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    ‘January 6 never ended’: alarm at Trump pardon pledge for Capitol insurrectionists

    In the three years to the day since the insurrection at the US Capitol, great strides have been made in shoring up American democracy: hundreds of rioters have been prosecuted, legislation has been passed to bolster electoral safeguards and Donald Trump has been charged over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.But as the country marks the third anniversary of one of its darkest days in modern times, a pall hangs in the air. It comes from Trump himself and his promise, growing steadily louder as the 2024 presidential election approaches, that if he wins he will pardon those convicted of acts of violence, obstructing Congress and seditious conspiracy on 6 January 2021.The scope of Trump’s pardon pledge is astonishing both for its quantity and quality. The former president has made clear that – should he be confirmed as the Republican presidential candidate and go on to triumph in the November election – he would contemplate pardoning every one of those prosecuted for their participation in the insurrection.Last May he reposted on his Truth Social platform the slogan: “Free all J-6 political prisoners”. A few months earlier he told a rightwing website that “we’ll be looking very, very seriously at full pardons”.A total or near-total pardon would encompass hundreds of cases. The US Department of Justice has conducted what it describes as the largest investigation in its history following the storming of the Capitol building and has so far secured almost 900 convictions either at trial or through guilty pleas.About 350 cases are still ongoing.Then there is the quality. Trump has specifically threatened to pardon Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the extremist group the Proud Boys who with 22 years in prison has received the longest sentence yet handed down for the insurrection.Tarrio was found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Though he was not present in the Capitol compound on 6 January 2021, prosecutors presented evidence that he had helped coordinate the storming of the building and on the day itself had sent encouraging messages on social media.The judge at his sentencing, Timothy Kelly, said he was sending a strong message: “It can’t happen again,” he said.In September Trump told NBC News that he would “certainly look at” pardoning Tarrio. “He and other people have been treated horribly … They’ve been persecuted.”Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman from Maryland, said that Trump’s pledge to pardon rioters showed that “January 6 never ended. Today is January 6.”Speaking at an event on Friday organised by End Citizens United and Let America Vote in advance of the third anniversary, Raskin, who was present at the Capitol as the riot unfolded and who went on to lead the second impeachment of Trump following the upheaval, lamented how the former president wanted to set convicted criminals free. “Trump is out there saying he’s going to pardon people who engaged in political violence, who bloodied and wounded and hospitalized 150 of our officers.”Raskin added that Trump’s threat should be taken seriously. “We better believe him. I mean, he pardoned Roger Stone, a political criminal; he pardoned Michael Flynn, his disgraced former national security adviser,” he said. “Now he wants to pardon the shock troops of January 6, so he will have this roving band of people willing to commit political violence and insurrection for him – how dangerous is that?”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs NPR has noted, anyone pardoned by Trump for felonies arising from 6 January 2021 would be entitled to legally own guns once more.Trump’s statements on possible pardons are in keeping with the general stance towards the insurrection he has expressed over the past three years. He has repeatedly described the attack as a “beautiful day” and those who took part in it as “great, great patriots” who since their arrests have become “hostages”.At his rallies, he has boomed through loudspeakers a recording of jailed January 6 rioters singing The Star-Spangled Banner.There are alarming indications that for a sizable portion of the US electorate, his whitewashing of that fateful day appears to be working. A poll from the Washington Post and the University of Maryland this week found that a quarter of all Americans think the FBI was probably or definitely behind the US Capitol assault – a figure rising to more than a third of Republicans.Biden has indicated that he will make January 6, and Trump’s response to it over the past three years, a key aspect of his re-election bid. The president put the threat posed to democracy by Trump at the centre of his first major speech of the 2024 election year.Biden’s address was delivered on Friday afternoon pointedly in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. That is where George Washington and the continental army were headquartered during the American revolution.A new advert released by the Biden campaign this week replays video footage of the storming of the Capitol three years ago. Biden is heard saying: “There is something dangerous happening in America. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy.” More

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    Fired-up Biden shows gloves are off in January 6 anniversary speech

