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      Special counsel can file oversized motion on Trump election interference case

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      Special counsel Jack Smith can file an oversized, 180-page motion on presidential immunity in Donald Trump’s Washington DC federal court election interference case, a judge ruled Tuesday.Judge Tanya S Chutkan’s decision stems from prosecutors’ 21 September request to exceed the typical 45-page limit for opening motions and oppositions. Smith’s motion must be filed by Thursday and will include both legal arguments and evidence and could provide additional insight into Trump’s efforts to throw out election results, though it is unclear when the public might be able to see that material given that it’ll initially be filed under seal.Trump faces four felony counts over his effort to subvert the 2020 election, though a July US supreme court ruling on presidential immunity threw the case into near disarray.The supreme court held that Trump and other presidents enjoyed immunity for official acts, but not unofficial ones, undermining charges related to his alleged pressure campaign on Justice Department officials.The supreme court remanded the case back to Chutkan, who must decide which claims in Smith’s case are official acts, and which are not official. Smith filed a new indictment against Trump in August, which does not dramatically change this criminal case, but revamps some parts to stress that Trump was not acting in an official capacity in his attempt to overturn election results.Prosecutors proposed in a 5 September hearing that they should file a brief on the immunity issue with “a comprehensive discussion and description of both pled and unpled facts … so that all parties and the Court know the issues that the Court needs to consider in order to make its fact-bound determinations that the Supreme Court has required.”In green-lighting prosecutors’ request to file an unusually sizeable motion, Chutkan noted the supreme ourt’s direction that she need to engage in a “close” and “fact specific” examination of this indictment and related accusations.“The length and breadth of the Government’s proposed brief reflects the uniquely ‘challenging’ and factbound nature of those determinations,” the judge said in her ruling. “The briefs’ atypical sequence and size thus both serve the efficient resolution of immunity issues in this case ‘at the earliest possible stage.’”Trump’s legal team had fought prosecutors’ request to file a lengthier brief, complaining that it would “quadruple the standard page limits” in the district. They also unsuccessfully opposed Smith’s filing of this brief now, and argued that immunity arguments shouldn’t take place until Trump files a motion to dismiss the case.Prosecutors said in court filings that they are poised to file their briefing under seal, given the “substantial amount of sensitive material” and later, file a public version that has redactions. More

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      Trump scapegoats migrants again at Georgia event meant to discuss economy

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      At an event intended to tout economic policies that would usher in what his campaign calls a “new age of American industrialism”, Donald Trump spent as much time discussing personal grievances and blaming immigrants for everything from fentanyl overdoses to crime and taking Americans’ jobs as he did discussing the economy.“This is a speech on economic development but this is a big part of economic development,” the former president said of immigration at a speech in Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday.After about 30 minutes of sticking to prepared remarks about the economy, Trump’s speech veered into other topics like immigration, much to the crowd’s delight.“Close the border!” a man in the crowd yelled as Trump said that undocumented immigrants were responsible for myriad ills.Some of the loudest cheers from a crowd of about 2,500 came when the Republican presidential nominee claimed that the United States already has much of what it needs to become an “economic powerhouse”, as he put it, including natural resources, skilled workers and leading companies.“The only thing we don’t have is smart people leading our country,” Trump said.Among other promises – including reducing Americans’ energy bills by half and claiming he would “prevent world war three” – Trump said he would revive American manufacturing and restore it to “how it was 50 years ago”. Trump also said he would block the sale of US Steel to the Japanese company Nippon – a plan that Joe Biden has said he plans to block.The former president bashed electric cars – with the exception of those made by his supporter Elon Musk – a perhaps odd tactic considering the ongoing construction of a $5.4bn Hyundai electric car plant that will employ 8,500 workers and has been lauded by Georgia governor Brian Kemp. Trump didn’t mention the plant or Kemp in his remarks.Trump then became sidetracked with immigration, questioning Kamala Harris’s intelligence and patriotism, and reliving an assassination attempt in July in Pennsylvania and another scare in Florida earlier this month.Trump claimed it had been more than luck that saved his life the day he was grazed by an assassin’s bullet.“People say: ‘It was God, and God came down and saved you because he wants you to bring America back,’” Trump said as the crowd began to chant “USA!”Eventually returning to the economy, Trump said a plan to give away federal land to companies willing to build manufacturing facilities there would prompt “entire industries” to relocate to the United States.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also said he would cap the tax rate for corporations at 15% – but only for companies whose products are made in the United States. Trump and Republicans already reduced the highest possible corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% when Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017. The top-end corporate tax rate was made permanent under the law, but individual tax reductions included in the legislation are set to expire in 2025. Both candidates have said they want to see those tax cuts extended, but Harris says she would raise the highest rate to 28%.It was Trump’s first visit to Georgia since 3 August, when he held a rally in Atlanta. Last month, Harris visited Savannah and held a rally that drew nearly 9,000 supporters.Much of Trump’s economic policies can’t be separated from his views on immigration. That line of attack – that a weak economy and even inflation and the availability of goods is the fault of immigrants – resonated with a pair of the Republican candidate’s voters waiting to get into his event on Tuesday.“We don’t have enough groceries in our stores because of all the immigrants here,” said Christy Donley, who drove from nearby Pembroke to hear Trump speak. “We’ve got Americans here who can’t get the American dream but we’re giving the American dream to illegal immigrants.”Donley’s friend, Kassie Williams, chimed in.“Loans, healthcare, drivers’ licenses – we’re giving all this stuff to immigrants whether they deserve it or not,” said Williams, who believes that the corporate tax cuts Trump has proposed will help out individual workers. “I want to hear him be more detailed when he says he’s going to give corporations tax breaks. I understand how it benefits everybody – they’ll lower the unemployment rate, which will make for more tax revenue from people – but not everybody might understand that.” More

