US Politics

From 2h agoThe Biden administration is out with a statement condemning House Republicans for their conduct during attorney general Merrick Garland’s ongoing hearing before the judiciary committee, saying they wasted him promoting conspiracy theories rather than dealing with more pressing business, like funding the government.“Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown,” White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams said of the hearing, which the judiciary committee regularly holds with the attorney general.Sams continued:
They cannot even pass a military funding bill because extreme House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts like slashing thousands of preschool slots nationwide and thousands of law enforcement jobs including border agents, so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family. Don’t be fooled: they want to distract from the reality that their own chaos and inability to govern is going to shut down the government in a matter of days, hurting our economy and national security and jeopardizing everything from troop pay to fighting fentanyl. These sideshows won’t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country.
In his ongoing appearance before the House judiciary committee, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, defended the independence and integrity of the justice department from Republican attacks, saying “I am not the president’s lawyer”, and refusing to discuss the ongoing prosecution of the president’s son Hunter Biden. GOP lawmakers who control the committee nonetheless peppered him with questions, including one who wondered if Garland should tell Joe Biden to “knock it off” when it comes to seeing his son. The White House dismissed the hearing as a “circus” that was “full of lies”.Here’s what else happened today:
Garland warned that defunding the FBI, as some far-right Republicans want to do, would undercut US national security.
Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman has no time for those who criticize his choice of dress on the chamber floor while simultaneously failing to fund the US government.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who gave gripping testimony to the January 6 committee, says in a new book she was groped on the day of the attack by Rudy Giuliani.
There may be some movement in negotiations among House Republicans to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.
Speaking of knocking it off, the Biden administration would reportedly like its ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel to stop insulting Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Legend has it that in his days as a Democratic political operative, Rahm Emanuel sent a dead fish to a pollster who was late getting him data, and stabbed a knife into a table while reciting the names of those he felt had betrayed Bill Clinton after his 1992 presidential election victory.So the story NBC News just published about Emanuel, a former mayor of Chicago who is now the US ambassador to Japan, does not come as much of a surprise:
President Joe Biden’s aides have asked that Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, stop posting messages on social media taunting Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to three administration officials.
Officials at the National Security Council told Emanuel’s staff in recent days that his comments risk undermining the administration’s efforts to mend deeply strained relations with China, including with a possible meeting this fall between Biden and Xi, according to the officials.
Over the past two weeks Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, has criticized Xi directly and sarcastically speculated about the Chinese leader’s treatment of his top aides, using the hashtag “#MysteryInBeijingBuilding.”
Emanuel’s tweets are “not in keeping with the message coming out of this building,” a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.
NBC talked to a supporter of the ambassador, who made him sound like some kind of football star:
A spokesperson for Emanuel disputed NBC News’ report, calling it “absolutely not true.”
“Ambassador Emanuel is serving with distinction as an uncommonly effective representative of the United States in Japan. Every day his inventiveness, passion and relentlessness are on full display,” Kurt Campbell, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, said in an interview.
He continued, “This guy is a superstar and when you put Rahm on the field you get the full Rahm.”
Campbell did not comment when asked whether Emanuel will continue posting about China’s leadership.
On a more serious note, Emanuel faced trouble getting confirmed by the Senate to his ambassador post from those angry with how he handled the police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald during his time as mayor.For a sense of the type of “misinformation” the White House was condemning, take a look at these comments from Republican congresswoman Victoria Spartz.The Indiana lawmaker downplayed the January 6 attack on the Capitol, describing it instead as an event attended by people “with strollers and the kids” that happened because Americans are “sick and tired of this government not serving them” – even though it occurred while Donald Trump was in office.Here’s video her remarks at the just-concluded hearing:The Biden administration is out with a statement condemning House Republicans for their conduct during attorney general Merrick Garland’s ongoing hearing before the judiciary committee, saying they wasted him promoting conspiracy theories rather than dealing with more pressing business, like funding the government.“Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown,” White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams said of the hearing, which the judiciary committee regularly holds with the attorney general.Sams continued:
They cannot even pass a military funding bill because extreme House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts like slashing thousands of preschool slots nationwide and thousands of law enforcement jobs including border agents, so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family. Don’t be fooled: they want to distract from the reality that their own chaos and inability to govern is going to shut down the government in a matter of days, hurting our economy and national security and jeopardizing everything from troop pay to fighting fentanyl. These sideshows won’t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country.
