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    Leading Republican Steve Scalise back at work after blood cancer treatment

    The Republican House majority leader, Steve Scalise, will return to work in Washington after receiving autologous stem cell treatment for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.Scalise announced he was diagnosed with the disease in August. His cancer treatment represents the second serious health scare for the representative since he took office to represent Louisiana in 2008. In 2017, Scalise was one of four people shot during practice for a congressional baseball game.“Leader Scalise has successfully completed his autologous stem cell treatment and has been medically cleared to resume travel,” a statement from Scalise’s office said on Thursday.“He is in complete remission and will be returning to Washington next week for votes. He is thankful for his positive prognosis, and for the support of his medical team, family, colleagues and fellow Louisianans.”Autologous stem cell treatment uses stem cells from a person’s own body to restore the body’s ability to create normal blood cells, and is often used in treatment for blood cancers such as myeloma, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.Despite controversy tied to a past speech at a white supremacist conference (a speech he later called a “mistake”) and ties to racist leaders such as fellow Louisianan David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, Scalise has risen through the Republican ranks.After being shot, Scalise said the experience strengthened his support for gun rights and the second amendment. In part, he said, because he was “saved by people who had guns”. The gunman who shot Scalise during baseball practice was shot and killed by police. More

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    Stabbing of Palestinian American in Texas a hate crime, police say

    The recent stabbing of a 23-year-old Palestinian American in Texas meets the standard for a hate crime, police announced on Wednesday.Bert James Baker, 36, was arrested on Sunday for allegedly attacking 23-year-old Zacharia Doar after Doar and friends were returning from a pro-Palestinian protest on Sunday near the University of Texas at Austin.In a Wednesday update, the Austin police department said that the Sunday stabbing does “meet the definition of a hate crime”.Information on the case will be provided to the Travis county district attorney’s office, which will then make the final decision on whether to pursue hate crime charges against Baker, according to the police department’s statement posted to Facebook.In an earlier statement, Austin police said they believed the attack was “bias-motivated”.Baker is accused of stabbing Doar after the 23-year-old and his friends were driving back from a pro-Palestinian protest on Sunday, the Associated Press reported.According to an arrest affidavit detailing the incident obtained by the AP, Doar and three others were riding in a truck when Baker, who was on a bike, opened the doors of the vehicle and began yelling racial slurs at the group.The group then got out of the vehicle and approached Baker, who first punched Doar in the shoulder. After a scuffle, Baker stabbed Doar in the rib.Doar’s father, Nizar Doar, told NBC News that Baker had actually dragged Doar out of the truck and initially charged at Doar’s friend with a knife. Doar was stabbed when he attempted to intervene in the attack.In an earlier statement prior to Wednesday’s update, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) accused Baker of initially attempting to remove a flagpole with a keffiyeh scarf reading “Free Palestine” from the truck Doar was riding in.Doar was also one of four Muslim Americans in the car when Baker allegedly attacked.Doar was hospitalized after the attack with non-life threatening injuries. His father told NBC that Doar was stabbed three inches from his heart and sustained a broken rib from the attack.Baker was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and vehicle. He is being held in jail on $100,000 bail as of Thursday, AP reported.Richard Gentry, Baker’s attorney, was unavailable to provide comment to the Guardian.In a statement to the Guardian, Cair’s deputy executive director, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, called Sunday’s stabbing “the latest in a series of violent attacks on Muslim and Palestinian Americans” and praised the Austin police department for “recognizing the hateful motive for this stabbing”.“These attacks, the bigoted rhetoric that inspires them, and the Gaza genocide at the root of this violence, must end,” Mitchell said.The latest attack is the most recent example of violence facing Palestinians in the US since the 7 October attack in Israel by Hamas. Threats of violence against Muslim and Arab Americans have also surged in recent months.In November, three Palestinian college students were shot and injured in Vermont after they say a man specifically targeted them for being Palestinian. More

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    Could Taylor Swift really swing the 2024 presidential election?