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      Haitian immigrant group calls for arrest warrants for Trump and Vance in Ohio

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      The Haitian Bridge Alliance, a non-profit organization that “provides migrants and immigrants with humanitarian, legal and social services”, filed criminal charges against Donald Trump and JD Vance over their inflammatory, racist remarks about Haitian immigrants. The rhetoric has led to threats of violence in Springfield, Ohio, including more than 30 bomb threats, forced evacuations of schools and government buildings and violence against Haitians in the city.The filing comes after both the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate made false statements about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, alleging that they were stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets. The charges include disrupting public services, making false alarms, two counts of telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing, and complicity. Ohio law allows the public to file criminal charges in the same way a prosecutor would. In this case, the Haitian Bridge Alliance is asking the Clark county municipal court to affirm that there is probable cause that Trump and Vance committed the crimes, and to issue arrest warrants for them both.“Trump and Vance have knowingly spread a false and dangerous narrative by claiming that Springfield, Ohio’s Haitian community is criminally killing and eating neighbors’ dogs and cats, and killing and eating geese,” the affidavit reads. “They accused Springfield’s Haitians of bearing deadly disease. They repeated such lies during the presidential debate, at campaign rallies, during interviews on national television, and on social media.”Trump continued perpetuating the statements even after they had been confirmed to be false, while Vance recently remarked that he was willing to “create stories” for political gain.They continued to repeat what the filing calls an “orchestrated … campaign of lies” that “spread a false narrative that Haitians in Springfield are a danger”.“Many public institutions have been forced to evacuate, and vital local resources were diverted to investigate the barrage of threats to the community,” the filing reads.Despite the public nature of Trump and Vance’s claims, local prosecutors have failed to take any action. But because the criminal charges were filed by citizens, a prosecuting attorney will be obligated to make a public decision.Trump and Vance, the US senator from Ohio, have indicated that they may travel to Springfield. The filing asks the court to make a decision prior to their arrival.“This should be done before Trump fulfills his threat to visit Springfield – despite Mayor Rob Rue’s request that he not do so – so that he may be arrested upon arrival for his criminal acts,” the affidavit reads. More

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      Harris calls for end to Senate filibuster to restore US abortion rights

