US Politics

If you need a reminder that the Republican party’s problem with democracy extends beyond the antics of Donald Trump, look no further than Wisconsin. A battle is under way there which began before the January 6 insurrection was even a twinkle in Trump’s eye, and which will do much to determine the future of democracy in America whether Trump ultimately answers for his crimes or not. It’s no exaggeration to say that Wisconsin and its state capitol, Madison, are now the front line of the battle to save American democracy.In 2011, Republicans gerrymandered Wisconsin’s state legislature so badly that the party can win supermajorities despite losing the popular vote, as it did in 2018. Voters have fought back, and earlier this year they elected Janet Protasiewicz to the state supreme court, ushering in a new liberal majority which looked poised to finally overturn the gerrymander and bring democratic regime change to Madison.But Wisconsin Republicans have no intention of seeing their undeserved power slip away. They’re proposing to impeach Protasiewicz on spurious charges before she has ruled on a single case, paralyzing the court and leaving the gerrymander intact.When Trump argued that he was the real winner of the election because the votes of people living in Democratic-leaning urban areas were somehow fraudulent and should not count, he was repeating arguments that Wisconsin Republicans had already honed. The speaker of the state assembly, Robin Vos, has explained that the state’s gerrymander is fair because “if you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority”. Because Madison and Milwaukee are the parts of the state with the largest concentration of non-white voters, Vos has revealed what the Wisconsin gerrymander is really about: race.There is a long history in the United States of skewed electoral systems being used to suppress the voices of minority voters, and Wisconsin’s is only the latest example. Like their predecessors in other states, Wisconsin Republicans have been remarkably frank about their intention of ensuring that minorities stay in their place. When Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers powered to victory in 2018 with massive wins in Madison and Milwaukee, the Republican legislature used a lame-duck session to strip him of much of his power. Not content with that, Evers’ Republican opponent in 2022, Tim Michels, promised that if he was elected then Republicans in Wisconsin “will never lose another election”.The latest target of this raw, racist power politics is the Wisconsin’s electorate new choice for the state supreme court. Protasiewicz won by more than 10% on record turnout, which was spurred by widespread voter dissatisfaction with the fruits of Republican rule. In particular, voters oppose the state’s harsh anti-abortion law, which makes abortion illegal unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother, with no exceptions for other medical problems or rape. A majority of Wisconsinites wanted a liberal state supreme court which would overturn that law, and they voted accordingly.By linking abortion rights to questions of democracy, Protasiewicz came up with a playbook that can be used across America to push back against attacks on basic constitutional rights, be they in the doctor’s office or the voting booth. That’s why Republicans are so scared of her and desperate to find a way to stop her from succeeding.Republicans’ plan to impeach Protasiewicz is nakedly hypocritical: They argue that Protasiewicz, who received Democratic campaign donations, cannot give unbiased rulings in gerrymandering cases – despite the fact that numerous other Wisconsin state supreme court justices, including Republicans, have also received party donations and ruled on cases with political implications.Their plan also bends democratic norms, in this case by impeaching Protasiewicz and then simply leaving her in limbo, legally unable to hear cases. Because the plan wouldn’t actually formally kick her from office, it denies the state’s Democratic governor the opportunity to replace her with another liberal. Democrats are fighting back, but their chances of success hinge on their ability to convince Republicans in the gerrymandered assembly to do the right thing.As Wisconsin goes, so goes America. Although sometimes referred to as a “moderate” state, it is more accurate to view Wisconsin as one very conservative state and one very liberal state jammed together. The fact that it is narrowly divided between the two parties is precisely why Republicans have resorted to constitutional and political skullduggery to give themselves an unfair advantage.The same is true of many other states, and indeed of America as a whole. What happens in Wisconsin is a crucial test case of whether the most brazen attempts to turn competitive elections into uncompetitive one-party control will fly.This challenge will remain whether Trump goes to jail or not. Wisconsin Republicans were some of the most fervent backers of Trump’s own undemocratic actions, but they needed no lessons from him in how to suppress the will of the people. The Republican party’s belief in its own god-given right to rule – and that of its white, rural electorate – found its most dangerous expression in Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, but it long predated him. It will outlive him unless it is chastened by accountability and defeat at every turn. All eyes are now on Wisconsin and Janet Protasiewicz to see if it will be. Good luck, your honor.
Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University. He hosts a podcast called America Explained and writes a newsletter of the same name More

Now ends our summer of discontent. Nearly half of Democrats fretfully tell pollsters that President Biden is “too old”. Fifty-eight percent of all Americans, including 30% of Democrats, do not approve of his handling of the economy. Twenty-one percent of Democrats rate him unfavorably. If these discontented were to change their opinion, his favorability would be near or above 50%. Depressed Democrats hold down his standing.Biden returns from the G20 economic conference in India triumphant, conducting complex diplomacy edging out China, and heralding a host of deliverables, notably a deal to build a rail and shipping network from India to Europe and the Middle East, running through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, a “game-changing regional investment”, he declares. He follows with an unprecedented pact with Vietnam as a strategic partner. Then at his press conference he wanders into a monologue about a John Wayne western and one of Biden’s favored expressions, “a lying dog-faced pony soldier”, to refer to disbelievers in the climate crisis.Biden gets no credit for his accomplishments. The Axios newsletter reports that he and Trump “are running dueling basement campaigns that make them look like they are in the witness protection program”. Actual events and policies are dismissed. The formulaic repetition of false equivalence, put forward as “balance”, prevails as conventional wisdom.All summer, the Biden administration touts his extraordinary achievements – his infrastructure bill, his Inflation Reduction Act, his Chips and Science Act. Political action committees launch a $13m advertising campaign documenting the revival of manufacturing. Yet the poll numbers are unmoved. “These are DARK DAYS in the life of America!” posts Donald Trump on his Truth Social account. He is more or less even with Biden. With every indictment, he rises further above his inconsequential rivals for the Republican nomination.On their panoply of “weaponization” of committees of the House of Representatives, Republicans play Inspector Clouseau as Javert, pursuing Biden as the diabolic boss of a crime family, his son Hunter Biden and his peccadilloes an instrument for prying the door to reveal the hidden Godfather. The fantasy gangster, Trump’s doppelganger, distracts from the indicted one. On Fox News, Biden is also the enfeebled, doddering and senile fool on his last legs. Which is the ruse? Fifty-five percent of Republicans in swing House districts believe Biden should be impeached even if there is “no evidence”. The poll did not offer the category of spectral evidence that was accepted in the Salem witch trials. Under pressure from the far-right House caucus that holds the Sword of Damocles over his head, speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the opening of an impeachment panel to conjure the works of the devil’s magic.But it is the Democrats who pull Biden underwater. They see his physical faults and shudder at his political fall. He is 80, his hair thinned, his gait slower and more careful. He is not eloquent. The slight hesitation of the stutter he overcame as a child seems occasionally to return. He is not Mick Jagger strutting at 80. The intensity of concern among Democrats about Biden is in direct proportion to their panic about Trump. They see in his fragility their own predicament. He is the screen on which they project their anxiety, insecurity and fear. They suffer from a crisis of bad nerves.The Democrats’ withholding creates a self-fulfilling prophesy. Spooked by the shadow of Trump, they react with disapproval of Biden, whose numbers are stagnant, flashing the sign that makes them more frightened. They do not censure Biden or dislike him. But they hope for a counter-factual scenario. There is none.Asked to name a specific person they would prefer to Biden, 18% of Democrats replied with a scattering of names. Bernie Sanders, 82, received the highest support at 3%. Sanders, who has twice run for the nomination, this time has early endorsed Biden. It has taken the democratic socialist to remind that perfect should not be the enemy of the good.If Biden were not to run, the counter-factual dream of a Hollywood ending with Michael Douglas from The American President materializing would be replaced with a ferocious primary of centrifugal force exposing the party’s fractured divides and the survivor most likely at no better rating than Biden at the current fraught moment. Biden’s presence leaves that bloodsport to