    This time it’s personal. On Friday Joe Biden tore into his predecessor Donald Trump as never before. He brimmed with anger, disdain and contempt. He apparently had to stop himself from swearing. So much for “when they go low, we go high” – and plenty of Democrats will be just fine with that.If Biden was seeking to jolt his half-conscious 2024 re-election campaign into life, this may have done the trick. The palpable loathing of Trump took a good 10 or 20 years off him. Keep hating like this and he might do a Benjamin Button all the way to election day.There is no better illustration of Biden’s evolution than a speech he delivered on the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection. On that occasion, he denounced a “web of lies” but never mentioned Trump by name, preferring to cite the “former president”. Those were still the days when he would talk about “the former guy” and get a laugh.Two years on, in an address near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Biden spoke the name “Trump” more than 40 times in less than an hour as he warned that his likely 2024 opponent would sacrifice American democracy to put himself in power. The 81-year-old president generally seems like a grandfatherly figure predisposed to give people the benefit of the doubt, which makes his detestation of Trump all the more striking.Trump’s failure to act as a violent mob stormed the US Capitol, despite the pleas of staff and family members, was “among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history”, Biden said, noting that Trump went on to lose 60 court cases that took him back to the truth “that I had won the election and he was a loser”.It was a jab to the ribs, since Trump hates nothing more than being branded a “loser”.The president went on to recall how Trump has called the insurrectionists “patriots” and claimed there was a “lot of love” on January 6. At that, Biden shook his head, blinked and let out a gasp of disbelief, as if stunned anew by the assertion. “The rest of the nation, including law enforcement, saw a lot of hate and violence,” he said.Biden furiously denounced political violence and Trump’s habit of joking about the big lie-influenced intruder who attacked Paul Pelosi, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, with a hammer, saying: “And he thinks that’s funny. He laughed about it. What a sick – ”He halted. At the last moment, the president of the United States had saved himself from uttering a profanity. The urge coursed through his body and found relief in his hands, which clenched into fists, as the crowd filled in with laughter and whooping. “My God,” Biden said. “I think it’s despicable, seriously, not just for a president but for any person to say that.”Against a backdrop of 11 American flags and four faux Roman columns, Biden went on: “The guy who claims law and order sows lawlessness and disorder.” Trump is planning a full-scale campaign of revenge and retribution, he said, and promised to be a dictator on day one.Trump has threatened to terminate the US constitution, impose the death penalty on military leaders who defied him and referred to dead soldiers as “suckers” and “losers”. Biden looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. He was worked up and had to steel himself.He mused: “Sometimes I’m really happy the Irish in me can’t be seen.”Earlier this week CNN reported that younger aides on Biden’s re-election campaign had been grimly joking about when to go “full Hitler” – making a direct comparison of Trump to the Nazi leader rather than merely saying Trump “parroted” him. Biden did not quite go full Hitler but he did observe: “He talks about the blood of Americans being poisoned, echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany.”Democrats are often criticised for pulling their punches and refusing to fight dirty as Republicans do. For as long as Trump has been on the political scene, they have wrestled with the question of whether to rise above him or roll in the dirt with him. In 2018, the former attorney general Eric Holder declared: “When they go low, we kick ’em. That’s what this new Democratic party is about.”When the party’s nominee in 2016, Hillary Clinton, referred to Trump’s supporters as “deplorables”, it fed a narrative of liberal elitism but with Ordinary Joe/Dark Brandon, it is harder to make that charge stick. Years ago, responding to Trump’s misogyny, Biden said: “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”Tellingly, his aggressive tone on Friday was praised by Republican campaign veterans who are no strangers to politics as a bloodsport. Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, wrote on X: “Everyone on the pro-democracy side of this fight should amplify the hell out of this.”Biden held a private meeting with historians this week to discuss the state of democracy and framed his speech around George Washington, the founding president who willingly relinquished power rather than become a king. He said the things that need to be said about this election on the eve of another January 6 anniversary, an outrage that animates him just as the white nationalist march in Charlottesville did in 2020.There will be time enough to discuss the economy, border security, the climate crisis, reproductive freedom and foreign policy (his critics will ask why he cannot summon such righteous fury on behalf of Palestinian civilians). Voters will surely demand not only vivid Trump-bashing but a positive vision for a second term. Friday was hardly an optimistic start to the new year.But for now, one thing is clear. The gloves are off and, assuming Trump wins the Republican nomination, this will be an election between combatants with a mutual abhorrence like none that has gone before. More

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    US supreme court allows Idaho’s strict abortion ban to stand pending hearing