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      Kamala Harris has called for an end to the Senate filibuster to make good on her pledge to restore the right to abortion through legislation.The US vice-president, herself a former senator, told a radio station in Wisconsin that eliminating the filibuster – which sets a 60-vote threshold in the 100-seat upper chamber of the US Congress – would be necessary to codify the rights that were enshrined in Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court ruling that upheld the right to legal abortion throughout the US until it was overturned by a ruling two years ago.“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom, and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body – and not have their government tell them what to do,” Harris told WPR, an affiliate of National Public Radio, on a campaign trip to Wisconsin, a key midwestern swing state where she has a wafer-thin lead over Donald Trump, according to recent polls.Her remarks accentuated her determination to put abortion rights at the heart of her campaign message amid polling evidence that it is a priority for many women voters.However, it cost her the support of the outgoing West Virginia senator, Joe Manchin – a former Democrat who left the party this year to become an independent – who said he would not endorse her candidacy because of her pledge.“Shame on her,” Manchin, who is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, told CNN. “She knows the filibuster is the holy grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”Trump has been on the defensive on abortion because the 2022 supreme court ruling was achieved with the votes of three conservative justices he appointed to the bench when he was president. Harris has claimed that Trump would sign a nationwide ban if he re-captured the White House, although he insists he would leave it to individual states.Harris’s use of a radio interview to underline her commitment follows criticism that she was deliberately avoiding high-profile interviews – a charge Harris has sought to counter by making herself available to selected media in battleground states.Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday that he would be women’s “protectors” and that they would not “be thinking about abortion” if he won a second term.Harris’s filibuster remarks echoed a similar comment by Joe Biden immediately after Roe v Wade was struck down, when he said an exception to the time-honoured Senate rule had to be made to guarantee abortion rights.“I believe we have to codify Roe v Wade in the law,” he said. “And the way to do that is to make sure the Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights – it should be (that) we provide an exception to this … requiring an exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the supreme court decision.”Harris has previously advocated overriding the filibuster to pass additional voting rights laws and Green New Deal legislation.In 2020, Barack Obama described the filibuster as a “Jim Crow relic” from America’s racially segregated past and argued that it should be eliminated if used to block voting reform.The filibuster describes the use of prolonged debate to delay or prevent a vote on a bill. It can be invoked by any senator objecting to a bill and has been used with increasing regularity in recent decades.It can only be overridden by triggering “cloture”, which requires a three-fifths majority vote – or 60 of the 100 senators. If cloture passes, it enables a vote on the original measure the filibuster was designed to block.The longest filibuster in Senate history was achieved by Strom Thurmond, the pro-segregationist South Carolina senator, when he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an effort to block civil rights legislation in 1957.Thurmond’s speech – described by his biographer as a “urological mystery” – was reportedly achieved with help of prior steam baths to dehydrate his body and preclude the need for regular bathroom breaks. He was also reported by a staffer to have had himself fitted with a catheter to relieve himself while he spoke. More

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      Trump campaign’s suspected Iranian hack may still be happening