another day.Rather than the counter-factual hypothesis, there are a number of factual realities. This older Biden, to those who have known him over the decades, is a more capable Biden than the younger Biden. That earlier incarnation was more impetuous, garrulous and conventional. He was always, though, a natural tactile politician, the senator from a state like a congressional district, with an open and caring touch, appearing at a 1001 gatherings.But he also carried a streak of insecurity, of being a son of the middle class, a middling student from the University of Delaware, and not from an Ivy League school. That self-doubt flared in self-undermining displays, abruptly ending his first campaign when he plagiarized speeches from Robert F Kennedy and British Labour leader Neil Kinnock.Biden’s judgment is not attributable to an abstract and amorphous category called “experience,” but rather particular concrete experiences, beyond bearing the weight of his unimaginable personal tragedies. His defeats and missteps, slights and belittlement, have accumulated onto the years of committee chairmanships, a lifetime in the Senate like no other president since Lyndon Johnson and the whole range of being vice-president involved in every major decision of the executive during the Obama administration.In the Senate, Biden surrounded himself with the most talented staff. He was not that insecure. As president, at the head of a vast government, his cabinet is an array of highly effective people. There has not been a single major scandal among them after the most corrupt administration in American history. The paradox of Biden’s poll numbers among Democrats is that there is no complaint about how he runs the government.The further paradox is that there is no movement to supplant Biden. There is no faction of the party that seeks to remove him. There is no group within the Congress that seeks to topple him. There is no credible person running against him or contemplating a campaign against him. There is no king across the sea. There is no Bonnie Prince Charlie ready to invade. There are no pretenders to the throne. There is none of that. The poll numbers as a party matter are hollow.And there is no rightful Kennedy succession to overthrow the second Irish Catholic president. After President John F Kennedy’s assassination, two Kennedys ran against incumbent Democratic presidents whom they somehow regarded as interlopers, Robert F Kennedy against Lyndon Johnson and Edward M Kennedy against Jimmy Carter. Robert F Kennedy Jr’s entry now is not a case of the first time as tragedy, the second as farce, but simply pathos.Of Robert F Kennedy Jr, a subject Democrats fervently do not want to discuss, in truth the feeling is the opposite of loathing for his spiraling descent into ever more baroque conspiracy theories, but instead profound sadness at the public display of his affliction. He rattles off barrages of science fiction and prejudice with an air of mastery of arcane knowledge that only persuades listeners that he is the sufferer of a disorder. For example, he offered, “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”There are no actual Democrats who view Kennedy as a political figure, representing a valid position that must be heard within the party, but a collateral victim of the tragedy of his father and uncle. His shoulder-rubbing with the Trump scum, Bannon and Flynn and Stone, his pocketing of funds from the Silicon Valley PayPal Mafia that also finances Ron DeSantis, and his insults hurled at Biden arouse a mixture of horror and sorrow. He states his identity is that of a recovering addict, claiming, “I was born an addict,” but his “candidacy” is less a campaign than a breakout from recovery. His wretchedness is a continual sight of dreadful infirmity. He threatens only himself. He inspires dismay and grief. His family members are beside themselves. Democrats wish to avert their gaze.The counter-factual scenario the Republicans originally pressed about Biden is the return of a cycle of failure. Four months into his administration, Congressman Jim Jordan, the Republican from Ohio, tweeted, “Joe Biden is the new Jimmy Carter.” The Wall Street Journal editorial page has periodically revived the trope, laying out its dream that another Ronald Reagan will appear as in 1980. “Will Mr. Biden suffer a similar fate?” wrote one of its columnists. “His agenda is creating a similar backlash. … The conservative movement has another chance to recapture the imagination of a malaise-beset public.”When Carter entered office in 1977, the inflation rate was 6.5%. Under the energy shocks of ruthless OPEC oil price