The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, announced the chamber would vote on the promotions of three top military leaders that have been held by up Republican senator Tommy Tuberville over the Pentagon’s abortion policy.Tuberville, who represents Alabama, began earlier this year blocking defense department promotions in protest of a new policy that will help service members travel to seek an abortion, if they are based somewhere where the procedure is banned. About 300 senior leaders currently have their promotions on hold because of the senator’s blockade, which has been criticized by military leaders and veterans groups.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the chamber would vote on promotions for the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, commandant of Marine corps and army chief of staff:There are some new developments in the House, where a revolt by rightwing Republicans has stopped consideration of a measure to fund the government as an end-of-the-month shutdown deadline nears.Politico reports that House speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled “progress” has been made in the negotiations, and also that the chamber may have to work over the weekend:Attorneys for Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, two co-defendants that have been charged in the Georgia election interference case alongside Donald Trump, will be allowed to interview members of the special grand jury, The Hill reports.On Wednesday, the Fulton county superior judge Scott McAfee wrote in a court filing reviewed by the Hill:
“Defense counsel here are entitled, and would be expected, to conduct a thorough investigation in the zealous representation of their clients …
Setting aside scenarios involving harassment of some kind, the desire to simply talk to the grand jurors is not ‘illegal,’” he added.
McAfee added that although there are rules to secrecy surrounding grand jury deliberations: “The court has not found nor been provided with any authority that suggests defense counsel are totally forbidden from contact.”Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has hit back at Republicans criticizing his relaxed clothing choices in the Senate.The Democrat, who is known for routinely wearing oversized hoodies, sweaters and shorts, tweeted on Wednesday:
“If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.”
Senate Republicans have penned a letter to the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, in which they have asked him to retract the chamber’s new relaxed dress code.Forty-six Republicans sent Schumer the letter following Schumer’s announcement on Sunday that relaxes the chamber’s dress code.
“For more than 230 years, the United States Senate has served the American people with honor and dignity. As members of this esteemed body, we understand the seriousness our positions require,” the letter said.
“Allowing casual clothing on the Senate floor disrespects the institution we serve and the American families we represent. We the undersigned members of the United States Senate write to express our supreme disappointment and resolute disapproval of your recent decision to abandon the Senate’s longstanding dress code for members, and urge you to immediately reverse this misguided action,” it continued.
Aside from Alabama’s Katie Britt, Indiana’s Mike Braun and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, every Republican senator signed the letter.Ex-president Donald Trump and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows joked about Covid-19 on a plane ride following the first debate with Joe Biden, a new book reveals.The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:Donald Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows joked about the then US president having Covid on Air Force One after the first debate with Joe Biden in 2020 – an event at which Trump was not tested but three days before which, Meadows later confessed, Trump had indeed tested positive.On the flight, on 29 September 2020, Trump speculated about his health, saying he thought his voice had sounded “a little bit off” at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota. But he also said he did not want the media to “accuse me of something ridiculous, like having Covid”.Meadows “laughed and promised him that we would handle it if it happened”.“We” referred to Meadows and Cassidy Hutchinson, the chief of staff’s closest aide who has now written a memoir, Enough. The book, which describes Hutchinson’s journey from Trump loyalist to key witness in the January 6 inquiry, will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.For the full story, click here:In an ongoing appearance before the House judiciary committee, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, defended the independence and integrity of the justice department from Republican attacks, saying “I am not the president’s lawyer”, and refusing to discuss the ongoing prosecution of the president’s son Hunter Biden. GOP lawmakers who control the committee are nonetheless peppering him with questions, including one who wondered if Garland should tell Joe Biden to “knock it off” when it comes to seeing his son.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Garland warned that defunding the FBI, as some far-right Republicans want to do, would undercut US national security.
Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman has no time for those who criticize his choice of dress on the Senate floor while simultaneously failing to fund the US government.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who gave gripping testimony to the January 6 committee, says in a new book she was groped on the day of the attack by Rudy Giuliani.
