Evelyn Reynolds

More stories

  • 138 Shares169 Views

    in US Politics

    US public school officials push back in congressional hearing on antisemitism

    Some of America’s top school districts rebuffed charges of failing to counteract a surge of antisemitism on Wednesday in combative exchanges with a congressional committee that has been at the centre of high-profile interrogations of elite university chiefs.Having previously grilled the presidents of some of the country’s most prestigious seats of higher learning in politically charged settings, the House of Representatives’ education and workforce subcommittee switched the spotlight to the heads of three predominantly liberal school districts with sizable Jewish populations.The hearing was presented as an investigation into how the authorities were safeguarding Jewish staff and students in an atmosphere of rising bigotry against the backdrop of Israel’s war in Gaza.Calling the need for the hearing “a travesty”, Republican member Aaron Bean from Florida said 246 “very vile” antisemitic acts had been reported in the three districts – in New York City, Montgomery county in Maryland and Berkeley in California – since last October’s attack by Hamas on Israel.“Antisemitism is repugnant in all its forms but the topic of today’s hearing is pretty troubling,” he said. “It’s hard to grasp how antisemitism has become such a force in our kindergarten-through-12 [high] schools.”He cited instances of students marching through corridors chanting “kill the Jews”, a pupil caught on a security camera imitating Hitler and performing the Nazi salute, and Jewish children being told to pick up pennies.The three districts insisted in response that they did not tolerate antisemitism in their schools. They said they had taken educational and disciplinary steps to combat antisemitism following the 7 October attack, which led to an Israeli military offensive in Gaza that has triggered a wave of demonstrations on university campuses and beyond.However, the districts gave divergent answers on whether teachers had been fired for actions deemed antisemitic. Each district has received complaints over their handling of post-7 October allegations of antisemitism.David Banks, the chancellor of the New York City school system, engaged in a testy exchange with Republicans over an episode at Hillcrest high school, whose principal had been removed following a protest against a pro-Israel teacher but had been reassigned to an administrative role rather than fired.The Republican representative, Elise Stefanik – noted for her pointed questioning of three university presidents over free speech at a previous hearing last December – sparred with Banks and accused the school leaders of paying “lip service”.Banks stood his ground and appeared to challenge the committee, saying: “This convening feels like the ultimate ‘gotcha’ moment. It doesn’t sound like people trying to solve for something we actually solve for.”He added: “We cannot simply discipline our way out of this problem. The true antidote to ignorance and bias is to teach.”Banks said his district had “terminated people” over antisemitism.Karla Silvestre, president of Montgomery county public schools in Maryland – which includes schools in suburbs near Washington – said no teacher had been fired, prompting Bean to retort: “So you allow them to continue to teach hate?”Enikia Ford Morthel, superintendent of the Berkeley unified school district in California, said her authority’s adherence to state and federal privacy laws precluded her from giving details on disciplinary measures taken against staff and students.“As a result, some believe we do nothing. This is not true,” she said.“Since October 7, our district has had formal complaints alleging antisemitism arising from nine incidents without our jurisdiction. However, antisemitism is not pervasive in Berkeley unified school district.”Echoing previous hearings that featured the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia, Bean asked all three district heads whether they considered the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” antisemitic.Each said yes, although Silvestre and Morthel qualified this by saying their affirmation was dependent on whether it meant the elimination of the Jewish population in Israel – an interpretation disputed by many pro-Palestinian campaigners. Bean said tersely: “It does.”Responding to the three opening statements, Bean said: “Congratulations. You all have done a remarkable job testifying. But just like some college presidents before you that sat in the very same seat, they also in many instances said the right thing. They said they were protecting students when they were really not.”The subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, accused Republicans of being selective in their stance against antisemitism, singling out the notorious white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, whose participants chanted “Jews will not replace us”. The then president Donald Trump later said the rally included some “very fine people” .She described one of those who took part, Nick Fuentes, as a “vile antisemite … who denied the scope of the Holocaust”, but noted that Trump hosted him at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida in November 2022.“I will offer my colleagues on the other side of the aisle the opportunity to condemn these previous comments,” Bonamici said. “ Does anyone have the courage to stand up against this?”When committee members remained silent, she said: “Let the record show that no one spoke at this time.” More