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      A suspected Iranian hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has continued within the last 10 days and may still be happening, according to a journalist who received illegally obtained documents from the Republican nominee’s election effort.Judd Legum, the publisher of the progressive newsletter Popular Information, revealed that he was sent a letter that Trump’s lawyer had written to the New York Times on 15 September from a source called “Robert”, as well as dossiers on three potential running mates, including JD Vance, the current GOP vice-presidential nominee.The letter was verified to be authentic. “Robert” appeared to be the same source who had leaked other Trump materials to Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post in August. The FBI has said it is investigating that leak as a suspected Iranian hack. The source known as “Robert” has been linked by a Microsoft threat analysis to a group within the theocratic regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which sent out phishing emails to presidential campaigns.US intelligence agencies revealed last week that Iranian hackers passed sensitive information stolen from Trump’s campaign to Joe Biden’s now-defunct presidential campaign in June and July. Legum’s disclosure suggests that the breach may have been more extensive than previously known and could still be under way despite the efforts of US security agencies.Legum said that he received a message from “Robert” on 18 September containing the cover page of a dossier on Vance. “Robert refused to identify himself,” Legum wrote, except to suggest it was the same “Robert” from the previous leaks.Legum – whose own communications were made public after the 2016 Russian hack of Hillary Clinton’s then campaign chair John Podesta – described then receiving a 271-page file on Vance, along with thick dossiers on Doug Burgum, the South Dakota governor, and Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, both of whom were considered by Trump as possible running mates. All documents were marked “Privileged & Confidential”.He said he was also sent a dozen emails purporting to be from senior Trump advisers Susie Wiles and Dan Scavino and pollster John McLaughlin, dated from October 2023 until last August.Legum said he also received a four-page letter sent by a Trump lawyer to three individuals at the New York Times just nine days ago, further evidence that the breach had not been plugged.“The letter has not been made public by either the Trump campaign or the paper,” Legum wrote.Legum then provided a copy of the letter to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor, who confirmed it as genuine after checking with a source at the New York Times who had already seen it. The letter complained about a Times article that questioned Trump’s validity as a successful businessman, Smith wrote in a separate piece.“The legitimacy of the letter proves that the person or people representing themselves as Robert has stolen electronic communications from people associated with the Trump campaign within the last 10 days,” Legum concluded.During a rally in New York last Wednesday, Trump referred to the disclosure of the breach from US intelligence agencies, saying: “Iran hacked into my campaign. I don’t know what the hell they found, I’d like to find out. Couldn’t have been too exciting.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe campaigns of Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as the media outlets that have received stolen Trump materials, have all declined to make them public – a stark contrast to the 2016 hack of Clinton, the results of which were published in multiple outlets, while Trump vocally encouraged Russia to continue hacking.Legum said he would stick to the current policy of non-publication.“It was tempting to use this opportunity to turn the tables on the Trump campaign and publish the stolen campaign materials provided to me by Robert,” he wrote. “But I believe that is the wrong approach.”A Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said the hack showed that Iran is “terrified of the strength and resolve of Donald J Trump”.Suspected Iranian-backed plots to kill Trump – who has already survived two assassination attempts during the campaign – prompted the Secret Service in July to step up additional security at his rallies. The following month, a Pakistani national with suspected links to Iran was arrested on suspicion of plotting political assassinations on US soil, including against Trump. More