    The US supreme court on Friday allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues.The justices said they would hear arguments in April and put on hold a lower court ruling that had blocked the Idaho law in hospital emergencies, based on a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration.Hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required by a federal law to provide emergency care, potentially including abortion, no matter if there’s a state law banning abortion, the administration argued.The legal fight followed the court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade and allow states to severely restrict or ban abortion. The Joe Biden White House issued guidance about the law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act – or Emtala – two weeks after the high court ruling in 2022. The Democratic administration sued Idaho a month later.US district judge B Lynn Winmill in Idaho agreed with the administration. But in a separate case in Texas, a judge sided with the state.Idaho makes it a crime with a prison term of up to five years for anyone who performs or assists in an abortion.But the administration argues Emtala requires healthcare providers to perform abortions for emergency room patients when needed to treat an emergency medical condition, even if doing so might conflict with a state’s abortion restrictions.Those conditions include severe bleeding, pre-eclampsia and certain pregnancy-related infections.“For certain medical emergencies, abortion care is the necessary stabilizing treatment,” the solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, wrote in an administration filing at the supreme court.The state argued that the administration was misusing a law intended to prevent hospitals from dumping patients and imposing “a federal abortion mandate” on states. “[Emtala] says nothing about abortion,” Idaho’s attorney general, Raul Labrador, told the court in a brief.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJust on Tuesday, the federal appeals court in New Orleans came to the same conclusion as Labrador. A three-judge panel ruled that the administration cannot use Emtala to require hospitals in Texas to provide abortions for women whose lives are at risk due to pregnancy. Two of the three judges are appointees of Donald Trump, and the other was appointed by another Republican president, George W Bush.The appeals court affirmed a ruling by US district judge James Wesley Hendrix, also a Trump appointee. Hendrix wrote that adopting the Biden administration’s view would force physicians to place the health of the pregnant person over that of the fetus or embryo even though Emtala “is silent as to abortion”.After Winmill, an appointee of Democratic president Bill Clinton, issued his ruling, Idaho lawmakers won an order allowing the law to be fully enforced from an all-Republican, Trump-appointed panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals. But a larger contingent of ninth circuit judges threw out the panel’s ruling and set arguments in the case for late January. More

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    US supreme court to hear appeal of Colorado ruling removing Trump from state ballot

