitive policies of the Republicans.At the heart of the Times poll was the suggestion that African Americans and Latinos were gravitating in large and significant numbers to support Trump. According to the poll, 71% of Black voters and just 50% of Latinos backed Biden. If accurate, those numbers would represent a historic collapse of Democratic support among people of color. Since exit polling by racial groups began in 1976, African Americans have supported the Democratic nominee for president with 88% of their votes, on average. In 2020, Biden got 87% of the Black vote, and in the 2022 midterms, Democratic candidates received 86% of the Black vote. As for Latinos, Biden secured 65% support in 2020.Rather than question the findings of a poll that contradicted decades of prior electoral evidence, much of the media ran with the findings and prophesied doom for Democrats. But then a funny thing happened on the way to a second Trump administration. Voters went to the polls this week and elected Democratic candidates and passed progressive policies.In Kentucky, a state Trump won by 26 points, the Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, handily defeated the Trump acolyte Daniel Cameron. The fact that Cameron is African American and yet still performed poorly undermines the narrative that Black voters are donning Maga hats in large numbers. As the professor Jason Johnson tweeted on Tuesday: “Cameron is a Black Republican candidate w/ Trump’s endorsement in a deeply Red State and he’s going to lose. Can we stop w/ the ‘Trump is gaining ground with black voters’ narrative? Because this should’ve been the test case.”There is literally no state more historically intertwined with the Black experience in America than Virginia. It is where Africans were first brought in 1619, and it was the capital of the Confederacy during the civil war. In 2021, the Republican Glenn Youngkin won the gubernatorial election, and his party flipped control of the house of delegates, occasioning a spate of articles about the shifting political tides in the commonwealth. But activists and organizers led by groups such as New Virginia Majority steadily registered and mobilized voters of color in large numbers, resulting in Democrats maintaining control of the state senate and recapturing a majority in the house of delegates. Come January, in the same building where the Confederates attempted to organize their white nationalist rebellion, an African American, Don Scott, will become the speaker of the house.In Ohio, a state carried twice by Trump, Democrats backed a pro-choice ballot measure that would amend the state constitution to give individuals the “right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions”. The measure swept to a resounding victory, 57% to 43%. Buckeye state Black voters supported the amendment with 83% of their ballots, sharply refuting the premise that Black support for progressive causes is dissipating.Other states and cities also rode the progressive wave this week, with Democrats winning a contest for a seat on the Pennsylvania state supreme court and also prevailing in a key race in Allegheny county.This week’s election results affirm a few fundamental truths about American politics. Truths proven by this week’s results and nearly 50 years of electoral results, annual census reports and biennial exit polls.There is no more immutable law of politics than the fact that African Americans overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. This is less the result of a particular partisan affinity than the logical reaction to the reality that the fuel of the Republican political machine is white racial rage and resentment. No Democratic nominee has received less than 83% of the Black vote. In terms of African Americans, the question is not who they will vote for, but whether they will vote. That is the real challenge facing progressives in 2024. And that relates to the second fundamental truth, the changing composition of the country’s electorate and the implications for political contests.In the 1960s, people of color comprised just 12% of the US population. Today, the nation is far more racially diverse, with 41% of the population identifying as people of color as the demographic revolution continues apace. In a country defined by the ongoing existential battle over whether this will be a white nationalist society or a multiracial democracy, the majority of people reject the idea of making America white again. Most people in America prefer the Democrats’ vision of a multiracial America (however halfheartedly it may be expressed at times) to the raw, unapologetic white nationalism espoused in coded and not-so-coded ways by Republicans. With the sole exception of the 2004 presidential election, the Democratic nominee has won the popular vote in every single presidential election over the past 30 years.Republicans understand this reality better than Democrats which is why they ferociously focus on suppressing the vote far more than Democrats emphasize expanding voting. From Florida to Texas to Georgia, Republican legislatures and governors have passed draconian laws designed to make it harder to vote.The most important lesson coming out of this week’s election (beyond ignoring aberrant polling data from august institutions) is that maximizing voter turnout is the key to victory. Biden and the entire progressive movement must both inspire the multiracial New American Majority by fighting for unapologetically social justice policies and also invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the kind of voter turnout machine required to surmount suppression and manifest the power of the true majority.