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      Peeping Toms and ‘black Nazis’ – what the Mark Robinson scandal tells us about the US election race | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Do you have: a) unconventional scientific opinions; b) an inability to keep your thoughts and genitals to yourself; c) a soft spot for slavery; and d) a US passport?If you answered “yes” to most of the above, then congratulations, you’ve got what it takes to be a Republican politician. As you may have noticed, the main qualification for serving as a Republican lawmaker appears to be bizarre and unexpected behaviour. You couldn’t invent some of these people.There’s Joe Arpaio, for example: the former Republican sheriff of Maricopa County who, in the 1990s, forced all the inmates of a tent jail he later described as a “concentration camp” to wear pink underwear. Then there’s former Texas congressman Joe Barton, who resigned after a nude selfie scandal and was convinced that nobody should be worried about carbon dioxide emissions hurting the environment because CO2 is “in your Coca-Cola”. Recently, a Vermont Republican, Mary Morrissey, was caught after a months-long campaign of secretly pouring water into her colleague’s bag. And far-right Florida congressman Matt Gaetz keeps getting investigated for sexual misconduct.I could go on. Entry into the GOP Hall of Shame is very competitive. Still, it looks like we’ve got a new and notable contender. Enter Mark Robinson, who is running to become the governor of North Carolina. Robinson, CNN reported last week, was allegedly active on an adult messaging board called Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012 (before his political career), and had a lot to say on topics like Hitler, slavery and pornography.Posting under the name “minisoldr”, Robinson mused that slavery wasn’t that bad after all, writing “some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few.” Robinson also called himself a “black NAZI!”, described Martin Luther King Jr with racial slurs, and said he’d “take Hitler” over Obama-era legislators.Oh, but there’s more! Robinson allegedly referred to himself as a “perv” for his porn preferences and admitted to “peeping” on women in public gym showers when he was 14. The would-be governor has denied making these comments and embraced all the usual self-pitying guff about it being a liberal witch-hunt.Just to be clear, Robinson isn’t just some random dude who has decided to take a crack at obtaining political office. He’s currently the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, the ninth most populous state in the US. The man is already in a position of power. He’s also been heartily endorsed by Donald Trump, who has called him “Martin Luther King on steroids”.Of course, Trump may be calling Robinson some rather different names at the moment. While the former president hasn’t pulled his endorsement of Robinson, he’s keeping his distance – the lieutenant governor was notably absent from a Trump rally in North Carolina on Sunday. JD Vance, meanwhile, has addressed the scandal by saying “allegations aren’t necessarily reality”. Vance should know a thing or two about fake allegations, since he has of late been busy creating false and incendiary stories about immigrants eating pets in Ohio.I’ll tell you what is reality, however: Robinson’s career nosedive. He was polling badly before the CNN report and now several of his top employees have resigned. The Harris team, meanwhile, has been busy with social media posts and a television ad campaign emphasising the former president’s friendship with the “black Nazi”. North Carolina is a battleground state and Democrats clearly hope they can use this scandal to turn undecided voters away from Trump.In a sane world, a scandal like this might have made a difference to Trump’s election chances, but it doesn’t seem likely now. Nobody was ever under any illusion about who Robinson was – this is a guy who once blamed abortion on women not being “responsible enough to keep their skirt down” but who has also admitted that he paid for an abortion in 1989. A guy who has questioned the Holocaust. A man who has said: “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.” The “black Nazi” bit is shocking but not surprising. Ditto the fact that Trump is continuing to endorse him. A sex offender endorsing a “perv”? It’s just another day in modern America. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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      If Trump wins the election, he could launch a ‘catastrophic’ rollback of LGBTQ+ rights