In a new book, one of the most-remembered witnesses to testify before the January 6 committee says that she was groped on the day of the insurrection by Rudy Giuliani, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump aide turned crucial January 6 witness, says in a new book she was groped by Rudy Giuliani, who was “like a wolf closing in on its prey”, on the day of the attack on the Capitol.Describing meeting with Giuliani backstage at Donald Trump’s speech near the White House before his supporters marched on Congress in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Hutchinson says the former New York mayor turned Trump lawyer put his hand “under my blazer, then my skirt”.“I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh,” she writes. “He tilts his chin up. The whites of his eyes look jaundiced. My eyes dart to [Trump adviser] John Eastman, who flashes a leering grin.“I fight against the tension in my muscles and recoil from Rudy’s grip … filled with rage, I storm through the tent, on yet another quest for Mark.”Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff, was Hutchinson’s White House boss. Hutchinson’s memoir, Enough, describes the now 27-year-old’s journey from Trump supporter to disenchantment, and her role as a key witness for the House January 6 committee. It will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.The House is lurching towards both a government shutdown and an impeachment of Joe Biden that faces uncertain chances of success. But however those two issues are resolved, the Guardian’s David Smith reports they will take a toll on American democracy:If it’s Thursday, it must be impeachment. If it’s Saturday, it must be government shutdown. Next week, Republicans in Congress seem determined to prove that US democracy is broken.The party plans to hold the first hearing on its impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over his family’s business dealings on 28 September. Meanwhile the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is barreling towards a deadline of 30 September to keep federal agencies running.The double header indicates how both impeachments and government shutdowns – once seen as rare, dangerous and to be avoided at all costs – have become political weapons deployed with increasing abandon.“In the past few years we’ve seen the routinisation of the unusual,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. “It’s terrible for the country. It’s hard enough for a great nation to conduct its affairs without this sort of shortsighted nonsense getting in its way. Government as we know it is grinding to a halt.”Only three presidents have been impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and none were convicted: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in both 2019 and 2021. Now, House Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry against Biden with no discernible evidence of an impeachable offence.As you can see in this video clip, it’s currently John Fetterman’s turn to preside over the Senate and, thanks to the new dress code, he’s doing so in his signature garb:As the government heads toward a shutdown thanks to infighting among House Republicans, the Democratic senator John Fetterman has made a proposition.If “those jagoffs in the House”, by which he most likely means the GOP, pass a resolution to fund the government, he’ll wear a suit on the Senate floor, the senator says on X:The Pennsylvania lawmaker is known for reporting to the Capitol in shorts and a hoodie, and a newly relaxed dress code in the chamber will allow him to cast votes without the coat and tie typically worn by male senators.Among the more colorful interlocutors on the House judiciary committee is Matt Gaetz, a far-right Republican who has lately been calling for defunding the FBI.He got into it with Merrick Garland over Hunter Biden’s interactions with his father. Though he may be a rightwing fixation and facing his own legal trouble, Joe Biden is often seen with his son at the White House or at events, and Gaetz wanted to know more about that.“Has anyone at the department told president Biden to knock it off with Hunter? I mean, you guys are charging Hunter Biden on some crimes, investigating him on others, you’ve got the president bringing Hunter Biden around to state dinners. Has anyone told him to knock it off?” Gaetz asked.“No one that I know of has spoken to the White House about the Hunter Biden case, of course not,” Garland replied, with barely concealed annoyance.Merrick Garland has warned that if the government shuts down at the end of the month, as it seems on course to do, the justice department’s ability to fight crime and work with law enforcement nationwide would be curtailed.“I haven’t done a complete calculation on the effects of a shutdown and the difference between which employees are indispensable under the statute and which ones not,” Garland said. “It will certainly disrupt all of our normal programs, including our grant programs to state and local law enforcement and to our ability to conduct our normal efforts with respect to the entire scope of our activities, including helping state and locals fight violent crime.”The federal government’s fiscal year ends on 30 September, but infighting among House Republicans has prevented Congress from reauthorizing spending beyond that date, or even agreeing on a short-term measure to keep the government funded while they negotiate a larger agreement.Much of the questioning the attorney general, Merrick Garland, is facing today centers on Hunter Biden, the president’s son whose foreign business entanglements and actions while struggling with drug addiction have been a fixation for Republicans eager to prove the president is corrupt. His case is long and complicated, so here is the Guardian’s Mary Yang with a look at the major events:Federal prosecutors indicted Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over illegally possessing a firearm in Delaware on Thursday. The indictment comes a month after the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the US attorney David Weiss, a Trump nominee, to oversee the investigation as special counsel.Hunter Biden has been at the center of a years-long investigation into his tax affairs that was set to close with a guilty plea. But that plea deal fell apart at a Delaware courthouse after the Trump-appointed judge said she could not agree to the deal, which ensured Biden would avoid jail time in a separate case of illegally possessing a gun while using drugs.Amid the controversy, the president has repeatedly said he supports his son and Hunter has been seen regularly at family events. Asked if President Biden would pardon his son in the event of any conviction, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “No.”But the younger Biden has been embroiled in a list of unrelated controversies for years, including his overseas dealings and struggles with addiction, which ex-President Trump and his allies have regularly sought to use as fodder for attacks.Here’s a comprehensive timeline of the moments that have propelled Hunter Biden into the limelight. More