Steve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color and author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good More

Late last month, when House Republicans ended their chaotic, weeks-long search for a new speaker by elevating Louisiana’s Mike Johnson, a curious trend of stories began appearing in national media. Democratic operatives (and perhaps a few of Johnson’s Republican adversaries, too) had begun leaking what’s known in Washington as “oppo”, or opposition research – unflattering truths about political rivals – about the new speaker.For many politicians, the embarrassing secrets revealed in an oppo dump are somewhat oblique; usually, they’re about money. Maybe the candidate, as a young lawyer, represented a bank in a case where he aimed to repossess the home of a poor widow; maybe the candidate’s husband or daughter was appointed to a job they did not seem quite qualified for, raising questions about nepotism or access trading. The aim of such stories is to make a politician appear corrupt, or unscrupulous – like someone beholden to greed and not to principle.But the picture that has emerged instead of the once-obscure Louisiana congressmen has not been that of the typically cynical climber, maneuvering corporate heights in pursuit of their own ambition without regard to ethics. Instead, the revelations that have emerged about Mike Johnson since his ascent to the speakership paint a picture of a fevered zealot: in thrall of baroque and morbid religious fantasies; beholden to a regressive, bigoted and morbid worldview; and above all, obsessed – with a lurid and creepy enthusiasm – with sex, and how he thinks it should be done.The enforcement of a Christian sexual morality and a strict gender hierarchy of men over women have not been incidental or minor themes of Johnson’s career: they have been its primary goal, one he pursued doggedly through his pre-congressional life. As a lawyer, he worked against gay marriage, and to uphold Louisiana’s criminal ban on gay sex, writing briefs that described homosexuality as “inherently unnatural” and “a dangerous lifestyle” which he compared to pedophilia and bestiality. He still opposes marriage equality, and led efforts to squash the speakership candidacy of Tom Emmer last month in part because of Emmer’s support for gay marriage rights. Along the way, Johnson has authored a national version of Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” bill, which would outlaw mentions of homosexuality at schools, hospitals and other federally funded facilities. He opposes access to transition-related healthcare for adolescents and adults alike, and both he and his wife have worked to advance so-called “conversion therapy”, an abusive, homophobic practice that has been outlawed in several states.It probably goes without saying that Johnson, like many Republicans and nearly all of the party’s luminaries, favors a national ban on abortion, which he calls a “holocaust.” While more savvy Republicans like Glenn Youngkin have attempted to frame themselves as “moderates” by placing their preferred abortion bans at supposedly more amenable points in pregnancy, like 15 weeks, Johnson has made no such effort: he has sponsored legislation that would ban abortion nationwide at all stages of pregnancy, establishing a “right to life” for fertilized eggs that supersedes women’s rights to dignity and self-determination.His sweeping antagonism to abortion rights has extended to several kinds of birth control, such as IUDs, implants and many birth control pills. In his career as a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom – a rightwing legal shop spearheading efforts to advance Christian gender conservatism through litigation – he argued that the most popular kinds of hormonal birth control, and those that are controlled by women, are equivalent to abortion and should therefore be banned. When the House advanced a bill to codify the right to contraception after the US supreme court’s Dobbs ruling in 2022, Johnson voted against it. He has since played dumb on the issue, claiming he does not remember his opposition to birth control in an interview with Shannon Bream of Fox News.In light of his aggressively misogynist and anti-gay views on public policy, it is likely not surprising that Johnson also advances a disturbing and sexist view of the private sphere. He has condemned no-fault divorce, the liberalized regime of divorce law that was won by feminists in the 20th century, and which allowed women to initiate divorce and to exit marriages without having to prove either infidelity or abuse to a court. Johnson says that women’s freedom to leave marriages, along with their freedom to elect out of motherhood when they choose, is responsible for mass shootings.He and his own wife have a so-called “covenant marriage”, a religious arrangement that formalizes men’s superiority and constricts women’s freedom to leave, designed for conservative straight couples who feel that no-fault divorce and gay marriage rights somehow degrade their own unions. He has also spoken of being in a bizarre arrangement of mutual masturbation monitoring with his son, with whom Johnson installed family surveillance technology that reports users’ pornography consumption habits to one another.It would be easy to see Johnson’s wildly regressive gender politics as a personal quirk – his beliefs that gay people are sinful and inferior; that women should not be able to live freely from men or use their bodies in ways that are counter to wishes of the men close to them; that marriage should act, for men, as an entitlement to absolute control, and for women, as a prison. But these ideas are not quirks; they are part of a powerful constituency in the Republican party, one that has now found its way into the speakership, second in line for the presidency.Gender conservatism does not tend to attract as much notice as the other pillars of the far-right ideology: it is less distinct than the far right’s avowed white supremacy, less flashy than its hostility to democracy. But the convictions shared by Johnson – about women’s inferiority and men’s right to control them, about gay people’s moral transgression, and about the ways that the sexed body at birth can, and must, be used to determine the outcomes of a person’s life – have become the foundation upon which the Republican party’s warring factions are set to unite.The notion that the Christian right tradition that Johnson represents would be uncomfortable with Trumpism was always overstated; in America, Christian conservatives have always had more moral vanity than moral conviction. But now, Johnson’s ascent to the head of the thoroughly Trumpist House Republican caucus marks the groundbreaking for a new party order. The Republican party is rebuilding itself: it’s building on misogyny.