  • 100 Shares139 Views

    in US Politics

    Peta unveils Kristi Noem ‘ghoulish monster’ Halloween costume

    Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful, is “scarier than any horror movie villain”, the animal rights pressure group Peta said as it unveiled a Halloween costume inspired by Noem’s stunning campaign-book admission that she once shot an “untrainable” 14-month-old dog called Cricket.“Anyone cruel enough to blow a rambunctious puppy’s brains out instead of attempting to train her or find her a more responsible guardian is scarier than any horror-movie villain,” said Ingrid Newkirk, president of Peta.“With Peta Kristi Noem costume, dog lovers everywhere can strike terror in their friends as the most ghoulish monster at their Halloween party.”Halloween is more than five months away but Peta said it was taking orders for the costume, which costs $79.99 and includes “a mask of Noem’s face with devil horns and a camo hat imprinted with ‘Noem: Puppy Killer’, a fake gun, and the pièce de résistance: a stuffed dog to ‘bite’ the neck of the wearer, adorned with a bandanna that reads, ‘Take a Bite out of Cruelty.’”Noem describes killing Cricket – and an unnamed goat she deemed too aggressive – in her book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward.The Guardian first reported the remarkable tale of gravel-pit slaughter, thereby lighting the match on a political explosion widely held to have wrecked any chance Noem had of being named running mate to Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.Noem has repeatedly defended her decision to kill Cricket the dog and the unnamed goat, as representative of her willingness to do unpleasant things in farm life and thus in politics.She has also rebuffed questions about what appears, later in the book, to be a threat to kill Commander, Joe Biden’s dog which was sent away from the White House after more than 20 biting incidents.This week, Politico reported that editors and advisers stopped Noem including the story in a previous book, because they insisted it would damage her image.Peta said it “urges everyone to consider whether they have the time, patience, and other resources necessary to socialise and train a dog before adding one to the family.“Humane dog training uses only positive reinforcement – never fear, intimidation, or painful methods such as shock collars, which Noem admits to having used on Cricket prior to killing her.” More

  • 275 Shares99 Views

    in US Politics

    US says hold on weapons delivery won’t be a one-off if Israel presses ahead with Rafah city offensive – as it happened