    A decade ago, Taylor Swift liked to publicly mock a Jonas brother for dumping her over the phone. Today, her words may determine the future of US democracy.Over the last few weeks, Swift’s endorsement has become one of the most coveted – and contested – prizes in the 2024 presidential election. After the New York Times reported that Joe Biden’s re-election campaign was desperate to lock it down, Donald Trump’s allies reportedly declared a “holy war” on Swift. Fox News commentators started urging Swift to stay out of politics, while a sizable contingent of rightwingers spiraled into conspiracy theories: that Swift is a covert asset to bolster Biden, that she and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, are a set-up to bolster Biden, that the Super Bowl – in which Kelce will play as a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs football team – is being rigged to bolster Biden.All this fervor may seem totally out of touch. No matter how beloved she is, can a pop star from a Christmas tree farm in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, really decide the 2024 presidential elections?The answer is surprisingly complex, according to interviews with experts, self-described Swift admirers, and people who say they are indifferent to Swift. It is improbable that Swift’s opinion would be the deciding factor for a voter torn between supporting Trump or Biden – if such a person exists – but the pop superstar is far more likely to propel voter turnout. And if the rematch between the two politicians, who still have to win their primaries, turns out to be close, the Swift electorate may make the difference.“We are not used to recognizing people like Taylor Swift with that much political power. That can be unnerving. We’re not used to female fandoms, perhaps, having that much political power,” said Ashley Hinck, an associate professor at Xavier University whose book Politics for the Love of Fandom unpacks the links between fandom, politics and civic engagement. “There’s a way in which pundits, politicians, commentators and regular citizens are coming to terms with a new political culture. If you’re not a part of it, you haven’t seen it before – but it has been around for a long time. It’s been growing for a long time.”As Swift might say, it’s been a long time coming.A lack of persuasionSwift first waded into politics in 2018, when she broke her career-long silence on politics to urge fans to vote for Democrats in a Tennessee election. Although one of Swift’s preferred candidates lost to the Republican Marsha Blackburn, Swift endorsed Biden in 2020. She has also continued to tell fans to vote in subsequent elections, and voter registration has soared by the tens of thousands after each of her get-out-the-vote Instagram posts.Her fanbase is staggeringly large, with 53% of Americans saying they are fans and 16% identifying as “avid fans”, according to a March 2023 Morning Consult poll. (That poll was conducted before the launch of Swift’s world-conquering Eras Tour, which has become the highest-grossing tour of all time and reportedly made Swift a billionaire.)However, Swift’s fanbase is not evenly distributed across the US political spectrum: 55% of her self-avowed avid fans identify as Democrats, while 23% are Republicans and 23% are independents.Although a November 2023 NBC News poll found that 40% of registered voters said they had a positive view of Swift – more than any other figure included in the survey, including Biden, Kamala Harris and Beyoncé – Democrats are still more likely than Republicans to say that they like Swift. Fifty-three per cent of Democrats said that they had a positive view of Swift, while just 28% of Republicans say the same. Compared to Democrats, Republicans are also five times more likely to have a negative opinion of Swift.Experts caution that it is exceedingly difficult to ever pinpoint what makes someone choose one candidate over another. David James Jackson, a Bowling Green State University professor who has studied the effect of celebrity endorsements, was skeptical of the idea that Swift could flip Republicans for Biden.“If the policy position is already popular among the group that I’m surveying, the celebrity endorsement makes it more popular. If it’s unpopular, it makes it less unpopular, but it doesn’t actually make it popular,” Jackson said. But, he added: “Are American elections really about persuasion any more?”View image in fullscreenJackson continued: “If in fact it turns out to be a Biden-Trump rematch, how many people really haven’t formed an opinion about either of those two?”Despite Swift’s relative lack of popularity among Republicans, the rightwing attacks on her may still backfire, according to Jasmine Amussen, a 34-year-old librarian who lives in Georgia.