In the compendium of false claims, an offering from Tim Sheehy, a Montana 2024 Republican Senate candidate, is readily disprovable.In an interview with Breitbart, the former Navy Seal observed that the state, which he referred to as “flyover country”, did not typically have much in political power – a situation that could change with the balance of power in the US Senate races next year.“This is a state where there’s not a lot of people,” Sheehy observed. “There’s more cows than people, there’s more bears than people, and we’re not used to having a lot of political clout.”His assessment about cattle is observably correct. There are estimated to be 2.2 million head in the state this year, according to Department of Agriculture estimates, down from 2.5 million in 2021. The number of people is put at 1.12 million, according to the US Census Bureau.But Sheehy’s estimate for bear – grizzly and black – is wildly off, notwithstanding that bears don’t respect state boundaries and aren’t easy to count – particularly outside of national parks.Molly Parks, a carnivore coordinator with Montana’s fish, wildlife and parks (FWP), said there weren’t good numbers for the bear population. A 2011 study put the number of black bears in the state at 13,307 and those numbers are in the process of being updated. Separately, the FWP told the Daily Montanan in July the state had more than 2,100 grizzly bears.“We definitely don’t have more bears than people in the state,” Parks told the Guardian. “It’s not accurate at all. We have somewhere close to a million people in the state and nowhere close to that number of bear.”Parks suggested Sheehy’s statement should be read with humor.But bears are probably on the minds of Montanans after a series of encounters. A female grizzly bear that fatally mauled a woman on a forest trail west of Yellowstone national park in July and attacked a person in Idaho three years ago was killed earlier this month after it broke into a house near West Yellowstone.A hunter was severely injured in a grizzly attack near Big Sky earlier this month. A week later, a hunter near Fairfield shot and injured a grizzly. Neither of the wounded bears was found.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe human population in bear strongholds in south-west Montana has escalated by up to a third during the past decade, and has led to grizzly bears getting into increasing conflicts with humans.FWP put out a news release last week warning visitors that staff had confirmed grizzly bear sightings throughout the state, “particularly in areas between the Northern Continental Divide and the Great Yellowstone ecosystems”.If nothing else, Sheehy may have been drawing attention to September’s bear aware month, established by a proclamation issued by Governor Greg Gianforte to encourage safe recreation in bear country. More

Within weeks of each other, Donald Trump and 61 leftwing activists were indicted under criminal conspiracy laws in Georgia. What may feel like a victory for centrism and justice is actually a dangerous conflation.The protesters are part of the Stop Cop City movement, fighting to prevent the construction of a new police urban combat training facility over what the Muscogee Creek people call the Weelaunee forest outside of Atlanta. One protester has already been killed by police, with an independent autopsy detailing that they probably had their hands up when they were shot 57 times.Georgia has expansive anti-racketeering laws, originally created to fight the mafia; the state’s Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, has decided to stretch these laws far past what could reasonably be considered their intended purpose. While the former president was indicted for an alleged conspiracy to literally overthrow the government, many Stop Cop City protesters are facing similar charges for such acts as receiving reimbursements for glue and food and raising money to bail others out of jail.The indictments against the protesters are a naked attempt to destroy a grassroots social movement. Worse, they create a precedent that will allow both Republicans and Democrats to further their separate tracks of crushing any public opposition to government policy.Cop City was first planned in 2017 but only gained steam following the 2020 Black liberation protests. Instead of addressing the myriad of issues that Atlanta residents face, the city backed the giant police and fire training facility, which was proposed by a rightwing police foundation funded by corporations like Home Depot and Wells Fargo. A large network of organizers and activists, from faith and environmental groups to socialist parties and anarchist collectives, got together to protect the forest. They used a range of tactics, from occupying the land to knocking on the doors of neighbors to inform them about the construction.It was the occupations of the forest and disruption of construction, traditional tactics of environmentalists, that triggered a police raid that led to officers shooting 26-year-old Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. Police claimed Tortuguita shot first, wounding police officers, but one autopsy denies that Tortuguita could have been holding a gun and an officer was recorded on video during the incident saying: “You fucked your own officer up,” implying that the police may have been in a friendly-fire incident.Following Tortuguita’s death, organizers mobilized hundreds of people to city hall to speak in a record-breaking 14 hours of public comment, but the Atlanta city council ignored the anti-Cop City groundswell and went on to approve $67m of public money for the project.A coalition within the movement switched