    US officials are making clear today that the hold put on a delivery of US-made bombs last week would not be a one-off if Israel presses ahead with an offensive on Rafah city but would be the start of a major pivot in the US-Israel relationship.Arms deliveries that have already been approved could be delayed, and shipments waiting for approval could also face obstacles.The Biden administration refuses to use the phrase “red line”, but it is making clear that the US president was serious when he told Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on 4 April that an attack on Rafah would lead to a major re-evaluation of the relationship.Although the paused shipment included huge 2000lb bombs, administration officials insist that they were not selected because of legal concerns about their use in a densely populated area (as Israel has done frequently over the course of this war) could constitute a war crime. This was a policy decision, they say, not a legal one.Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
    The Republican House judiciary committee has referred Michael Cohen to the Department of Justice for prosecution. In a letter to Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, Jim Jordan and James Comer, chairs of the judiciary committee as well as the oversight and accountability committee, wrote: “Cohen’s testimony is now the basis for a politically motivated prosecution of a former president and current declared candidate for that office.”
    The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, has confirmed that the US has paused a shipment of weapons to Israel and is “reviewing others”. Miller, at briefing today, cited “the way Israel has conducted its operations in the past” as well as concerns about Israel’s actions in Rafah, Channel 4 News’s Siobhan Kennedy reported.
    US officials are making clear today that the hold put on a delivery of US-made bombs last week would not be a one-off if Israel presses ahead with an offensive on Rafah, but would be the start of a major pivot in the US-Israel relationship. Arms deliveries that have already been approved could be delayed, and shipments waiting for approval could also face obstacles.
    Following the Biden administration’s decision to pause a weapons shipment to Israel over its plans for a Rafah invasion, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said: “Given the unprecedented humanitarian disaster that Netanyahu’s war has created in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of children face starvation, President Biden is absolutely right to halt bomb delivery to this extreme, rightwing Israeli government. But this must be a first step.”
    Georgia’s state court of appeals has granted Donald Trump’s request to consider the disqualification of Fani Willis, the district attorney who brought the 2020 election interference charges against Trump. According to a notice, the court said that it had granted the appeal request and ordered Trump’s legal team to file a notice of appeal in the next 10 days, NBC reports.
    Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell refused to comment on Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial surrounding his hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, McConnell said: “I’m not going to be commenting on the presidential election … I’m going to concentrate on trying to turn this job over to the next majority leader of the Senate.”
    Robert F Kennedy Jr, the third-party presidential candidate, said a health problem he experienced in 2010 “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died”, according to a report. In a divorce case deposition from 2012 the New York Times said it obtained, Kennedy said he experienced “memory loss and mental fogginess so severe that a friend grew concerned he might have a brain tumor”.
    That’s it as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and California’s Democratic representative Ro Khanna have revealed a bill aimed at cancelling all medical debt.The Guardian’s Joan Greve reports:The bill, introduced with Oregon senator Jeff Merkley and Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, would create a federal grant program to cancel all existing patient debt and amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to block creditors from collecting past medical bills.The legislation would also update billing requirements for medical providers and alter the Consumer Credit Reporting Act to prevent credit agencies from reporting information related to unpaid medical bills, alleviating the risk of such debt damaging patients’ credit histories.Sanders and Khanna described the legislation as vital for many families’ financial security, as millions of Americans struggle with the burden of medical debt. According to a 2022 investigation by NPR and KFF Health News, more than 100 million Americans, including 41% of adults, hold some kind of healthcare debt. A KFF analysis of the Census Bureau’s survey of income and program participation suggests that Americans owe at least $220bn in medical debt.Read the full story here:Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has refused to comment on Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial surrounding his hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in response to whether Trump’s ongoing trial would give him pause over his support for Trump as president, McConnell said:
    I’m not going to be commenting on the presidential election … I’m going to concentrate on trying to turn this job over to the next majority leader of the Senate.”