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted late on Tuesday to censure the Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – the only Palestinian American in Congress – in an extraordinary rebuke of her rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war.The 234-188 tally came after enough Democrats joined with Republicans to censure Tlaib, a punishment one step below expulsion from the House. The three-term congresswoman has long been a target of criticism for her views on the decades-long conflict in the Middle East.The debate on the censure resolution on Tuesday afternoon was emotional and intense. The Republican representative Rich McCormick of Georgia pushed the censure measure in response to what he called Tlaib’s promotion of antisemitic rhetoric. He said she had “levied unbelievable falsehoods about our greatest ally, Israel, and the attack on October 7”.Tlaib provoked criticism last week by defending the controversial slogan “from the river to the sea”.In remarks on the House floor, Tlaib defended her criticism of the country and urged lawmakers to join in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.“I will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words,” Tlaib said. “No government is beyond criticism. The idea that criticizing the government of Israel is antisemitic sets a very dangerous precedent, and it’s been used to silence diverse voices speaking up for human rights across our nation.”She also said she had condemned the Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens several times.Tlaib, who was first elected in 2018 and is a prominent member of “the Squad” of progressive female lawmakers, grew emotional as she said: “I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore than 10,000 people have died in Gaza since the war started one month ago, and almost half of the deaths are children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. More

The progressive Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who is the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, on Tuesday defended her criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and urged US lawmakers to join in calling for a ceasefire.Her comments on the House floor came minutes after Democrats paved the way for an effort to censure her for her remarks, which her detractors say disparaged Israel, and included an emotional and impassioned plea for free speech and equal treatment for Palestinians. The actual vote on whether or not to censure Tlaib is expected on Wednesday.Tlaib has been an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s staunch backing of Israel after Hamas fighters killed more than 1,400 Israelis and took at least 200 hostage. In response, Israel’s attack on Hamas-run Gaza has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians. On both sides, most casualties are civilians.Tlaib has accused Joe Biden of supporting genocide and threatened that he will lose Arab American and Muslim support in the 2024 election – triggering widespread condemnation by Republicans and many Democrats.But Tlaib was unrepentant in her speech.“I will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words,” Tlaib said. “No government is beyond criticism. The idea that criticizing the government of Israel is antisemitic sets a very dangerous precedent, and it’s been used to silence diverse voices speaking up for human rights across our nation.”Tlaib, who was first elected in 2018 and is a prominent member of “the Squad” of progressive lawmakers, grew emotional as she said: “I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable.”She added: “The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me. What I don’t understand is why the cries of Palestinians sound different to you all. We cannot lose our shared humanity, Mr Chair. I hear the voices of advocates in Israel and Palestine across America and around the world for peace.“I’m inspired by … the courageous survivors in Israel who have lost loved ones, yet are calling for a ceasefire and the end to violence. I am grateful to the people in the streets for the peace movement, with countless Jewish Americans across the country standing up and lovingly saying ‘not in our name’.”Tlaib’s attack last week on Biden in a video also provoked a firestorm of criticism by including the controversial slogan “from the river to the sea”. Those words are a fragment from a slogan used since the 1960s by a variety of people with a host of purposes. And it is open to an array of interpretations, from the genocidal to the democratic.Tlaib has said she means it refer to all people leaving in Israel and Palestinian territories living in peace and equality, regardless of ethnicity or religion. More