strategies and moved to put the construction to a referendum; thus far the coalition has submitted petitions signed by over 100,000 Atlanta residents – a gobsmacking fifth of the entire city. In response, the city has prepared a series of roadblocks to ensure that no resident will have a say in this process, a move that some residents are calling voter suppression.The indicted Stop Cop City protesters are being charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) act, an extension of a federal law created under Richard Nixon to crush the Italian American mafia. For those unfamiliar with The Sopranos and the trials and tribulations of the mob, Rico statutes target the unique structure of the mafia, a hyper-centralized organization with an insulated leadership that can’t be caught up in street-level crimes. The laws allow for different crimes to be linked together and used to prosecute an entire organization at the same time, with increased charges for everyone involved. These increased charges also make it easier to coerce lower-level mobsters to snitch on their higher-ups.While Trump’s alleged conspiracy – a centralized operation with vague attempts to obscure the leadership – fits the bill, the Stop Cop City movement is the opposite. It is neither centralized nor a criminal organization. While some activists have engaged in acts of sabotage to protect the forest, it is absurd to consider their activities as constituting a criminal organization, unless you consider all protest movements illegal. But these indictments basically do just that – tying together acts like passing out flyers, providing legal support and literally writing the letters “ACAB” into an amorphous nonsensical conspiracy.This, of course, has been the unfortunate trajectory of such indictments and anti-protest laws since the mass protests following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Because Georgia prosecutors can’t name a clear command structure like one might do with the mob, the indictment of the Stop Cop City activists is focused on the alleged anarchist ideology of the protesters and their desire to create a better world.The indictment lists things like “mutual aid”, essentially inter-communal charity, as if they are acts of terrorism or equivalent to shaking down store owners for protection. In the words of Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law expert interviewed by the New York Times, the document “seems like an indictment of an ideological disposition”.It is hardly surprising when rightwing forces use the law to shut down progressive protest; what is unsettling here is the complicity of supposedly liberal Democrats. Unfortunately the Stop Cop City indictments fit neatly with the increasingly reactionary and anti-democratic behavior of Democratic politicians in Atlanta and elsewhere. (Recall Joe Biden’s past comments about “antifa” and his desire to increase funding for police.)There is a growing conspiracy to use violence and coercion to take over the country, but the instigators are figures of the right like Trump and Ron DeSantis and organizations like the Proud Boys. As prices and temperatures rise, leftwing movements will be necessary for our collective survival. Framing progressive activists as equivalent to gangsters and rightwing insurrectionists is a dangerous path that will birth a system even worse than our already cracking capitalism.
Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian US More

A Texas teacher was fired after assigning an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary to her middle school class, in a move that some are calling “a political attack on truth”.The eighth-grade school teacher was released after officials with Hamshire-Fannett independent school district said the teacher presented the “inappropriate” book to students, reported KFDM.The graphic novel, written by Ari Folman and illustrated by David Polonsky, adapts the diary of 13-year-old Anne Frank, who wrote while hiding in an annexe in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.The district sent an email to parents on Tuesday, notifying them that the book, which district officials say was not approved, would no longer be read.“The reading of that content will cease immediately. Your student’s teacher will communicate her apologies to you and your students soon, as she has expressed those apologies to us,” read the email, reported KFDM.By Wednesday, district officials had emailed parents, informing them that the teacher had been fired following an investigation into the incident.“As you may be aware, following concerns regarding curricular selections in your student’s reading class, a substitute teacher has been facilitating the class since Wednesday, September 13, 2023,” said the district to parents, adding that a search for a new instructor was under way.District officials have not released details about the incident, including which school the teacher taught in.Eighth-grade students were reportedly shown a section of the graphic novel where Frank reflected on her own genitals and wanted to see a female friend’s breasts, according to KFDM.Discussions of sexuality were included in the original written version of Anne Frank’s diary, but were edited out in subsequent reprints.A spokesperson for Hamshire-Fannett ISD declined to comment on the incident during a phone call with the Guardian.Notably, this particular graphic novel has been subject to book bans before.A Florida high school removed the graphic novel after a chapter of Moms for Liberty, an extremist advocacy group, objected to the book’s sexual contents and claimed it did not teach the Holocaust accurately, the Associated Press reported.The graphic novel was also removed from Texas’s Dallas-Fort Worth’s Keller independent school district.The latest firing in Texas comes as education laws restricting teaching of race, sexuality and other topics are being implemented in classrooms across the US.The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed legislation in 2021 severely limiting how educators can teach topics of race and gender. Texas has also banned more books than any other state, with more than 430 books banned in Texas schools.Clay Robison, a spokesperson with the Texas State Teachers Association, called the latest incident “troubling” to the Guardian.“No teacher should be fired for teaching the Diary of Anne Frank to middle school students,” Robison said. “Teachers are dedicated to teaching the truth, the whole truth,” he said, emphasizing the diary’s importance.Robison added that many Texas teachers are experiencing fear, anger and anxiety about navigating restrictions in the classroom.“It’s a political attack on truth,” Robison said of legislative attempts to limit education. “It’s not a woke agenda. It’s not a liberal agenda. It’s a truth agenda.” More