    Here are further details on the US signaling to Israel potential future pauses in arms shipments over Israel’s planned invasion of Rafah:US officials have signalled to Israel that more arms shipments could be delayed if the Israeli military pushes ahead with an offensive in Rafah, Gaza, in what would mark the start of a major pivot in relations between the two countries.Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, confirmed on Wednesday that the Biden administration had paused the supply of thousands of large bombs to Israel, in opposition to apparent moves by the Israelis to invade the city.“We’ve been very clear … from the very beginning that Israel shouldn’t launch a major attack into Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians that are in that battle space,” Austin told a Senate hearing.“And again, as we have assessed the situation, we have paused one shipment of high payload munitions,” he said, adding: “We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment.”Read the full story here:The Republican House judiciary committee has referred Michael Cohen to the Department of Justice for prosecution.In a letter to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, Jim Jordan and James Comer, chairs of the judiciary committee as well as the oversight and accountability committee, wrote:
    Cohen’s testimony is now the basis for a politically motivated prosecution of a former president and current declared candidate for that office.
    In light of the reliance on the testimony from this repeated liar, we reiterate our concerns and ask what the justice department has done to hold Cohen accountable for his false statements to Congress.
    The referral comes as Cohen, once a personal lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, is expected to testify in the former president’s hush money criminal trial in New York as the prosecutors’ star witness.The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, has confirmed that the US has paused a shipment of weapons to Israel and is “reviewing others”.Miller, at briefing today, cited “the way Israel has conducted its operations in the past” as well as concerns about Israel’s actions in Rafah, Channel 4 News’ Siobhan Kennedy reported.Even though Israel has said the Rafah operation is limited in scope, “intent is one thing, results are another”, Miller told reporters, adding:
    The results have been far too many innocent civilians dying … That’s why we have such grave concerns.
    Miller also said the state department will not be delivering its report to Congress on whether Israel has violated international humanitarian law during its war in Gaza, CNN reported. He added:
    We expect to deliver it in the very near future, in the coming days.
    Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley won more than 20% of the votes in Indiana’s Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, months after she dropped out of the race.Haley announced she was suspending her presidential campaign in March after being soundly defeated by Donald Trump on Super Tuesday, but her continued support shows persistent discontent among GOP voters with the former president. Haley has not endorsed Trump.Haley’s support was largest in Indiana’s urban and suburban counties, AP reported. She won 35% of the vote in Indianapolis’s Marion county and more than one-third of the vote in suburban Hamilton county.Robert F Kennedy Jr, the third-party presidential candidate, said a health problem he experienced in 2010 “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died”, according to a report.In a divorce case deposition from 2012 the New York Times said it obtained, Kennedy said he experienced “memory loss and mental fogginess so severe that a friend grew concerned he might have a brain tumour”.Neurologists who treated Kennedy’s uncle, the Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, before his death aged 77 from brain cancer in 2009, told the younger man he had a dark spot on his brain scans, and concluded he too had a tumor. But, Kennedy reportedly said, a doctor at New York-Presbyterian hospital posited another explanation: a parasite in Kennedy’s brain. In the 2012 deposition, Kennedy reportedly said:
    I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.
    In his recent interview, the Times said, Kennedy said he had recovered from such problems. The paper also said Kennedy’s spokesperson, Stefanie Spear, responded to a question about whether the candidate’s health problems could compromise his fitness to be president by saying:
    That is a hilarious suggestion, given the competition.
    A growing number of Republican lawmakers are pushing to require a citizenship question on the questionnaire for the census, and exclude non-US citizens from the results that determine each state’s share of House seats and electoral college votes.The GOP-led House is expected to vote today on the Equal Representation Act which calls for leaving out “individuals who are not citizens of the United States.” The bill is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate and is opposed by the White House.The proposal has set off alarms among redistricting experts, civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers, and comes as Republicans make immigration a key campaign issue ahead of the November elections.“It’s taking it closer to reality than it has ever been,” a former census official told AP.
    This is part of a cohesive strategy in the GOP … of getting every single possible advantage when the country is so closely divided.
    The 14th amendment says the “whole number of persons in each state” should be counted during the apportionment process. Besides helping allocate congressional seats and electoral college votes, census figures guide the distribution of $2.8tn in federal money.US officials are making clear today that the hold put on a delivery of US-made bombs last week would not be a one-off if Israel presses ahead with an offensive on Rafah city but would be the start of a major pivot in the US-Israel relationship.Arms deliveries that have already been approved could be delayed, and shipments waiting for approval could also face obstacles.The Biden administration refuses to use the phrase “red line”, but it is making clear that the US president was serious when he told Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on 4 April that an attack on Rafah would lead to a major re-evaluation of the relationship.Although the paused shipment included huge 2000lb bombs, administration officials insist that they were not selected because of legal concerns about their use in a densely populated area (as Israel has done frequently over the course of this war) could constitute a war crime. This was a policy decision, they say, not a legal one. More