    The US supreme court will hear Donald Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ruling that he should be removed from the state ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, for inciting an insurrection.The court issued a brief order on Friday, setting up a dramatic moment in American history.The case will be argued on 8 February. As the Republican presidential primary will then be well under way, with Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada having voted – and as Trump has also been disqualified from the ballot in Maine, a ruling appealed in state court – a quick decision is expected.The Colorado primary is set for 5 March. The state government must begin mailing ballots to overseas voters on 20 January and to all others between 12 and 16 February. The ruling suspending Trump is stayed, however, as long as the supreme court appeal is ongoing.In the year of a high-stakes presidential election, the case is set to move rapidly, under a fierce spotlight. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said that with “oral argument set for 8 February, the appeal will be extremely expedited … thus, briefs will probably be due as soon as possible, maybe [in] a week or 10 days for each side.”The 14th amendment was approved after the civil war, meant to bar from office supporters of the rebel Confederate states. But it has rarely been used. Cases against Trump were mounted after he was impeached but acquitted by the Senate over the attack on Congress by his supporters on 6 January 2021, then swiftly came to dominate the Republican presidential primary for 2024, all while maintaining the lie that his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud.Fourteenth-amendment challenges to Trump in other states have either failed or remain undecided.The Colorado supreme court ruled against Trump on 19 December but stayed the ruling until 4 January, pending appeal. That appeal came earlier this week, Trump’s lawyers arguing that only Congress could arbitrate such disputes and saying the relevant text in the 14th amendment – in section 3 – did not apply to the presidency or vice-presidency as they are not mentioned therein.ABC News has reported debates from the passage of the amendment, in 1866, in which the presidency was said to be covered.Prominent legal scholars including Laurence Tribe of Harvard and the retired conservative judge J Michael Luttig have said Trump should be disqualified from seeking the presidency under the 14th amendment.Luttig, who testified memorably before the House January 6 committee, called the Colorado ruling “historic … a monumental decision of constitutional law … masterful and … unassailable”. He has also said the US supreme court ruling will be “arguably … the single most important constitutional decision in all of our history”.Other voices, including conservative lawyers and professors and all Trump’s major opponents for the Republican nomination, have questioned whether section 3 applies to the presidency, or to someone not convicted of insurrection. Most (and some senior Democrats) have also said the Colorado ruling is anti-democratic, because only voters should decide Trump’s fitness for office.Luttig has countered such arguments, saying: “The 14th amendment itself, in section 3, answers the question whether disqualification is ‘anti-democratic’, declaring that it is not. Rather, it is the conduct that gives rise to disqualification that is anti-democratic, per the command of the constitution.”Trump also faces extensive legal jeopardy: he faces 91 criminal charges under four indictments, 17 concerning election subversion, and civil threats including cases over his business affairs and a defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape a judge said was “substantially true”.Nonetheless, he leads Republican polling by vast margins. Were the supreme court to rule against him in the Colorado case, the US would find itself in uncharted waters.On Friday, Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesperson, said the campaign welcomed “a fair hearing at the supreme court to argue against the bad-faith, election-interfering, voter-suppressing, Democrat-backed and Biden-led, 14th amendment abusing decision” in Colorado.Cheung also claimed the Colorado case and others like it were “part of a well-funded effort by leftwing political activists hell-bent on stopping the lawful re-election of President Trump this November, even if it means disenfranchising voters”.Writing on his blog, Richard Hasen, an election law professor at the University of Los Angeles, California, pointed to uncertainties about how the supreme court case will unfold, given what he called a “blob” of a filing from Trump’s lawyers, while saying lawyers for Colorado “raised three questions, which somewhat overlap with Trump’s claims”.“This seems like it could be a free-for-all in arguments and briefing,” Hasen wrote, adding: “Buckle up; it’s going to be a wild ride from here on out.”That seems assured. The supreme court is not just dominated 6-3 by rightwingers who have delivered historic rulings including removing the federal right to abortion. It includes three justices installed when Trump was president.On Thursday, a Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, caused controversy when she told Fox News one such appointee, Brett Kavanaugh, would now “step up” for the man who put him on the court.Controversy also surrounds Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving justice whose wife, the rightwing activist Ginni Thomas, was involved in Trump’s election subversion.On Friday, Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, said Thomas should not take part in the Colorado case.“The American people deserve a fair and impartial review … free from any conflicts of interest,” Harvey said. “Justice Thomas’s continued refusal to recuse himself from this case and others related to the efforts to overthrow the 2020 election … raises questions about the integrity of the judicial process and the influence of political bias.“As trust in the supreme court reaches new lows, decisions like these only reinforce Americans’ belief that supreme court justices are politicians in robes. To begin to restore public confidence in our nation’s highest court, Thomas must recuse himself.” More