President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.In an announcement on Wednesday, the White House said the program would employ about 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.Biden had previously been thwarted by Congress on creating a climate corps. The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps. The program is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by the Democratic president Franklin D Roosevelt as part of the New Deal.“This summer, our country saw heat waves, wildfires and floods that destroyed communities, uprooted families and claimed hundreds of lives,” the Sunrise Movement and other organizations wrote on Monday in a letter to Biden’s White House.“While previous executive orders and legislation under your administration demonstrate tremendous progress toward meeting our Paris climate goals and your campaign promises, this summer has made clear that we must be as ambitious as possible in tackling the great crisis of our time,” the groups wrote.More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including the Massachusetts senator Ed Markey and the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a separate letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale”.The lawmakers cited deadly heatwaves in the south-west and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.A federal climate corps would “prepare a whole generation of workers for good-paying union jobs in the clean economy” while helping to “fight climate change, build community resilience and support environmental justice”, the lawmakers wrote.The White House declined to say how much the program will cost or how it will be paid for, but Democrats proposed $10bn for the climate corps in the climate bill before the provision was removed.Republicans have largely dismissed the climate corps as a do-gooder proposal that would waste money and could even take jobs away from other workers displaced by the Covid-19 pandemic.“We don’t need another FDR program, and the idea that this is going to help land management is a false idea as well,” the Arkansas representative Bruce Westerman, chairman of the House natural resources committee, said in 2021.Congressman Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat who has co-sponsored a climate corps bill, said it was important to train the next generation of federal land managers, park rangers and other stewards of our natural resources. Neguse and other Democrats have said the program should pay “a living wage” while offering healthcare coverage and support for childcare, housing, transportation and education.A key distinction between the original Civilian Conservation Corps and the new climate contingent is that, unlike the in 1930s, the US economy is not in an economic depression. The US unemployment rate was 3.8% in August, low by historical measures.The new corps is also likely to be far more diverse than the largely white and male force created 90 years ago.The White House climate adviser, Ali Zaidi, said the administration would work with at least six federal agencies to create the climate corps and would pair with at least 10 states. California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan and Washington have already begun similar programs, while five more are launching their own climate corps, Zaidi said: Arizona, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina and Utah.The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects that tackle the climate crisis, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; deploying clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to improve health and prevent catastrophic wildfires; and implementing energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said. More

Does it matter what politicians wear? It’s an issue pundits have long debated – especially when the subjects are women. This time, though, the target is John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, whose wardrobe is drawing ire, as rightwingers seek to blame him for recent relaxation of the Senate dress code policy.Fetterman is known for dressing in oversized hoodies, sweatsuits, and shorts. Rightwingers have been blaming him for Senator Chuck Schumer’s introduction of a new dress code last week: lawmakers no longer have to don formalwear before entering the chamber.“The Senate no longer enforcing a dress code for Senators to appease Fetterman is disgraceful,” wrote Marjorie Taylor Greene on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Dress code is one of society’s standards that set etiquette and respect for our institutions. Stop lowering the bar!”Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida used the news as a talking point on the campaign trail. “We need to be lifting our standards up in this country, not dumbing down,” he said. Senator Susan Collins of Maine joked that she would wear a bikini to the floor.Political fashion has long followed a familiar formula – at least when it comes to men. It’s the bipartisan uniform: black suit, blue or red tie, American flag pin. Since he won his seat last year, Fetterman’s wardrobe has been the subject of praise from constituents who find it relatable, and scorn from those who wish he would try harder.“I say this with tremendous respect: he looks like he might be an electrician,” says Tres Dean, a menswear editor whose work has appeared in GQ and New York magazine. “More politicians should look like that. It’s more accurate when you think about who he represents.”The Senate’s new protocol comes at a time when workers in various sectors are rewriting the rules on what’s appropriate for the office. Since the height of the pandemic, many workers have continued to prioritize comfort over formality.“Dress codes everywhere are relaxing,” Dean says. “It’s cool that if the people who represent us choose to take advantage of these new rules, it will potentially better reflect the people they represent.”The discourse over suits squarely fits in with culture war narratives in the US that pit tradition-loving conservatives against progress-minded liberals. Are sweatsuits in Congress a sign of the country’s eroding morals?