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      This is the first part of the standfirst This is the second part of the standfirst Headline what’s at stake?
      View image in fullscreenOne morning in February, 16-year-old Levi Hormuth took off school, his parents called out of work, and the three began a five and a half hour drive.The purpose of the 350-mile trip from their home in St Charles county, Missouri, to Chicago, Illinois, was a routine doctor’s appointment.Levi, a transgender boy, now 17 and in his final year of high school, had been a patient at the Washington University (WashU) Transgender Center since he was 13. The center, a short drive from home, had helped Levi in his transition, providing counseling and eventually hormone treatments at age 15. The testosterone had profoundly positive impacts, Levi and his parents said, helping him overcome significant mental distress stemming from his gender dysphoria.But in June 2023, Missouri’s Republican governor enacted a bill banning gender-affirming healthcare for youth under 18. The law had an exception for youth like Levi who were already accessing the care, but WashU, fearing legal liability, stopped prescribing medications to all trans youth.The best alternative for Levi and his family was to cross state lines.“The fact that I have to drive five hours both ways for treatment just shows our government in Missouri doesn’t care about things that are actually important,” Levi said one afternoon, sitting on his backyard deck with his parents in St Charles county, which is more conservative than neighboring St Louis county. “We have potholes galore that should be fixed, we have horrible crime rates. It’s enraging that they’re not focusing on what matters and listening to our voices.”View image in fullscreenThe stakes of the presidential election are enormous for people like Levi and the broader LGBTQ+ community.Donald Trump has promised aggressive attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, with a focus on trans youth, who have been a central target of the GOP’s culture war. The former president’s proposed “plan to protect children from left-wing gender insanity” includes ordering federal agencies to end all programs that “promote … gender transition at any age”; revoking funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to youth and subjecting them to US justice department investigations; punishing schools that affirm trans youth; and pushing a federal law stating the government doesn’t legally recognize trans people.Trump has also pledged to rescind federal LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination policies, which could mean a loss of protections in housing, healthcare, employment, education and a range of federal programs. He has promised new credentialing for teachers to “promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers”. The Republican platform calls for advancing a “culture that values the sanctity of marriage”.Project 2025, the rightwing manifesto authored by Trump allies, is even more explicit, saying Biden-Harris pro-LGBTQ+ policies should be replaced by ones supporting the “formation of stable, married, nuclear families” and “heterosexual, intact marriage”. It says adoption agencies, healthcare workers and businesses should be able to reject LGBTQ+ people, and faith-based government contractors should be allowed to deny services to people who don’t fit “biblically based” definitions of marriage.Some legal scholars have warned that marriage equality, already endangered at the supreme court, could be further threatened under Trump, particularly if he gets the opportunity to appoint additional justices.View image in fullscreen“It is terrifying to think about our government actively, strategically and intentionally coming for our community in every aspect of our lives,” said Cathy Renna, communications director of the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, a national rights group. “These attempts to erase our community would have just absolutely devastating impacts.”‘It’s life and death’If elected, Trump is expected to weaponize the US government to authorize, encourage and mandate widespread anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.In his first term, Trump banned trans people from the military, and Project 2025 calls for the policy’s reinstatement. The Republican presidential nominee is also likely to assert that employers’ “religious beliefs” provide a lawful justification for firing LGBTQ+ workers, either through an executive order or regulations, the ACLU recently warned.LGBTQ+ people could also be denied housing under a new Trump term, which could see a return to his efforts to exclude trans people from homeless shelters, said Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of Glaad: “Everything is at risk for us in the election – our workplace, our relationships, our families, our marriages, education, our housing.”Advocates fear Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda would undo the Biden administration’s foster care regulations meant to ensure queer and trans youth are placed in supportive homes. Brandon Wolf, press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ group, said that rollback would endanger kids’ lives, noting survey data suggesting half of trans and non-binary youth have considered suicide. He recalled being a teenager in Oregon when the state banned gay marriage and how that emboldened his classmates’ homophobia“It’s not easy to be a young person when your president is demeaning, demoralizing and dehumanizing members of your community,” Wolf said, “and Trump would be catastrophic”.View image in fullscreenProject 2025 further equates trans-inclusive reading materials to “pornography”, suggesting teachers and librarians should be imprisoned as sex offenders if they promote “transgender ideology”. This would probably require a law from Congress, but the push echoes GOP state bills across the country seeking to criminalize drag art and gender nonconformity. And Trump himself has increasingly spread blatant misinformation fearmongering about trans kids’ healthcare.Beyond explicit attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, advocates fear the politicization of federal public health agencies could impede critical research and HIV prevention efforts. “The support we get from the federal government, while it might not be enough, is what’s keeping some people alive,” said Dwayne Kwaysee Wright, a director of DEI initiatives at George Washington University. “So the stakes