  • 225 Shares169 Views

    in US Politics

    Trump has yet to decide his VP pick – and it’s turning into a pageant of its own

    Hello there, and welcome to the Guardian’s brand new US election newsletter. I hope you’re having a nice week.It’s less than six months until election day, and Donald Trump, when he’s not in court or looking at racing cars, is spending time weighing his vice-presidential pick. It’s becoming quite the spectacle.But first, some of the happenings in US politics.Here’s what you need to know …1. I don’t feel so goodDonald Trump’s trial over hush-money payments to an adult film star saw Stormy Daniels recall her sexual encounter with the president in front of a presumably nauseous Manhattan courtroom. Will this trial – and the three others he faces – torpedo Trump’s election chances? One poll this week found that it will depend on whether he is convicted. About 80% of Trump’s supporters would definitely stick with him if he becomes a felon, while 16% would “reconsider” their support. Just 4% say they would definitely ditch him.2. Biden gives antisemitism speechIn a speech on Tuesday at a Holocaust remembrance event, Joe Biden condemned what he called the “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world”, amid widespread student protests over American support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Thousands of students have been arrested around the US, during a frequently militaristic police response. Republicans have tried to use the unrest to paint Biden as weak and sow division among Democratic voters.3. TikTok hits back after US government crackdownTikTok and its parent company are suing the US government after Biden signed bipartisan legislation which could potentially ban the app from the US if it is not sold to another owner. It comes as Russian state-affiliated accounts have used TikTok to draw attention to Biden’s age and immigration policies. Critics have said ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, could also collect sensitive information about Americans. But others – including TikTok – say the US is unfairly singling out the social media platform, potentially hurting free speech and independent content makers. The debacle is fraught in an election year when many young people get news from TikTok, and Biden himself has a campaign account.Eeny, meeny, miny, moeView image in fullscreenThe election is in November, and Donald Trump has yet to decide on his vice-presidential candidate. That’s not unusual – assuming he’s not in prison by then, he’s got plenty of time – but what is kind of new is the very public auditioning for the role.Trump summoned several of the candidates to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, where he forced them to parade around on stage, in what sounds like a version of the Miss Universe competition he used to haunt.But the contenders, who range from long-time sycophants to more recent converts, have been doing some parading of their own.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who ran for president against Trump in 2016 (Trump dubbed him “Little Marco”, Rubio suggested Trump had a small penis, but the two have since made up) has been near-ever present on TV in recent weeks, as has Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman who was once seen as a sober legislator, but has since evolved into a Trump disciple.Doug Burgum – recently dubbed “less interesting than a wooden post” – and Tim Scott, who both ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination this year, have also been showing up on TV shows to defend Trump’s legal entanglements and threats to undermine the election.There’s also JD Vance, a big-faced beardy man who once believed Trump to be an “idiot” but has since changed his mind, and Byron Donalds, who with Scott is one of the five Black Republicans in Congress.One thing appears to be certain: it will not be Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who has dominated headlines after admitting that she shot and killed her dog in a gravel pit.Will the identity of Trump’s running mate really make a difference?In 2016, Trump was viewed with suspicion by some evangelical voters – voters he needed to come out in droves for him to defeat Hillary Clinton. That’s why he chose Mike Pence, a devout Christian who just released a book that is literally called So Help Me God.But religious Republicans have pretty much made their peace with Trump since then – largely because the supreme court he appointed overturned the federal right to abortion.Reports indicate that what Trump is really looking for is an uber-loyal attack dog, someone who can tear into Trump’s critics on air, before coming back to the White House to quietly snuggle at his feet.It would be easy to see a vice-president as inconsequential. But since the US became a thing, nine vice-presidents have stepped into the top job: eight times because the sitting president died, and once because the president – Richard Nixon – resigned. Without wanting to be too macabre, Donald Trump is quite old, and is not known as a healthy eater. (In the name of Journalism I once lived like Trump for a week. I genuinely think it took years off my life.)Anyway: some of these people might fancy their chances of ascending to the throne.