“Forcing people into a very specific type of suit ties back into a greater story of privilege and classism,” says Noah Zagor, a fashion and culture consultant based in Chicago. “I think it’s important to dress for the environment you’re in, and that these boundaries help us function. But those boundaries are being debated right now, and we agree on so little as a country.”Fetterman has been open about his battle with depression, receiving in-patient care at a hospital this spring. There is a sense of shelter in baggy, comfortable clothing, and voters may associate those visuals with Fetterman’s past struggles.Fetterman understands the value of sartorial messaging. This is the same man who appeared in a Levi’s ad while serving as the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, in 2010. The town was attempting to revitalize after years of economic decline, partnering with the denim company for a campaign that used residents instead of models. Billboards with taglines such as “ready to work” underscored the point.For Erik Maza, executive style director of Town & Country, conservative outrage about Fetterman’s sweats feels performative and is reminiscent of the controversy that came with Obama wearing a tan suit at a White House press briefing. The former congressman Peter King, a New York Republican, said Obama’s outfit pointed to a “lack of seriousness”.Almost 10 years later, the so-called scandal has become a punchline, a symbol of out-of-touch politicians clutching their pearls to distract from real problems.It is in this spirit that Fetterman has fielded the recent accusations that his proclivity for hoodies has precipitated the downfall of American political fashion. He responded to Greene with a tweet about conservative hypocrisy, after the Republican displayed nude photos of Hunter Biden at a hearing this summer. “Thankfully, the nation’s lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings,” he wrote. He issued a similar riposte to a Fox news story blaming him for dress code “fury”, tweeting: “I figure if I take up vaping and grabbing the hog during a live musical, they’ll make me a folk hero.”“Washington DC is not exactly a sartorial mecca,” Maza says. “Voters care much more about the legislation lawmakers pass than if they wear shorts or sweats.” More

Rupert Murdoch loathes Donald Trump so much that the billionaire has not just soured on him as a presidential candidate but often wishes for his death, the author Michael Wolff writes in his eagerly awaited new book on the media mogul, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.According to Wolff, Murdoch, 92, has become “a frothing-at-the-mouth” enemy of the 77-year-old former US president, often voicing thoughts including “This would all be solved if … ” and “How could he still be alive, how could he?”The Fall was announced last month and will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.Wolff has written three tell-all books about Trump – Fire and Fury, Siege and Landslide – and one about Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News. In his second Murdoch book, he says he may be “the journalist not in his employ who knows [Murdoch] best”.Wolff also describes his source material as “conversations specifically for this book, and other conversations that have taken place over many years … scenes and events that I have personally witnessed or that I have recreated with the help of participants in them”.After Trump entered US politics in 2015, winning the White House the following year, he, along with an increasingly extreme Republican party, Fox News and other properties in Murdoch’s rightwing media empire formed a symbiotic relationship.But Murdoch has long been reported to have soured on Trump – a process which, according to Wolff, saw Murdoch personally endorse the Fox News call of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in 2020 that fueled Trump’s campaign of lies about voter fraud, culminating in the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.By the beginning of this year, Wolff writes, what Murdoch “adamantly didn’t want … was Trump.“Of all Trump’s implacable enemies, Murdoch had become a frothing-at-the-mouth one. His relatively calm demeanor from the early Trump presidency where, with a sigh, he could dismiss him merely as a ‘fucking idiot’ had now become a churning stew of rage and recrimination.“Trump’s death became a Murdoch theme: “We would all be better off …? “This would all be solved if …” “How could he still be alive, how could he?” “Have you seen him? Have you seen what he looks like? What he eats?”Trump has regularly claimed to be exceptionally fit for his age, claims backed by doctors when he was in the White House. He also claims to be more mentally fit for office than Biden, his 80-year-old successor, claims many observers increasingly doubt.After Trump left office, Wolff writes, Murdoch “like much of the Republican establishment … had convinced himself that Trump was, finally, vulnerable. That his hold on the base and on Republican politicians had weakened enough that now was the time to kill him off, finally.”But now, as another election year approaches, Trump is in rude political health.Notwithstanding 91 criminal charges – for state and federal election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments – and assorted civil cases, Trump leads the Republican primary by vast margins in national and key state polling, the overwhelming favourite to win the nomination to face Biden in another White House battle. More