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    Biden attacks Trump as grave threat to democracy in rousing 2024 speech

    A day before the third anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Joe Biden delivered a pointed speech to warn voters against re-electing Donald Trump, criticizing the likely Republican presidential nominee as a fundamental threat to democracy in an attempt to shape the dynamics of the 2024 election.“Today we’re here to answer the most important of questions: is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said. “Today, I make this sacred pledge to you: the defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.“America, as we began this election year, we must be clear: democracy is on the ballot.”Sharply contrasting himself with his opponent, Biden accused Trump of attempting to undermine America’s system of government, painting the Republican leader as a would-be autocrat hellbent on revenge. Biden noted that Trump had vowed “retribution” against his political enemies if he is elected, and had indicated he would act as a dictator on the first day of his second term.“Donald Trump’s campaign is about him – not America, not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future,” Biden said. “Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past. It’s what he’s promising for the future.”The speech came a day before the anniversary of the January 6 attack in 2021, when a group of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in a violent effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. A bipartisan Senate report found that seven people died as a result of the insurrection, and Trump now faces four felony counts over his role in the attack and his broader campaign to overturn the election results.But Trump has continued to defend those who carried out the attack as “patriots”, promising to issue pardons to them if he is elected.“In trying to rewrite the facts of January 6, Trump was trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election. But we knew the truth because we saw with our own eyes,” Biden said.“Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists, not patriots. They weren’t there to uphold the constitution. They were there to destroy the constitution.”Trump, who spoke to hundreds of supporters in Iowa Friday night in his first campaign visit of 2024, shot back at Biden’s speech, painting a dark portrait of the US. He called it a “failing” nation, beset by “terrorists” and immigrants from “mental asylums” pouring over the US-Mexico border.Biden highlighted the setting of his speech, which took place roughly 10 miles from Valley Forge national historical park in Pennsylvania, to underscore the high stakes of the presidential race. During America’s fight for independence in the revolutionary war, George Washington and his Continental army troops camped at Valley Forge during a difficult winter.“After all we’ve been through in our history – from independence to civil war to two world wars to a pandemic to insurrection – I refuse to believe that in 2024 we Americans would choose to walk away from what’s made us the greatest nation in the history of the world: freedom, liberty,” Biden said.The speech came at a particularly vulnerable moment for Biden. Polls show Biden’s approval rating mired in the high 30s with Americans expressing concerns about the state of the economy, despite strong job creation and the easing of inflation. A Gallup poll conducted last month found that only 22% of Americans view economic conditions as “good” or “excellent”, while 78% consider current conditions to be “fair” or “poor”. National polls show Biden and Trump running neck and neck in a hypothetical general election.Biden is holding a series of events to reframe the 2024 election as a fight for democracy and fundamental freedoms. In addition to the Valley Forge speech, Biden will speak on Monday at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine African Americans were fatally shot by a white supremacist in 2015.Biden’s campaign has said the president will also hold events later this month to commemorate the anniversary of Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a federal right to abortion access. That ruling was overturned by the conservative-leaning supreme court in 2022, resulting in abortion bans in more than a dozen states.“When Joe Biden ran for president four years ago, he said, ‘We are in the battle for the soul of America,’” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on Tuesday. “As we look towards November 2024, we still are. The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire in the years since.”Despite that grim outlook, Biden expressed his trademark optimism as he spoke to supporters in Pennsylvania, reiterating his message of American exceptionalism and urging voters to embrace hope.“None of you believe America is failing. We know America is winning. That’s American patriotism,” Biden said. “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is: who are we?”Reuters contributed to this report More