“I really don’t think that they understand that when they’re attacking Taylor Swift, they are actually talking about the millions of millennial women – mostly white – [in her fanbase]. But they’re attacking their own daughters,” Amussen said of Republicans. “I think they’re so confused as to how this 34-year-old woman is a billionaire, is unmarried. They just can’t see past that to the underlying source of her power, which is the people who love her.”Trump pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” about 11,000 votes when he wanted to win the state in the 2020 election, as Amussen pointed out. The margins of the 2024 elections could be equally small, and a Swift endorsement could make the difference in turnout.“She can find 11,000 people to go vote when they didn’t before or vote when they hadn’t in a long time,” Amussen said. “All it takes is a couple hundred women who were not interested before seeing these much older – gross, honestly – men talk about someone they respect and admire in that way.”‘It will affect young people’Nearly 500 people responded to a Guardian survey about their thoughts on Swift’s political influence. Asked whether a Swift endorsement could influence their vote, most respondents said no. They frequently said that they already agreed with Swift’s suspected liberal politics or that they were not swayed by celebrity endorsements.But respondents often said that other voters may be more susceptible. “I’m not influenced by her, but my kids’ generation is,” one person from Massachusetts wrote. “I’m much too well informed,” someone from Colorado added. “But it WILL affect young people.”This kind of attitude is possibly an example of what Desirée Schmuck called “the third person” effect.“People always think that there’s a stronger impact on others than on themselves,” said Schmuck, a professor from the University of Vienna who has studied how parasocial relationships influence youth political behavior.“We see that in interviews, they do agree that influencers have changed their behavior, not necessarily voting behavior, but rather what they buy or what they boycott, for instance, for political reasons,” Schmuck said. “With voting, like with all behavior, there’s not enough introspection to really know what was it in the end that caused you to do something. I don’t think people want to pin it down to one factor, because they don’t want to be that simple.”The responses to the Guardian’s survey, although extensive, by no means constitute a representative or scientific study. The survey design would probably draw in people who already have strong opinions about Swift, whether negative or positive. (A surprising number of people took the time to fill out a totally voluntary survey only to insist they had no thoughts on Swift. “Do not care about her or her opinions,” one 84-year-old from Georgia wrote.)Still, some academic studies have indeed uncovered a connection between celebrity endorsements and voter activity. A study that Schmuck worked on found that a German influencer’s efforts to associate the climate crisis with the European Union elections – “a boring election for young people”, Schmuck said – was linked to a boost in youth voter turnout. Another study, which examined Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama before the 2008 presidential primary, uncovered that Winfrey’s support led to 1m extra votes for Obama.Some people in the Guardian survey did say that Swift’s opinions may influence their behavior, if not their vote.“If she came up and she said, ‘Here’s the guy running against Marsha Blackburn and I think we should really support this person,’ I would cut that person a check,” said Michael Dee, who works in investment banking in Dallas, Texas, and is deeply involved in politics. He knows he’s voting for Biden but, he said, “Taylor can highlight some candidates to help them raise money and I think that would be … a very good thing.”Ultimately, complicating every calculation about Swift and her endorsement’s power is the singularity of her status. Arguably, the last time musicians commanded this much attention, they were the Beatles, they were men, and there were four of them.The Beatles were also only a band for less than a decade, while Swift has been in the public eye for almost two. Many Americans started to form emotional ties to her long before they could vote.“I’ve never seen a potential endorsement be so anticipated as this one,” Jackson said. More