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn the roadView image in fullscreenA dispatch from our Washington bureau chief, David Smith:Is it a bird? Is it a plane? OK, it’s a plane, with “TRUMP” written in giant gold letters on the side. I watched the Boeing 757 dubbed “Trump Force One” fly into Freeland, Michigan, last week, accompanied by the booming soundtrack of Tom Cruise’s Top Gun.It reminded me that the Trump Show has always been about reality versus fantasy. Reality for Trump right now is hour after hour sitting in a cold, dingy New York courtroom. Fantasy is stepping out of his private jet into afternoon sunshine and the warm glow of a campaign rally where the crowd chants his name.The demographics were telling: overwhelmingly white and dominated by retirees. Every Trump supporter I interviewed is convinced that the trial in New York is a witch-hunt designed to hobble his election chances. When I asked about his dictatorial ambitions, they brushed the question aside and preferred the word “leader”.Who had the worst week?View image in fullscreenOn Monday Judge Juan Merchan, handling Trump’s hush-money payments trial, said he “will have to consider a jail sanction” if Trump doesn’t stop publicly criticizing witnesses and the jury. But if Monday was bad for Trump, Tuesday was worse.“I had my clothes and my shoes off, I believe my bra, however, was still on. We were in the missionary position …” so went the testimony of Stormy Daniels, who was allegedly paid $130,000 to remain quiet about the claimed encounter, which she says took place in 2006, a year after Trump married his wife Melania. (Trump denies having sex with Daniels.)Daniels said that Trump told her she reminded him of Ivanka Trump, his daughter, before the two became intimate. Asked by the prosecution whether the encounter with Trump was “brief”, Daniels said: “Yes.”‘It’s my favorite book’View image in fullscreenI spent no short amount of time last week reading the God Bless the USA Bible, a special version of the holy text Trump is hawking online. If you enjoy the Bible, but feel like it is missing images of American flags and bald eagles, then this is the book for you.If, however, you want a Bible without sticky pages, which hasn’t been dubbed “blasphemous”, and which doesn’t cost $60, then maybe give it a pass.Read the full story here.Elsewhere in US politicsView image in fullscreen Milwaukee is replacing its top election official, Sam Levine and Alice Herman write, which means “there will be a new head of elections in one of the most critical cities in a key battleground state”. Biden won Wisconsin by just 20,000 votes in 2020. Bernie Sanders won more than 13m votes in the 2016 presidential primary, as his brand of democratic socialism inspired young people across the country. He didn’t win, of course, but Martin Pengelly reports that Sanders plans to run for re-election to the Senate. More

  • 175 Shares139 Views

    in US Politics

    Georgia will allow Trump to challenge order keeping Fani Willis on election interference case

    The Georgia state court of appeals on Wednesday said it would consider an appeal from Donald Trump of an order allowing Fani Willis, the district attorney, to continue prosecuting his election interference case in Fulton county.In a one-page order, the appeals court said it would allow Trump to challenge the decision not to disqualify Willis over her relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired to lead the Trump case. Scott McAfee, the trial judge overseeing the case, ruled in March that Willis could stay on the case as long as Wade resigned. Wade subsequently resigned the same day McAfee issued his decision.Trump now has 10 days to file a notice of appeal, the court said. His legal team had asked the court of appeals to consider the case in March and clarify the standard for when a prosecutor should be disqualified.“President Trump looks forward to presenting interlocutory arguments to the Georgia court of appeals as to why the case should be dismissed and Fulton county DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct in this unjustified, unwarranted political persecution,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s attorney, said in a statement.The decision to hear the appeal is a significant win for Trump. It decreases the chances that the case will go to trial before the November election and allows Trump and his lawyers to continue to undermine Willis’s credibility and keep questions about her judgment in the public eye. McAfee has already excoriated Willis for her conduct, saying she had a “tremendous lapse in judgment”.Trump’s attorneys may petition the court to stay the trial pending the outcome of their appeal. Otherwise, the appeal will not immediately impede the prosecution as McAfee takes up pending motions. But if the appeals court decides that Willis must be removed, it would reset the years-long case back to square one while a new prosecutor can be appointed to oversee the case.Last month, prosecutors urged the appeals court not to hear the appeal. “The present application merely reflects the applicants’ dissatisfaction with the trial court’s proper application of well-established law to the facts,” prosecutors wrote in a 19-page filing.Trump and more than a dozen of his allies were charged last year with racketeering over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump and his co-defendants tried to dismiss the case by alleging that Willis’s relationship, and statements she made at a Black church in Atlanta suggesting criticism of her was racist, meant she should be recused from the case.Wade defended his relationship with Willis in an interview with ABC News last weekend. “Workplace romances are as American as apple pie,” Wade said. “It happens to everyone. But it happened to the two of us.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I regret that that private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution,” Wade added. “This is a very important case.”The order comes one day after Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely delayed Trump’s trial in Florida for charges that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club. More