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    Michigan Republicans move to oust conspiracy theory-touting chair

    Michigan Republicans are on the verge of ousting their party’s conspiracy theory-touting chair after a tenure marred by financial collapse and internal feuds that have at times turned into physical altercations.Kristina Karamo, the Michigan Republican party chair, an election-denying activist who won a hard-fought race for the position last year, is facing a likely vote to fire her at a special meeting convened by concerned party leaders on Saturday.“She has failed as a leader,” said Bree Moeggenberg, a state committee member who called for the Saturday special meeting to vote on Karamo’s removal. “She has failed to build a bigger coalition of Republicans, and instead, she has disenfranchised many, including those who don’t specifically agree with her.”Anger over the chair’s leadership has grown in recent weeks. A majority of the Michigan GOP’s district chairs have demanded Karamo’s resignation. Even Karamo’s running mate and co-chair has called for her removal.“We see our opportunity to win Michigan for Republicans slipping through our fingers,” wrote party leaders in an open letter to Karamo, signed by eight of the Michigan Republican party’s 13 district chairs. “We, the undersigned District Chairs, are locking arms in our request for your resignation. Please put an end to the chaos in our Party,” they wrote.It’s unclear whether Karamo’s opponents will convince enough people to show up to the Saturday meeting to achieve the quorum needed to officially oust her – and even if they do, Karamo may not accept defeat. But it could prove the culmination of a year of bitter infighting.The calls for Karamo to step down come less than a year after she was elected to lead the state party and three years after her outspoken claims of election fraud elevated her from a virtually unknown Christian podcaster and former community college teacher to a leading voice in Donald Trump’s campaign to discredit the results of the 2020 election. She parlayed that newfound prominence into winning the GOP nomination for secretary of state in 2022, but was crushed in the general election. Despite that lopsided loss, she ran against a Trump-endorsed candidate for party chairman last year – and defeated him.Karamo’s outlandish views are not confined to election conspiracy theories. She has echoed the claim promoted by the QAnon conspiracy theory movement that a shadowy cabal of elites are harvesting children’s organs.“There’s a ton of money involved in those freshly harvested organs,” Karamo said on a 2020 podcast hosted by RedPill78, a conspiracy theory website. She has also called Beyoncé and Jay-Z satanists, said yoga is a satanic ritual and described Cardi B as a “tool of Lucifer”.But it’s her apparent financial mismanagement of the party as much as her polarizing politics and wild views that have local GOP leaders prepared to oust her. The state party was already in poor financial shape when she took over, with donations drying up after Democrats won a trifecta in the statehouse in 2022 – but things have gotten significantly worse on her watch. Since Karamo took over, the party has gone further into debt, with other party officials furious over questionable decisions like a loan to spend more than $100,000 to pay a speaking fee to Jim Caviezel, the actor in the 2004 biblical drama The Passion of the Christ who has emerged as a celebrity in QAnon-affiliated circles.Karamo initially agreed via text message to a phone interview, but subsequent attempts to reach her were unsuccessful. She and her general counsel on Thursday called for a town hall on Friday evening “to discuss any concerns or answer any questions” about the party’s legal woes in an apparent last-ditch effort to salvage her job.The Michigan GOP under Karamo’s leadership has even sued the Michigan Republican party Trust and Comerica Bank, which reportedly sent the party a notice of default, in an effort to gain control of the party’s Lansing headquarters. In a motion filed on Tuesday, the trust, which is governed by former establishment party leaders, asked the court to sanction the party for engaging in a “frivolous” suit.A January email obtained by the Guardian from the state GOP treasurer, Jennifer Standerfer, called concerns about the party’s financial solvency – among them, an internal report that showed the party owed more than $600,000 – “misinformation” and claimed the party “retains a net profit of approximately $30,000”. Standerfer did not immediately reply to a request for comment and has not publicly substantiated the claim.The stakes could not be higher for the state GOP. Michigan is one of a handful of states that will decide the 2024 presidential election. And local candidates on the ballot are worried about their own fates as well.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’m coming up for re-election in 2024,” said state representative Mark Tisdel, who articulated the fear, shared by state party activists, that the current Republican party would be unable to shore up campaign cash for state elected officials. “The anticipation is that with limited resources, there will be limited support.”Even if Republicans manage to remove Karamo from office, it is unclear who would be able to take over and unify the party – the divide within the state GOP runs deeper than their controversial chair. Numerous county party chapters are at war internally, with tensions in the Hillsdale and Kalamazoo GOP chapters spilling out into public battles. At a July meeting of the party’s executive committee, tensions devolved into a physical altercation when an activist tackled a local party chair, later citing a “war” between the grassroots and establishment Republicans as a cause of the dispute in an interview with the Detroit Free Press.“I had somebody say to me, ‘Well, I’m more Maga than you,’” said Kelly Sackett, the chair of the Kalamazoo Republican party, who is facing a protracted revolt within her chapter by allies of Karamo who view her as insufficiently rightwing. Sackett and her allies accused the state party of meddling in their affairs after the Michigan GOP’s general counsel called for a meeting that the Kalamazoo county leadership denounced as in violation of the party’s bylaws.Karamo’s allies offered a curious justification.“It was a ‘Peace Summit’ the term was selected because, in world politics, it is a meeting of warring factions to reach a peace accord,” the Michigan GOP general counsel, Daniel Hartman, replied in a September email obtained by the Guardian. “It was not called a meeting, and I am aware that the bylaws do not ‘authorize’ a meeting.”Party activists told the Guardian the rise of a paranoid form of Christian nationalism within the party has also played a role in dividing Michigan Republicans.“One of the things that has been said is that the Kalamazoo county Republican party is godless,” said Sackett, “and we start every single meeting with an invocation.” Muslim leaders in the party have also spoken publicly about the party’s evangelical Christian leadership, which they viewed as exclusionary and hostile to Michigan’s diverse population.“It’s fundamentalism,” said Jon Smith, a former Michigan GOP district chair who supported Karamo before becoming disillusioned with her leadership. “What I’m seeing is, like, if you don’t believe in their [view of] salvation 100% to a tee, you’re the enemy or you’re evil.” More

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    Kavanaugh will ‘step up’ to keep Trump on ballots, ex-president’s lawyer says