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    Republicans are redefining the word ‘equal’ in an Iowa anti-trans bill | Erin Reed

    On Tuesday afternoon, the Iowa house education committee met to debate House Study Bill 649, a bill proposed by the Republican governor, Kim Reynolds. The bill, as drafted, would end legal recognition for transgender people anywhere “male” and “female” appear in Iowa code and would require special gender markers for transgender people on birth certificates, measures that were compared to “pink triangles” once used to identify LGBTQ+ people by Nazis in the 1940s. Perhaps the most ambitious attempt to discriminate against transgender people in the proposed legislation, however, is through redefining the word “equal” in the bill.The bill states that when it comes to transgender people, “The term ‘equal’ does not mean ‘same’ or ‘identical’,” which raises the question: what does “equal” even mean? The bill does not define the word, only declares that “equal” no longer means “same” or “identical” within the state of Iowa for transgender people. When the sponsor was asked directly what the word “equal” means in this bill, the representative Heather Hora answered: “Equal would mean … um … I would assume that equal would mean … I don’t know exactly in this context.”If the bill’s own sponsor cannot define the word “equal” due to eliminating the word’s actual definition, how can she claim to have created the perfect definition for “man” or “woman” in Iowa law? In attempting to write transgender people out of all legal protections in Iowa through definitions, the state legislature seems poised to undermine the very concept of equality itself. That should be enough to shake all Iowans, regardless of their political stance on transgender issues.The bill’s sponsor is not content with redefining the word equal, however; the bill goes on to proclaim that “separate” is “not inherently unequal”. One opponent to the bill pointed to the cruel history of the doctrine of “separate but equal” and the attempt to revive that history with a new, Republican-condoned target. Though the new definition of the word “equal” and the revival of the “separate but equal doctrine” only applies to transgender people, the precedents that make up the bedrock of equality for all are threatened. Is it so important for Republicans to get a political victory against transgender people in the state that they are willing to go this far?Equally important is the means by which the bill establishes transgender people as “separate”. The bill mandates that transgender people be given unique identifiers on their birth certificates, outing them as transgender. Anyone born in Iowa who wishes to change their birth certificate after obtaining gender-affirming care would be forced to have both gender markers on their birth certificates, making their transgender identity obvious any time they use their birth certificate. This raises the question: why is it so important for the state to readily identify transgender people?Forced identification has been used to harm LGBTQ+ people in the past. During the 1940s, Nazis required LGBTQ+ people to wear pink triangles to designate their status, including transgender people. Many of those who advocated against the Iowa bill showed up wearing such pink triangles to raise awareness of how they would be designated “separate” and denied equal protections.The Republican representative Brooke Boden did not seem to take complaints about a special gender marker and forced identification for transgender people seriously. Instead, she replied disingenuously: “What I hear from the trans community is that they are proud to be trans, and I guess that that would be OK to identify it as that and make sure that your birth certificate represents those things,” moving the bill to the full committee for a vote.Despite heavy opposition with more than a hundred people who showed up against the bill, the house education committee passed it through on a party-line vote. With less than 24 hours’ notice, the bill had a hearing announced, was heard, and passed, leaving little time for the committee or the state to properly vet its staggering implications.In the coming days, Iowa legislators will grapple with the meaning of words as this bill moves to the full house floor. Some will state that the bill is really merely about defining a “man” or a “woman”. What they will not acknowledge, however, is that those definitions are misdirection, a magician’s trick to prevent you from realizing that it is the fundamental definition of equality itself that is at risk.
    Erin Reed is a transgender journalist based in Washington DC. She tracks LGBTQ+ legislation around the United States for her subscription newsletter, Erin in the Morning More

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    Senate Republicans block bipartisan bill on border and Ukraine-Israel aid – live