Republican leaders seemed to move further away from a resolution to the impending government shutdown on Tuesday.In a sign of how bad the party’s split has become, a procedural vote on the short-term funding bill expected to happen today was cancelled, and an attempt to advance a Pentagon spending bill was voted down, thanks to rightwing Republicans. The vote intensifies the risk of a shutdown on 1 October and Kevin McCarthy losing his speakership.As another week of negotiations wears on, Republicans in the House of Representatives are in a state of “civil war”, according to the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries. Media reports suggested that a newly aggressive McCarthy was ready to force a showdown with the hardliners in his party less than two weeks before the deadline to keep federal agencies afloat.But the day’s chaos revealed that he still faced a steep uphill climb, with far-right Republicans Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene signaling earlier in the day that even a resolution to temporarily delay a shutdown was out of reach.Part of the holdup includes proposed amendments from far-right Republicans on the continuing resolution that would prevent funds from being used for Ukraine aid and other initiatives. Greene’s list of amendments also included a ban on funding for Covid-19 vaccine mandates.A shutdown would mean thousands of government employees would be required to stop working until an agreement is reached, and many government benefits delayed. But even with Mitch McConnell’s warning to his own party, some hardliners continue to delay progress.Late on Sunday a group of hardline and moderate Republicans had reached agreement on a short-term stopgap spending bill, known as a “continuing resolution”, or CR, that could help McCarthy move forward on defence legislation.The measure would keep the government running until the end of October, giving Congress more time to enact full-scale appropriations for 2024. The Politico website reported that the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative thinktank, had thrown its weight behind the proposed CR.But it remains unclear whether it can garner enough Republican support to pass the House. At least a dozen members came out against it or expressed scepticism. Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman who has called for McCarthy’s removal, tweeted that the CR is “a betrayal of Republicans” while Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted: “I’m a NO!”The standoff poses the biggest threat to McCarthy in his eight months as the top House Republican as he struggles to unite a fractured caucus. On Tuesday Politico reported that he intends to come out fighting by putting the CR to a floor vote and daring his detractors to put themselves on the record by voting against it.“That would set McCarthy & Co. up to blame those holdouts for undercutting the party’s negotiating hand with Democrats, ultimately leading to the Senate jamming the House with a shutdown-averting stopgap without any Republican concessions,” Politico wrote.Last week McCarthy dared his opponents to hold a vote to remove him, reportedly telling them behind closed doors: “File the fucking motion!”He also vowed to move forward this week on an $886bn fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill, which stalled last week as hardliners withheld support to demand a topline fiscal 2024 spending level of $1.47tn – about $120bn less than what McCarthy and Biden agreed to in May.McCarthy told Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures programme: “We’ll bring it to the floor, win or lose, and show the American public who’s for the Department of Defense, who’s for our military.” But in a fresh setback on Tuesday, McCarthy was forced to postpone a procedural vote on the measure to provide more time for negotiations.The White House has already threatened to veto the defence bill. The resolution agreed upon on Sunday is also unlikely to succeed with Democrats and become law. It would impose a spending cut of more than 8% on agencies other than the defense department and Department of Veterans Affairs and includes immigration and border security restrictions but not funding for Ukraine.Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible and a former congressional aide, said: “You have a Republican party that is focused on advancing extremist policy instead of on doing the basic work of governing. Every Republican in the House is basically enabling this process by virtue of being unwilling to break with the extremists.“What you’re seeing with McCarthy is his own intentions are irrelevant. He is simply caving to the most extreme folks within the caucus and they are driving the agenda.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate have until 30 September to pass spending legislation that Joe Biden can sign into law to keep federal agencies afloat. With a 221-212 majority, McCarthy can afford to lose no more than four votes to pass legislation that Democrats unite in opposing.Some members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, largely aligned with Donald Trump, are openly embracing a shutdown as a negotiating tactic to get their way on spending and conservative policy priorities.Congressman Chip Roy, a Freedom Caucus member, last week described a shutdown as “almost” inevitable and warned: “We have to hold the line.”Ultimately Republicans could be forced to move directly into negotiations with Senate Democrats on appropriations bills that could pass both chambers quickly and be signed into law by Biden.But this could fuel calls for McCarthy to be ousted from hardline conservatives and others who have accused him of failing to keep promises he made to become speaker in January.Congressman Ralph Norman, a Freedom Caucus member, told the Reuters news agency: “It’d be the end of his speakership.”Adding to the chaos, McCarthy apparently sought to curry favour with the far right last week by announcing the opening of an impeachment inquiry into Biden despite no tangible evidence that the president has committed an impeachable offence.On Tuesday he told reporters: “I never quit.” But his young speakership has never looked so vulnerable.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “It’s obviously uncertain. My hunch is what we’re going to see is McCarthy’s going to want to pass something and he will probably be forced to make concessions that are unacceptable to Democrats and maybe some Republicans. So this is the beginning of a process, not the culmination of it.”McCarthy only gained the speaker’s gavel in January after a tortuous 15 rounds of voting and hard bargaining with the far right. Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to Bill Clinton, said: “Kevin McCarthy, in order to become speaker of the House, handed out a slew of promissory notes. Those notes are all coming due at the same time and I don’t think he has enough political money in the bank to make good on the notes.“He’s the Mr Micawber of Republican politics, just hoping that something will turn up.” More