Voters across the US went to the polls on Tuesday for an array of key races that may set the tone for the general election next year.The night delivered some historic wins and some surprise outcomes. Here’s a roundup of the notable races that have been call so far.Virginia voters stave off Republican agendaIn Virginia, where all 140 state legislative seats were up for election, Democrats retained their majority in the state senate, crushing Republican lawmakers’ hopes of gaining control of the legislature.In a surprising victory, Democrats also flipped the house of delegates, the lower chamber of the state house. That means they will be able to effectively block the Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s agenda, which includes a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies.Gaining control of both chambers would have allowed Republicans to swiftly move ahead with conservative policy priorities. Though not all of the races have been called, Democrats are already celebrating in what was seen as a bellwether for 2024.A pro-choice victory in OhioIn the nation’s only race where abortion was on the ballot, Ohio voters overwhelming decided to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitution.The vote to approve “Issue 1” passed with nearly 60% of the vote on Tuesday after months of campaigning that saw millions of dollars pour in from both sides.As Carter Sherman, reporting for the Guardian in Akron, Ohio, writes: “Abortion access has been embattled in Ohio since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, sending the issue of abortion back to the states and leading 16 states to ban nearly all abortions. Ohio has a six-week abortion ban on the books, which briefly took effect until a court paused it. Tuesday’s results should prevent it from being reinstated.Democrat holds on to Kentucky governorshipFollowing a high-profile race that pitted two former law firm colleagues against each other, the Democratic incumbent, Andy Beshear, will retain his gubernatorial seat in the largely conservative state after Kentucky voters chose him over the Republican Daniel Cameron.Cameron, the state’s first Black attorney general, would have been the nation’s first Black republican governor of he were elected. During his campaign for the governor’s seat, Cameron faced criticism from the family of Breonna Taylor, who were angered at his handling of the the investigation into her killing.In Mississippi, a Republican governor keeps his jobBrandon Presley, a Democrat and relation of Elvis Presley, lost his race for governor, conceding to the incumbent Tate Reeves on Tuesday night. Reeves avoided what would have been a remarkable upset, calling his victory “sweet”, and congratulated Presley for “running hard all the way through”.It was a hard-fought contest that saw the candidates exchange verbal blows, writes the Guardian’s Adria Walker in Mississippi, “with Reeves alleging that Presley had been bought by out-of-state, liberal political interest groups. Presley hammered Reeves on his and his family’s alleged involvement in the state’s ongoing corruption scandal.”Election day was disrupted when polling places in the state’s largest county ran out of ballots and voters endured long lines in a key Democratic stronghold.Philly gets its first female mayorIn Philadelphia, voters elected Cherelle Parker as the 100th mayor, and first woman to lead the city. Parker beat out her Democratic opponents and was heavily favored over the Republican candidate David Oh. Parker ran as a moderate in Democratic stronghold where issues like crime, gun violence and blight are consistently top of mind. Parker has been involved in politics since she was a teenager and was a Pennsylvania state representative from 2005 to 2016 and a Philadelphia city council member from 2016 to 2022.Rhode Islanders are sending their first Black representative to CongressThe Democrat Gabe Amo, 35, defeated the Republican Gerry Leonard to win Rhode Island’s first congressional district. Amo, who grew up in Pawtucket as the son of Ghanaian and Liberian immigrants, claimed more than 32% of the vote and will fill the seat of fellow Democrat David Cicilline, who stepped down this summer to become president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.From the ‘Central Park Five’ to New York City councilYusef Salaam won a seat on the New York City council, completing a stunning reversal of fortune decades after he was wrongly imprisoned in an infamous rape case. Salaam, a Democrat, will represent a central Harlem district on the city council, having run unopposed for the seat in one of many local elections held across New York state.The victory comes more than two decades after DNA evidence was used to overturn the convictions of Salaam and four other Black and Latino men in the 1989 rape and beating of a white jogger in Central Park. Salaam was arrested at age 15 and imprisoned for almost seven years. The group became known as the “Central Park Five”.“For me, this means that we can really become our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” Salaam said in an interview with the AP before the election.A loss for an Uvalde mother turned campaignerKim Mata-Rubio, the mother of one the 19 children killed at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, has lost her mayoral bid. After her 10-year-old daughter was killed in May 2022, Mata-Rubio became an outspoken gun violence prevention advocate.She announced her bid for mayor of Uvalde in June and ran on the promise of making the city “a place where every citizen feels heard, where we honor our past while building a brighter future, and where tragedies like the one my family experienced catalyze positive change for all”, according to her campaign website.Ohioans vote to legalize recreational marijuanaIn another rebuke to the Republican leadership, Ohio voters have made the state the 24th in the nation to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The legislation’s approval comes after Republican officials, including Governor Mike DeWine, publicly denounced the legalization over fears it would negatively affect workplace and road safety.Under the new law, people who are at least 21 years old are allowed to buy marijuana and possess up to two and a half ounces of it. “Marijuana is no longer a controversial issue,” said Tom Haren, a spokesman for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which backed the Ohio proposal. More