    The bipartisan bill combining an overhaul of US immigration policy and security measures at the US-Mexico border with nearly $100bn in foreign aid on Wednesday has failed to garner enough votes to move forward in the US Senate, although voting continued.More details as they happen. There are already 49 No votes. Sixty Yes votes in the 100-strong chamber are needed to pass bills.Frustration as GOP rejects a bipartisan border compromise, only to demand another If you’re just catching up on today’s senate Republican vote to reject a bipartisan border deal, followed by GOP demands that amendments with border provisions be allowed for a standalone foreign military aid bill, here are some perspectives:And from a bit earlier:Still waiting on a senate vote on $95bn foreign aid packageThis is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from Los Angeles.We are still waiting on a vote to see whether the senate will proceed with debate over a proposed $95b military assistance bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.Some details on the current conversations among Republican senators from Punchbowl News and HuffPost:The focus will shift to the US supreme court tomorrow, where justices will consider a case challenging Donald Trump’s ability to appear on presidential ballots, after advocacy groups argued his involvement in the January 6 insurrection should disqualify him. Here’s the Guardian’s Rachel Leingang with more on those efforts:A US supreme court case that could remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot is the culmination of several years of work by left-leaning watchdog groups to reinvigorate the 14th amendment and its power.A Colorado case that found Trump couldn’t run for re-election there was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), though other groups and individuals have filed lawsuits and petitions in many states trying to remove Trump under the 14th amendment’s third clause. The clause says that people who were in office and participated in an insurrection against the US can’t hold office again.Some of the challenges have gone through the courts, while others have appealed directly to elections officials in charge of placing candidates on the ballot. Colorado was the first ruling to decide against Trump, so it is headed to the supreme court at the former president’s behest. Because of how consequential and rare the issue is, it was expected that the high court would eventually be the arbiter of how the clause applied in the modern era.The Senate is now voting on whether to begin debate on the $95b military assistance bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.That vote needs only a simple majority to succeed, but the story doesn’t end there. Fox News reports that Democrats want the measure to pass quickly, but, as with most legislation in the Senate, will need at least nine Republican votes to do that. The GOP is demanding that majority leader Chuck Schumer allow amendments be made to the bill – including some measures dealing with immigration, even after the party just a few minutes ago voted down a bill to make major changes to how the US deals with migrants and asylum seekers:As we wait to find out if Republicans will vote to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel without hardline border policies, Punchbowl News reports that a key GOP lawmaker is warning that approving the bill could hurt the party’s chances in the November elections.That’s the argument made in a party strategy meeting by senator Steve Daines of Montana, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is tasked with winning the party seats in Congress’s upper chamber:Republicans are tipped to retake control of the Senate in November. For Democrats to maintain their one-seat majority, Joe Biden would have to win re-election, and the party would have to win two of the three seats they are defending representing Ohio, West Virginia and Montana – all red states. That’s assuming their lawmakers in safer seats are re-elected, and the Democrats fail to defeat Republican senators representing Texas, Florida, or any other red state.The bipartisan bill combining an overhaul of US immigration policy and security measures at the US-Mexico border with nearly $100bn in foreign aid on Wednesday has failed to garner enough votes to move forward in the US Senate, although voting continued.More details as they happen. There are already 49 No votes. Sixty Yes votes in the 100-strong chamber are needed to pass bills.The White House is focused on getting a Ukraine aid package through the US Congress, the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday, adding there was no “plan B”, Reuters reports.
    We believe we still can and will deliver aid for Ukraine,” Sullivan told reporters during a joint press conference with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
    Stoltenberg said it was vital Congress agreed on continued support for Ukraine in the near future.Stoltenberg said there was no imminent threat to any Nato ally, but added:
    We must sustain our support and that is a responsibility for all allies.”
    The US Senate is currently voting on the bipartisan border and foreign aid bill that a group of lawmakers has been working on for months and unveiled on Sunday. But the bill appears doomed, despite Republicans having insisted on immigration reform to tighten security at the US-Mexico border. Legislation needs 60 votes to pass the 100-member Senate, where Democrats hold a wafter-thin majority, so GOP support is needed to pass bills.Arizona independent US senator Kyrsten Sinema just told the chamber that the Republican abandonment of efforts to pass immigration reform legislation was “shameful”.Sinema (who switched from the Democratic party to become an independent not long after the midterm elections in 2022, when Republicans won control of the House), said that many Republican senators may just want to ignore a bill involving tightening border security, but Arizona could not afford that as it is dealing with the increase in migration every day.Republican senator James Lankford of Oklahoma spoke on the floor of the Senate moments ago to say that Americans were telling Congress to “do something” about the increase in migration at the US-Mexico border.