    Brett Kavanaugh, the US supreme court justice, will “step up” for Donald Trump and help defeat attempts to remove the former president from the ballot in Colorado and Maine for inciting an insurrection, a Trump lawyer said.“I think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court,” Alina Habba told Fox News on Thursday night. “I have faith in them.“You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up. Those people will step up. Not because they’re pro-Trump but because they’re pro-law, because they’re pro-fairness. And the law on this is very clear.”Kavanaugh was the second of three justices appointed by Trump, creating a 6-3 rightwing majority that has delivered major Republican victories including removing the federal right to abortion and loosening gun control laws.Habba’s reference to Trump “going through hell” was to a stormy confirmation during which Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, which he angrily denied. Trump reportedly wavered on Kavanaugh, only for senior Republicans to persuade him to stay strong.Observers were quick to notice Habba’s apparent invitation to corruption.Michael Kagan, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said: “Legal ethics alert. If … Kavanaugh feels in any way that he owes Trump and will ‘step up’, then [Habba] should be sanctioned by the bar for saying this on TV and thus trying to prejudice a proceeding.”Last month, the Colorado supreme court and the Maine secretary of state ruled that Trump should be removed from the ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war to stop insurrectionists holding office.Trump incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress in 2021, an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden. Impeached but acquitted, he is now the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination this year.Trump has appealed both state rulings. In a supreme court filing in the Colorado case, lawyers argued that only Congress could resolve such a dispute and that the presidency was not an office of state as defined in the 14th amendment.The relevant text does not mention the presidency or vice-presidency. ABC News has reported exchanges in debate in 1866 in which those positions are covered.The supreme court has not yet said if it will consider the matter.Norm Eisen, a White House ethics tsar turned CNN legal analyst, said: “It’s likely … the supreme court will move to resolve this. They may do it quickly. They may not do it quickly because by filing this petition … Trump has stayed the Colorado proceedings. So at the moment he remains on the ballot. The supreme court does have to speak to it.”Habba said:“[Trump] has not been charged with insurrection. He has not been prosecuted for it. He has not been found guilty of it.”She then made her prediction about Kavanaugh and other justices “stepping up”. More

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    Trans candidate disqualified in Ohio for omitting previous name

    Despite receiving enough signatures to appear on the ballot, a transgender woman has been disqualified from an Ohio state house race because she omitted her previous name, raising concern that other transgender candidates nationwide may face similar barriers.Vanessa Joy of was one of four transgender candidates running for state office in Ohio, largely in response to proposed restrictions of the rights of LGBTQ+ people. She was running as a Democrat in house district 50 – a heavily Republican district in Stark county, Ohio – against Republican candidate Matthew Kishman. Joy legally changed her name and birth certificate in 2022, which she says she provided to the Stark county board of elections for the 19 March primary race.But as Joy found out on Tuesday, a little-known 1990s state law says that a candidate must provide any name changes within the last five years to qualify for the ballot. Since the law is not currently listed on the candidate requirement guidelines on the Ohio secretary of state’s website, Joy did not know it existed.To provide her former name, Joy said, would be to use her deadname – a term used by the transgender community to refer to the name given at birth, not one they chose that aligns with their gender identity.And while Joy said the spirit of the law is to weed out bad actors, it creates a barrier for transgender people who want to run for office and may not want to share their deadname for important reasons, including concern about their personal safety.“If I had known that I had to put my deadname on my petitions, I personally would have because being elected was important to me,” Joy said. “But for many it would be a barrier to entry because they would not want their names on the petitions.”She continued: “It’s a danger, and that name is dead.”The office of the Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose, and the Stark county board of elections did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Thursday. It is not clear if this law has applied to any current or previous state lawmakers.Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA law school and an election expert, said that requiring candidates to disclose any name changes posed problems in Ohio, but generally serves a purpose. “If a candidate has something to hide in their past like criminal activity, disclosing former names used by the candidate would make sense,” Hasen said in an email.Sean Meloy, the vice-president of political programs for the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which supports LGBTQ+ candidates, said he did not know of tracking efforts to find how many states require name changes in petition paperwork.“The biggest issue is the selective enforcement of it,” Meloy said in an interview on Thursday.Over the past few years, many states have ramped up restrictions on transgender people – including barring minors from accessing gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormones. In some states, that has extended to limitations on which school bathrooms trans children and students can use and which sports teams they can join.Last year, Meloy said, a record number of candidates who are transgender sought and won office, and he expects that trend to continue in 2024.Ohio lawmakers passed restrictions late last year that were vetoed by the state’s Republican governor, though many Republican state representatives say they are planning to override that veto as soon as next week.Meloy said that some conservatives are trying to silence transgender voices.He pointed to Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker who was blocked last year from speaking on Montana’s House floor after she refused to apologize for telling colleagues who supported a ban on gender-affirming care that they would have blood on their hands.“Now that anti-trans legislation is being moved once again,” Meloy said, “this seems like a selectively enforced action to try to keep another trans person from doing that.”Joy appealed against her disqualification on Thursday, and is now seeking legal representation. She plans to try to change Ohio’s law. More