  • 163 Shares109 Views

    in US Politics

    Hunger strikes for Gaza: a look inside the Princeton student protests – video

    Princeton University students have been protesting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza since 25 April, their goal being to get the US university to divest from Israel. The Guardian spoke to some of the students and faculty at the encampment to hear their reasons for being there, and how they feel they have been portrayed by the media More

  • 188 Shares189 Views

    in US Politics

    Just how low will Republican politicians stoop to be Trump’s running mate? | Margaret Sullivan

    Kristen Welker, the moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, did her best to pin down Tim Scott last Sunday.Would the junior senator from South Carolina state that he will accept the results of the 2024 presidential election no matter who wins? Pretty basic stuff, you’d think, but apparently not.Scott dodged, he weaved, he did that politician thing of saying the same non-responsive thing over and over.But he would not answer her question – which was repeated several times, in several different ways, including Welker’s insistence on a simple yes or no. All Scott would say was that Donald Trump would be the 47th president.Appalling as it was, the reason was obvious.“He’s auditioning,” said Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, who worked in the Trump administration. In a CNN interview, Taylor called Scott’s refusal to commit to the very foundation of democracy “a very chilling signal”.Chilling, it is. But Tim Scott is hardly alone in playing to that audience of one.Even as Trump sits in a Manhattan courtroom this week, listening to a porn star describe their long-ago sexual encounter, he is deciding who will be his running mate in November.The job, of course, has a few downsides. As Mike Pence found out on 6 January 2021, being Trump’s vice-president could result in masses of violent rioters calling for you to be hanged.And it could result, as Pence also found out, in Trump himself throwing you under the bus, as he tends to do with even those who were his closest allies. (“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done …” Trump said publicly, about his vice-president’s decision to accept electoral votes that indicated his rival, Joe Biden, had won the presidential election. Privately, according to Politico, Trump went even further, expressing support for hanging Pence.)The position is coveted, nonetheless. Power is every bit that seductive.And so, the veepstakes are playing out before our eyes. And, far beyond Tim Scott’s craven avoidance, the competition is not a pretty sight.Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman who wants the nod, has gone full Trump in recent years, turning from something of a moderate Republican to a raging rightwinger. Recall how she led the bullying of university presidents testifying before Congress, and then gloated in a social media post after the Harvard and University of Pennsylvania presidents resigned: “Two down.”Soon after, she had her turn on Meet the Press and – echoing Trump’s stalwart defense of the Capitol-storming mob – furrowed her brow at the “treatment of the January 6 hostages”.Outrageous? Certainly. But not to be outdone in trolling the libs, the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, has bragged about killing her dog and even advocated for killing Biden’s dog. It’s unclear whether this was an effort to appeal to a certain dog-hater-in-chief – or merely to indicate that nothing is beyond the pale.“It once seemed like a dark joke to say that Trump would eventually resort to kicking puppies to get a rise out of people,” Amanda Marcotte wrote in Salon. “Noem skipped that step entirely and went straight to shooting them.”That Noem’s casual cruelty isn’t playing well with the public doesn’t matter when the audience of one indulges in that kind of thing himself – from mocking disabled people to dissing Gold Star parents to dreaming up innovative ways to insult women’s looks.Just days ago, another hopeful – Doug Burgum, the Republican governor of North Dakota – took his audition to Fox News, heaping accolades on Trump’s “clarity and focus and strength”.Burgum, thought to be on Trump’s shortlist, got some invaluable help from Fox & Friends, noted Matt Gertz of Media Matters. Host Brian Kilmeade avoided questions on abortion – Burgum has signed extremely restrictive legislation – or about Trump’s scary declarations of going full autocrat if he’s re-elected.Instead, Burgum was given plenty of time to extol Trump’s “positive energy”, a description that runs counter to reports that the former president falls asleep in the courtroom.The boss does love flattery.A few months ago, Trump bestowed a high compliment on Tim Scott, calling him “a great advocate”, and adding, “He doesn’t like talking about himself, but boy, does he talk about Trump.”All in all, an embarrassing display of sycophancy. That would be bad enough. But far worse is the abandonment of principle, as Tim Scott made all too clear.The real litmus test, after all, is the would-be running mate’s willingness to deny the 2020 election results and to pledge unquestioning fealty in the future – fealty not to the constitution or the American voters but to the audience of one.
    Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist More