“We have to decide if we are going to do that or not, if we are going to do nothing, or do something,” he said.He said the bill that looks doomed is “a bill put together by a bipartisan effort – welcome to the US Senate”.Lankford worked across the aisle with Democrats Patty Murray and Chris Murphy and independent senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to prepare the complex bill that implements immigration reforms, toughens the US-Mexico border, and funds more aid for Ukraine, Israel and allies in the Indo-Pacific region such as Taiwan. At almost 400 pages, he said it took months of complicated work.But he said he had Republican colleagues who believed lies they read on social media rather than the text of the bill itself. One unnamed fellow GOPer told him: “If you are trying to move a bill that solves the border crisis during the election, I will do everything to destroy you,” Lankford said. And they have done so, he said, by signaling they would not support a bill Republicans had said was sorely needed.Washington state’s Democratic senator Patty Murray is on the floor of the US Senate now, lambasting Republicans who are obstructing the border and war aid spending legislation, and thanking her Republican fellow senator, James Lankford, of Oklahoma, who just spoke passionately.Murray talked of Ukraine’s defense against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s offensive against Hamas, and the need for more US funds for those allies, and said: “Today is a critical vote. Today is a critical day to decide.” She asked if senators would keep their word when they negotiate with each other.Both she and Lankford are lamenting the fact that legislation in front of the Senate to implement border reforms and boost funds for Ukraine and Israel is on the brink.“And lets not forget there is the [US-Mexico] border,” she said. “The site of so many Republican photo ops.”“That’s the moment we are in, by voting it down, Republicans will be telling our allies our word cannot be trusted, telling dictators like Putin that our threats are not serious,” she said.“And telling the American people they do not want to solve the crisis at the border, they want to campaign on it – you do not let a fire burn so that Donald Trump can campaign on the ashes,” Murray said.Hours after the House descended into farce yesterday evening when Republicans failed to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, and blocked legislation to send military aid to Israel, the Senate is taking a crack at approving a complex bill to tighten immigration policy while assisting both Israel and Ukraine. If that legislation does not pass, and there’s plenty of reason to believe it will not, since Republicans say they no longer like the border security changes, the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said they’ll vote on a bill that solely contains funds for Kyiv, and for the counterattack against Hamas. Will that attract the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate, and, if it does, will it make through the House, where Ukraine foes are plenty? We’ll find out soon enough.Here’s what else is going on today:
    Joe Biden says he will support the Israel-Ukraine aid bill, even if it does not include immigration policy changes.
    The Mayorkas impeachment will die in the Senate, predicted Oklahoma’s Republican senator James Lankford, who negotiated the ill-fated immigration policy bill.
    Nikki Haley had a terrible night in Nevada, where she came in second in the primaries to “none of these candidates”. This morning, she blamed the Republican party’s problems on Donald Trump, who appears on course to win its presidential nomination.
    The big question looming over the Senate is: will either version of the Israel-Ukraine aid bill, one of which contains immigration policy changes, the other which does not, receive enough votes to pass?To succeed, either legislation will need to receive 60 votes, meaning at least some Republicans will have to sign on.Punchbowl News reports that John Thune, the number-two Republican in the Senate, was mum about how his lawmakers were feeling:Independent senator Bernie Sanders says he will oppose the legislation to provide military aid to Israel, citing the widespread destruction and civilian casualties caused by its invasion of Gaza.“Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas’s terrorism, but it does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Since this war began over 27,000 Palestinians have been killed and 67,000 wounded – two-thirds of whom are women and children. Over 1.7 million people have been driven from their homes and have no idea as to where they will be in the future. Almost 70% of the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged,” the Vermont lawmaker said.“This bill provides $10bn dollars more in US military aid for the Netanyahu government to continue its horrific war against the Palestinian people. That is unconscionable. That is why I will be voting NO.”Joe Biden will sign legislation to send new military aid to Ukraine and Israel, even if it does not contain policy changes intended to stop migrants from crossing the southern border, the White House announced.Here’s what spokesman Andrew Bates had to say:
    We support this bill which would protect America’s national security interests by stopping Putin’s onslaught in Ukraine before he turns to other countries, helping Israel defend itself against Hamas terrorists and delivering live-saving humanitarian aid to innocent Palestinian civilians. Even if some congressional Republicans’ commitment to border security hinges on politics, President Biden’s does not. We must still have reforms and more resources to secure the border. These priorities all have strong bipartisan support across the country.
    Whether the Senate manages to pass any legislation today is a different matter.The Senate will this afternoon take two votes on approving aid to Israel and Ukraine, one on a bill that will include hardline immigration policies, and one without, the chamber’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced.“I have scheduled a vote on the supplemental that includes strong bipartisan border reforms that Republicans have demanded for months,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. He went on:
    Now, if Republicans blocked this national security package with border legislation that they demanded later today, I will give them the opportunity to move forward with the package without border reforms. This package will otherwise be largely the same. It will have strong funding for Ukraine, funding for Israel, help for innocent civilians in Gaza and funding to the Indo Pacific. The legislation on the floor today is one of the most important security packages the Senate has considered in a very long time. So the onus is on Senate Republicans to finally take yes for an answer.
    Last year, Republicans blocked Senate passage of a bill to provide aid to Israel and Ukraine, demanding that the Democrats agree to pass a law to stem the flow of migrants across the US border with Mexico. But after Joe Biden and his allies announced their support this week for hardline policies intended to do that, the GOP said they were no longer interested – reportedly because Donald Trump pressured them to do so.It’s unclear how Senate Republicans will vote today. In his speech, Schumer warned the party that they would be doing Trump’s bidding and harming national security if they block both pieces of legislation.“It would be an embarrassment for our country, an absolute nightmare for the Republican party if they reject national security funding twice in one day. Today is the day for Republicans to do the right thing when it comes to our national security,” Schumer said.“Why are the Republicans doing all this? Why have they backed off on border when they know it’s the right thing to do? Two words, Donald Trump.” More