are no more than life or death.”Alexander Chen, founding director of Harvard Law’s LGBTQ+ advocacy clinic, who previously helped challenge the trans military ban, said a second Trump term could be “much more dangerous” than his first. As president, Trump introduced some of his most extreme policies in a chaotic, brash manner – including via tweets, with little thought to legality or implementation – resulting in successful court challenges. With support from conservative groups like Project 2025, Trump 2.0 could be significantly more strategic and effective if he returns to the White House.Kamala Harris has not released detailed LGBTQ+ rights policies, but her platform says she would fight to pass the Equality Act, which would enshrine LGBTQ+ protections into law. As a California prosecutor, she was an early champion of marriage equality, but had a mixed record on trans rights; she has since earned support from some prominent trans advocates and major LGBTQ+ groups.The ACLU has urged Harris to build on Biden’s legacy and fight to protect LGBTQ+ people from state attacks on their rights and expand access to trans healthcare in federal programs.A Trump spokesperson declined to comment on specific policies, and said in an email: “President Trump will implement policies that uplifts ALL Americans, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.” The Harris campaign did not respond to inquiries.‘This could break me’Missouri, a national leader in anti-trans policy, offers a window into the hostile climate Trump and his allies seek to expand. It is one of 26 states that have restricted gender-affirming healthcare, affecting an estimated 118,300 trans kids ages 13 to 17.Studies have found that care is linked to improved mental health. But in recent years, there’s been a growing movement to criminalize those treatments for trans youth, pushed by the same groups promoting anti-abortion laws forcing patients to cross state lines for procedures.Sixteen Democratic-run states and Washington DC have pushed back, adopting “sanctuary” laws protecting gender-affirming care, according to Elana Redfield, federal policy director at UCLA’s Williams Institute. “There’s evidence it’s beneficial for trans people to get this care, so to have it rapidly restricted is likely very distressing,” she said.Levi, the St Charles teenager, was isolated and detached before he transitioned, his parents recalled. He didn’t want to go out in public. He’d have meltdowns and remain balled up in his closet. He struggled with self harm. Once he expressed his identity and the family met with experts who helped them understand gender dysphoria, “he came out of his shell and became a totally different person, a joyous person, a really fun kid,” said Becky Hormuth, his mother, who is a teacher. “It’s unimaginable to think he can be this joyous when the entire world is pretty much attacking his existence.”Kyle Hormuth, Levi’s father, who works in healthcare, said when it became clear gender-affirming treatment could help address his son’s suicidality, “we jumped right on board. I’ll support my children no matter what because I’d much rather have my child in my life than not in my life. I want my kids to live and thrive and be what they want to be.”After Missouri’s ban passed, Becky got Levi on a waitlist for a Chicago clinic, but for months it was unclear if he’d be accepted “That’s when I really started to spiral into a panic”, he recalled.She started rationing Levi’s treatments. It was a relief once they got into Chicago, but the travel was exhausting. Levi had to cross into Illinois again weeks after his first visit to do bloodwork, which was required to be done within the state.Losing access to testosterone wasn’t an option, Levi said, his eyes welling with tears: “After all of this holding myself together, that would probably be the thing that breaks me.” He said he recognized some people were uninformed about trans identities:. “People fear what they cannot understand.” But he was fed up with those in power unwilling to learn. “How am I supposed to talk to you if you aren’t going to listen?”Becky said the constant attacks on their rights had caused great anxiety. “When I’m at a store, I scan the room and wonder, are you a hateful person? Are you someone who thinks vile things about my family and the community I advocate for?”The Hormuths have considered leaving Missouri, but Levi wanted to stay in his school to support younger LGBTQ+ kids.Younger trans kids are particularly vulnerable if Trump is re-elected.William, an 11-year-old trans boy in St Louis, was adamant about his gender from a young age, said his mother, Marie, who asked to use their middle names to protect their privacy. Just before he turned seven, the two heard a radio segment about a trans woman who was killed, prompting her to explain anti-trans discrimination.“His takeaway was: ‘That is how I feel. I think I’m trans. Does that mean I’m going to get killed, too?’” Marie recalled. She was glad the conversation gave him language to express himself, but regretted the fear it instilled. Once he spoke openly about being a boy, the depression he’d been suffering dissipated. “He said, ‘I just feel so much better.’ He was bouncing off the walls like a balloon, so happy and free.”William had a supportive gender-affirming healthcare team, which was on track to prescribe puberty blockers after years of living as a boy – until the GOP criminalized this treatment. “It’s terrifying and extremely stressful,” said Marie, who eventually got William seen at a clinic in Peoria, Illinois, two and a half hours away. But that facility didn’t offer prescriptions he needed, forcing her to seek an appointment in Chicago. “I keep having to start all over,” said Marie.Seated with his mother outside the food business she runs one afternoon, William was cheerful, talking about how popular he was at summer camp, his love of sleepovers, his plans to swim with dolphins, his dreams of being a baseball announcer and how he chose his name based on his first crush. “It’s embarrassing but I was so young and mindless then,” he admitted.He said he didn’t mind the drive to Peoira, because his mom got him doughnuts. He knows they may have to go to Chicago next. “My mom’s gonna feel bad, so I’ll get to stay in a hotel and get snacks and movie night.”“We’ll do our best to make it fun,” added Marie.William’s message to lawmakers forcing him to go across state lines?“Trans people are just other humans,” he said. “If they put themselves in my shoes, they’d change their mind.” More