  • 200 Shares189 Views

    in US Politics

    ‘Keep the door open’: Nashville’s mayor on governing a blue island in a sea of red

    Tennessee’s legislative session concluded in late April with some laws that alarm liberals, such as a bill to arm teachers and school staff. But the relatively progressive city of Nashville emerged largely unscathed by the GOP-dominated legislature.In fact, Nashville’s legislative fortunes improved markedly this term, with approval for a massive redevelopment project, created at the behest of the mayor, Freddie O’Connell, to accompany the construction of a new stadium for the Tennessee Titans across the river from the city’s tourist-friendly downtown.Nashville is “the San Francisco of Tennessee” in some quarters of the state’s conservative commentariat. The red-state, blue-city dynamic has grown toxic at times. State legislators have sought to chastise Nashville’s leaders – consider the temporary expulsion of state representative Justin Jones after gun protests last year – and curtail the city’s authority. Legislators have sought to wrest control from Nashville’s convention center, its sports authority and its airport authority. They redrew congressional maps to take away its Democratic congressperson.But this year, Nashville’s new mayor has been managing this relationship with better results.Born and raised in Nashville, O’Connell is a software developer and former member of the Nashville metropolitan council who was elected the city’s mayor in 2022.The Guardian spoke with O’Connell during the legislative session, discussing Nashville’s occasionally fraught relationship with conservative state leaders. That conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.Do you sense hostility toward Nashville from the state government?No! So that’s what’s interesting. This year, after sensing it strongly last year, I would say our administration and I personally have a sense of relief that the hostility toward the city has maybe subsided somewhat.To what do you attribute this state of detente that you’re describing?We’ve been working on it. I don’t want the city to be at war, right? We know there will be values and policy disagreements, not just between urban and rural parts of the state, but certainly among policymakers at various levels. There’s just no reason to then add to that a permanent posture of war and hostility. If we have a better relationship, these are the places where you can succeed. A lot of times that’s the fundamentals of governance: things like infrastructure and economic development. That’s where city and state succeed together most effectively. So we want to keep the door open to that.Atlanta has had a string of mayors with widely varied relationships with the state of Georgia. The dynamic may be similar to Nashville and Tennessee: a state with a love-hate relationship with its largest city. Does that rhyme with what you’ve got going on?I think it does, to some extent. I’ve said from the get-go that we’re going to defend the city from constitutional overreach in the places where it’s obvious. Our legal department has had a very good track record in defending us in those moments. But this goes to exactly what I’m talking about: we did not stun the state with a lawsuit over the sports authority after I took office. We picked up the phone and said, “We believe we see constitutional issues with this, and our legal department is going to file a suit.” And in that moment, we did two things at the same time: we followed our principles of no surprises and open communication, and we also followed our principles of existential right to exist.The red state-blue city dynamic exists in a lot of southern states. New Orleans and Louisiana. Montgomery and Alabama. Look at Nashville, which was split up into three congressional districts.That’s a big challenge for us when we don’t have a single member of Congress who lives in the city of Nashville right now.So what does that do to Nashville?Well, it’s a little soon to say. I guess the silver lining here is the community-level staff we’ve seen in the congressional offices has actually been fairly present and responsive. So that’s good.But instead of having one easy place to send people for passport services or to talk about federal policy issues, you have to be a lot more mindful of … “wait a second, which district is this again?” I think we’re still waiting to see what it means in terms of the federal appropriations process. Are we going to be seeing partnerships and federal project dollars that come into the city of Nashville, versus trying to redirect those to only rural and exurban areas? We don’t know that part yet. But I think that’s a big concern.View image in fullscreenGiven that Nashville no longer has a Democratic congressperson representing its Democratic political majority, to what degree do you view yourself as a progressive leader in a state that is not politically progressive overall? Do you believe that you have a particular role to play in that regard?I will say, I will spend my time in office trying to make progress for the people in Nashville in places we need progress most desperately. That really is in areas addressing cost of living and quality of life. We’ve seen the city grow tremendously, which on the one hand is exciting, but on the other hand is disruptive and expensive.I would argue that it is very progressive to pursue ambitious transportation and transit. I guess it’s funny, I just learned a new phrase from a friend, who’s a former colleague on the metro council: “blue meat”. I think, maybe, there are people in our progressive ecosystem here in Nashville who would prefer that I throw out more pieces of blue meat.But I feel like, especially in an executive role where our local government is, in fact, nonpartisan, my sense has been that we want to deliver high-quality city services. We want to make sure people have trust and confidence in local government. And that specifically lets us make the kinds of progress people need to drive down their cost of living to improve the quality of city services, to do the things that government is supposed to do.You’re talking about the basics of governance, and not the big political conflicts like the abortion argument or gun rights or whatnot.And here’s the thing: we need people in the partisan fray, and some people enjoy being in the partisan fray. We need to win elections to let us have an easier time defending Nashville’s interests and values. And that’s great, because the nice part is these things aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m here to be very serious about governing, and to try to create outcomes and make it easier to live in the city of Nashville, because we know a lot of people want to accomplish that goal. It’s Music City. It’s a great city. We want to keep it that way.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionI love Nashville. This conversation is a privilege for me, in part because I get to tell the mayor of Nashville that I associate Nashville with the sound of wooooh! all the time. Because the last time I visited, I became keenly aware that this was the bachelorette capital of the universe, and every five minutes, I would hear 10 women off in the distance going wooooh! In my household, we can’t refer to Nashville without one or the other of us saying wooooh! [Mildly rankled] Well, I will say it’s not the Nashville of my youth. In some ways, I hope that that limited view is not the Nashville of our future.I think that’s actually where we’re trying to steer the conversation of the east bank. We’d like to develop something that is not a junior version of an entertainment district, but rather something that reflects the best practices of contemporary cities. Something that if you basically get to start from scratch, does it have the principles that will attract locals?So less wooooh! and more, you know, workspace and coffee shops and neighborhood restaurants.Right. Places for people to stroll along the Cumberland River, and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Fingers crossed, it will have a beautiful new home over there. And so, yes, the Titans will be playing football over there. But also, there will be all-ages experiences and people living there, which is critically important. Deeply affordable. Long-term affordable.There is a contingent of conservative politicians who get elected by running against big cities, saying: “I am going to keep that liberal city in check.” Does that interfere with the kind of nuts-and-bolts economic development you’re talking about?It could. And we’ll see. I think the state through the years used to respond pretty favorably toward the principles of economic development, but I do think it has come into vogue to run against Nashville, almost as if we were Tennessee’s San Francisco. Maybe that gets you points in a rural Republican primary?It’s a different political environment nationally. And some of that, I think, does trickle downhill to the point where the attention economy says we have to make sure there’s an other out there somewhere. Sometimes I’ve got to be available to do myth-busting and dispel things you might see on Facebook or here at a county commission meeting that just have no reference in actual reality.Do you have a good example of that?I’ve been called comrade by people in Williamson county and Sumner county. It’s like, hey guys: you know we actually have a socialist on the metro council and it isn’t me.There’s a Tucker Carlson-ization of conversation around urban politics and big cities: a general attack on urban America as unsafe and corrupt. It seems off to apply that to Nashville. Do you find yourself fending off attacks like this?I don’t know that it’s an obligation, but it’s truly out there. I mean, you can look at Sumner county commission meetings.If you watch those meetings, they’re absolutely decrying Nashville as just this absolutely absurd … it’s like a fantasia of the most ridiculous types of political rhetoric that are out there right now. And so, I find that being personally involved, being present … There’s value in seeing each other as people.It’s really hard to get all worked up about somebody who’s standing in front of you and is not glowing with demonic energy.The best example is I know is the governor. We are going to disagree on many things about our ideology and political outlook. But I’ve also known him long enough to know I absolutely have a respect for him, because just as I don’t spend my idle time throwing out a tremendous amount of blue meat, he doesn’t spend a lot of his time throwing red meat in that way. He doesn’t spend a lot of time jumping up and down on Nashville. I think that’s a meaningful distinction between some of the other governors we’ve seen around the country who have made that their thing. It’s like the hobby industry of politics is just to see how mean you can be to other people.Do you see any additional pre-emptive threats coming your way?There were bills that entered the discourse this year. I guess the sense of relief I have as the session comes to a close is that nothing materialized there that was specifically anti-Nashville. More