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    Black and Hispanic voters deserting Democratic party in large numbers, poll says

    Black and Hispanic voters are deserting the Democratic party in numbers that will present a concern for Joe Biden’s re-election effort, a poll has found.Among Black Americans expressing a party preference, the Democratic lead over Republicans has dropped by almost 20% in only three years, according to the Gallup survey.The Democratic lead among Hispanic adults and adults aged 18 to 29, meanwhile, also slid by almost the same degree, leaving the party with only a modest advantage.Both groups, but especially Black voters, were key ingredients of the alliance that gave Biden a more than 7m-vote advantage over Donald Trump in the 2020 election.The loss is only partially offset by modest gains among college-educated Americans, both with or without college degrees, Gallup found.“These shifts in the party affiliation of key subgroups provide the demographic backstory for how Democrats went from enjoying significant leads over Republicans between 2012 and 2021, to slight deficits in 2022 and 2023,” the research company said in a statement accompanying the survey.“The 27% of US adults identifying as Democrats and the 43% identifying as or leaning Democratic are both new lows in Gallup’s trend.”The drop in support of non-Hispanic Black voters will perhaps be most alarming for the Biden re-election campaign. In 2020, the Democratic party held a 77-11 percentage point advantage over Republicans in that demographic, which has sunk to a 66-19 lead.Similarly, there is only a 12-point gap, 47-35, in Hispanic adults supporting Democrats, compared with a 31-point lead in 2021, and a 36-point margin in 2016.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden has acknowledged that his support from Black voters has fallen, and he embarked on a messaging offensive last month trying to win them back, beginning with a campaign appearance at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the scene of a 2015 racist massacre.The president urged the Democratic National Committee to put South Carolina first on the party’s primary calendar to reflect the importance of Black voters. Despite low turnout, Biden won the 3 February primary easily. More

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    The unprecedented situation at the US-Mexico border – visualized

    Record levels of migration are straining an immigration system left nearly broken by decades of congressional inaction.Republicans have spent years amplifying scenes of turmoil and tragedy at the southern border, but Democratic leaders are also worried now, particularly big-city mayors and blue state governors who are demanding more federal resources to shelter and feed an influx of migrants.With many voters now saying immigration is a top priority, what exactly is happening at the US border to make so many people concerned?There has been a surge of encounters at the US borderSince the pandemic there has been a spike in global migration, coinciding with Joe Biden’s presidency. Across the globe, people are fleeing war, political insecurity, violence, poverty and natural disasters. Many of those in Latin America, in particular, travel to the US in search of safety.View image in fullscreenIn the last three years, the number of people attempting to cross the US’s southern border into the country has risen to unprecedented levels.In the month of December 2023 alone, border patrol agents recorded 302,000 encounters (these include apprehensions and immediate expulsions), a new high. The monthly average from 2013 to 2019 was 39,000.Arrivals are coming from more countriesThe collapse of Venezuela, political instability in Haiti, violence in Ecuador, a crackdown in Nicaragua, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, repression in China and other conflicts have fueled a historic shift in migration patterns.Mexico was the single most common origin country for US border encounters in 2023, but Mexican nationals made up less than 30% of the total share, compared with more than 60% a decade ago.Their journey is more perilousNearly 9,000 people attempting to reach the US from the south have been recorded missing or dead in the Americas in the past 10 years, according to the Missing Migrants Project.Some never make it through the notorious Darién Gap at the southern end of Central America, where a US deal with Panama and Colombia to stop migrants in their tracks has caused an outcry.The vast majority of recorded fatalities (5,145), however, occur at the US-Mexico border crossing, according to the project’s data.Many of the deaths occurred in southern Arizona when people attempted to cross open desert, miles from any roads.Fatalities are also concentrated along the treacherous stretch of south-western Texas where the Rio Grande river becomes the borderline. Further inland, hundreds of deaths have been recorded in the sparse, humid scrubland around Falfurrias.View image in fullscreenTheir cases languish in courtsThe border rules are complicated: some people apprehended at the border will face expedited deportation, but others will enter formal deportation proceedings and qualify for temporary release into the US, with a date to appear before a judge.Resolving those immigration cases and asylum claims can take years. The backlog of immigration cases has grown steadily – there were an astounding 3.3m cases pending as of December 2023, but just 682 immigration judges. That means the average caseload is more than 4,500 per judge.In the meantime …People arriving often find themselves in unofficial camps all along the US border. Some are waiting to cross, others have been met by US border patrol, yet others have been turned away. Some border states such as Texas have put tens of thousands of people awaiting their asylum claims on buses and sent them to other states, including California and New York, without their knowledge or permission.As for Congress, it continues to argue over clamping down on unlawful border crossings and alleviating the deepening humanitarian crisis – an increasingly irreconcilable divide between those who want to expand the immigration system and those who want to restrict it.View image in fullscreen More