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      Republicans think Kamala Harris can’t be president because she hasn’t had children | Moira Donegan

      by

      Introducing Donald Trump is a strange occasion to talk about humility. To put it mildly, humility is not a quality that the former president is known for. But Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former Trump press secretary and current governor of Arkansas, decided to muse about humility on stage in Michigan on Tuesday night. She told a story about watching her daughter get ready for a father-daughter dance, and of the moment when her daughter turned to her and said: “It’s OK, Mommy. One day you can be pretty, too.”“My kids keep me humble,” Sanders said of the exchange. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”It was the latest in a series of attacks by Republicans on childless Americans, and among the more direct comments by Trump surrogates suggesting that Harris is morally suspect and unqualified for power because she has not given birth.This is usually JD Vance’s line. The vice-presidential candidate and Ohio senator has been the most prominent face of Republican pro-natalism, responding to the overturning of Roe v Wade by the conservative-controlled supreme court with a series of public statements seeking to degrade childless women and advocating for their diminished citizenship.It is Vance who has derided prominent Democrats as “childless cat ladies”, referred to adults without children as “sociopathic” and suggested that Americans who have not reproduced should have fewer votes. That Sanders, largely seen as an heir to the party’s Christian conservative wing, has taken up this pro-natalist rhetoric indicates that other sections of the Republican party are willing to make misogynist contempt of childless women a center of their campaign strategy.Supporters of Harris are quick to point out that the vice-president does have children: she has stepchildren. Cole and Ella Emhoff, the products of Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff’s first marriage, have been a part of Harris’s family since they were teenagers; reportedly, they sometimes call her “Momala”. (Ella Emhoff, in particular, has become a target of rightwing ire for her tattoos, large glasses and a fashion sense I can only describe as “Ridgewood basement chic”: her style of femininity, the right never tires of reminding us, is one of which they do not approve.)In the wake of Sanders’ remarks disparaging Harris for not being a mother, her campaign surrogates were eager to cite her enmeshment in a loving and very modern blended family. Kerstin Emhoff, Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife and the mother of Harris’s stepchildren, took to Twitter to defend Harris. “Kamala Harris has spent her entire career working for the people, ALL families,” she wrote.These efforts to correct Republican smears about Harris’s childlessness are true enough, and they have noble motives as well as strategic ones. It is worthwhile on its own terms to reaffirm the legitimacy of blended families; and it is smart, in a campaign where median voters may well be swayed by appeals to “family values”, to depict Harris as a devoted member of a loving family.But the rejoinder that Harris is not childless leaves intact the right wing’s suggestion that it would be a problem if she were. And it leaves untouched, too, the unspoken bigotry that animates those remarks: their assertion that women who devote themselves to things other than marriage or motherhood are somehow suspect, deficient or defective.It seems almost silly to have to say this, but being a parent is not a qualification for the presidency. If it were, it’s not clear how well Donald Trump himself would measure up: the onetime reality TV star has five children with three different women, has reportedly made repeated remarks about his sexual attraction to his oldest daughter, Ivanka, and seems only distantly aware of his youngest two progeny, Tiffany and Barron.Even setting aside the caliber of Trump’s own fatherhood, a total of five US presidents have not had biological children at all – including Trump’s own professed hero, Andrew Jackson, and no less a figure than George Washington. What is different – and to the right, offensive – about Harris is not that she has no biological children. It’s that she is a woman.So far, the prospect of becoming the first female president has not played a major role in Harris’s case for her own presidency. Aside from things like the selection of a VP candidate (which, it was assumed, would have to be a man) and Harris’s comfort talking about abortion (which, it is assumed, is necessarily because she’s a woman), the campaign has largely sought to moot the salience of their candidate’s gender.Perhaps this is because after 2016 and the crowded 2020 primary, the prospect of a woman at the top of a presidential ticket no longer seems novel; perhaps it’s because the Harris/Walz staff have taken the lesson from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign that too great a focus on the election as a possible feminist achievement could foment backlash. Whatever the reason, there is little public chatter now, either from the Harris campaign itself or from the pundit class, about how having a female president will change Americans’ view of the office – or of themselves. If there were, maybe someone would be willing to say what is obvious: that comments like Sanders’ are meant to suggest that women should be at home raising babies, instead of seeking positions of power. Instead, everyone is acting very conspicuously as if they think that Harris’s gender does not matter.It does matter. And that vacuum of gendered critique is being filled, on the right, with a great deal of gendered resentment. As the gender gap in American politics continues to widen, Trump, Vance and increasingly the rest of the Republican party that they lead have begun to parrot talking points from the so-called “manosphere”, the collection of web forums and content creators that push misogyny as an ideological agenda.The far-right drift of young men, after all, seems largely to stem from anxiety over their perceived loss of gendered status: their fear and anger that men are no longer uncontested in their social dominance, and that women are no longer uniformly compelled to serve them. What could be more comforting to young men descending into this kind of bigoted woundedness than the confident declaration that women who do not organize their lives around traditional roles are worthless? And what could be more threatening to them than the notion that a woman might ascend to that superlative position of patriarchal power – the presidency?

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More