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    in US Politics

    US man who says IDF kidnapped his mother calls on Biden to take action

    A New Orleans-area man who has reported that Israeli troops kidnapped his mother – a US citizen – from a family home on the occupied West Bank Palestinian territory is asking Joe Biden’s White House to follow through on the president’s recent promise to respond “if you harm an American”.Ibrahim Hamed said he realized that Biden’s remarks on Friday – “if you harm an American, we will respond” – came after the United States and Britain attacked Houthi targets in Yemen in retaliation for a drone strike that killed three US army troops. But he said the sentiment should apply equally even in the case of a Palestinian American who has been taken by Israeli troops.Israel collects billions in US security assistance annually. Biden has also been seeking $14bn more in aid for Israel as it wages a military campaign in Gaza after the 7 October attack by Hamas.“We’re paying our tax money to do what – to fund the people who are oppressing us?” Hamed said. “So when is this oppression going to stop?”Hamed’s impassioned remarks to the Guardian came a day after he said members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) went to a home in the occupied Palestinian town of Silwad where his mother, Samaher Esmail, lives part-time.In a prepared statement responding to a request for comment, the IDF said it had arrested Esmail “for incitement on social media”. The statement did not elaborate but said Esmail was arrested alongside others in Silwad who were then taken in “for further questioning”.Esmail remained in custody of the Israel prison service on Wednesday, a source with knowledge of her whereabouts said.Esmail’s arrest came shortly before the US’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, embarked on a trip to Israel meant to forge a ceasefire in Gaza.A US state department spokesperson said the agency was aware of reports that an American citizen had been detained on the West Bank but declined to comment further. “The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas,” the spokesperson said. “We are seeking additional information and stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance.”Neighbors called Hamed’s family in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna and told him that several IDF troops had pulled up in military vehicles and dragged away Esmail, 46, while she was beaten, handcuffed and blindfolded.Hamed said he received videos and pictures of the scene that greeted his mother as she was being taken. He could not believe that about 10 IDF troops had shown up to get Esmail, who he said weighed 110lb.“She’s not even heavy. I’m like, ‘What is going on here?’” Hamed said, describing his reaction to the videos and his mother’s neighbors’ recollections. “I just never would have thought that they would have done this to – first – a woman and – second – a US citizen.”State business records in Louisiana show Esmail has owned a convenience store on the edge of New Orleans’s Bayou St John neighborhood since 2003. She was born in New York. And as one of the 122,500 to 220,000 Americans of Palestinian descent who the Arab American Institute Foundation estimates live in the US, Esmail raised four children who attended Patrick F Taylor Science and Technology Academy in the New Orleans suburb of Westwego.Hamed and his brother, Suliman, graduated from New Orleans’s Xavier University and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, respectively. Her two daughters, Yousra and Huda, are studying at the University of New Orleans.Esmail planned to return home to New Orleans in April to meet a newborn granddaughter and celebrate Yousra’s graduation from UNO. But those plans remained uncertain on Tuesday as Hamed said his family awaited word from the US embassy in Jerusalem on how to proceed.Hamed said no one had told him why Israeli troops took his mom captive until a reporter notified him of the IDF’s statement.He said he feared comments which she posted on social media that were critical of Israel’s West Bank occupation may have brought her unwanted attention from the IDF. But he said it was “bogus” for Esmail to be arrested for them.Also, Hamed wondered whether Esmail’s arrest may have partially resulted from her involvement in a legal proceeding that began after IDF troops roughed her up at a West Bank checkpoint in 2022.Hamed said his family is friends with that of the 17-year-old Gretna boy who was reported to have been shot dead on the West Bank in January by Israeli forces, Tawfiq Ajaq. Ajaq, who was also known as Tawfic Abdeljabber, had traveled there with his parents to reconnect with his Palestinian roots, his family has said.The mosque to which Esmail and Ajaq’s families belong, Masjid Omar, issued a statement demanding her immediate release, saying she does not have access to the medication that she takes to treat multiple illnesses. The Center for American-Islamic Relations also wrote a statement insisting that Esmail be freed.In addition to contacting the American embassy in Jerusalem, Hamed said he had solicited help from New Orleans’s congressman, the Democratic US House member Troy Carter. But he said he had “not heard anything government-wise” regarding his mother’s status.“There’s zero communication … I don’t know what’s going on,” Hamed said of his mother’s plight. “I feel as if they’re not giving enough attention to her.” More