rises and the Iranian revolution, from January 1979 to December 1980, inflation in that period spiked 23% to a 13.5% rate total. In the summer of 1979, a gasoline shortage caused long lines at the pumps. On 15 July, Carter delivered a speech proclaiming a “crisis of confidence”, the need for “sacrifice”, and a “rebirth” of “our common faith”. Two days later, he scuttled his message, firing five cabinet members, which appeared to prove the lack of confidence in the government. By October, his favorability fell to 29%.The Democratic leadership in the Congress disliked the cold technocrat in the White House. Their favorite son, Ted Kennedy, topped Carter by 59% to 19% in an October poll in New Hampshire, the first primary state. Kennedy declared his candidacy on 7 November, three days after US diplomats were seized as hostages in Tehran. Carter defeated Kennedy in New Hampshire by 11 points. The split party served the cause of Reagan and encouraged the entrance of a third candidate, liberal Republican John Anderson.The inflation that stoked those politics is not comparable to the inflation today. Driven largely by the distortions of supply and demand caused by the Covid crisis, recent inflation at its peak was less than half that of the Carter presidency. This year, from January to July, inflation went up only 1.9%, a greatly slowed rate, now hovering at around 3% total, and declining. Unlike in the 1970s, inflationary expectations are shifting strongly downward. Economic conditions that underlay the fall of Carter and rise of Reagan are fast receding. The analogy does not hold. Only a reflexively sado-monetarist Federal Reserve that insists on continuing to raise interest rates in order to slam the brakes on growth could create a moral hazard.Yet the political value of Biden’s successes remains diminished for another reason. His team attempts to persuade by operating on the tried-and-true premise that the election is a referendum on the incumbent. But in public perception Biden is not the only incumbent running. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe that Trump won the 2020 election and Biden is an illegitimate president, according to an August CNN poll. Trump will be the Republican candidate running as the true incumbent in the eyes of the majority of his party.The only previous cases of defeated presidents running again for the office were Grover Cleveland, who won in 1888, Martin Van Buren, losing in 1848 on the Free Soil Party, and Millard Fillmore, losing in 1856 on the Know Nothing or American Party. Cleveland never claimed to have really won when he was defeated in 1884; nor did Van Buren in 1840. Vice-president Fillmore had acceded to the presidency in 1850 after the death of Zachary Taylor. He was not his party’s nominee in 1852. Trump again has no precedent.The election of 2024 will be the second referendum on Trump, but the first held on the attempted coup of January 6t. Just as the 2004 election, which President George W Bush won, was in effect a referendum on the terrorist attack on September 11, the only election since 1988 in which the Republican won the popular vote, January 6 is the overwhelming political factor that establishes Trump’s assertion to his party’s nomination by means of incumbency. His forthcoming trials are not peripheral, but central to his claim.When the illusion of a counter-factual alternative fades, and the choice is between the incumbent and the false incumbent, then Democrats may consider something other than the age of Biden and whether they wish to contribute to a new political age of Trump.
Sidney Blumenthal is the author of The Permanent Campaign, published in 1980, and All the Power of the Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln 1856-1860, the third of a projected five volumes. He is the former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton More

A Senate hearing on book bans and censorship on Tuesday spotlighted the growing phenomenon in America and highlighted a partisan split on the issue, with Democrats decrying censorship as Republicans and rightwing activists push for many works to be taken out of schools and libraries, claiming it should be parents’ rights to do so.Many of the most commonly banned books deal with topics such as racism, sexuality and gender identity. Conservatives also argue that some books, many exploring queer identity and LGBTQ+ themes, include sexually explicit content inappropriate for students. School librarians opposing such book bans have been attacked and harassed.Other books that have long been parts of school curriculums have also been challenged after complaints that they contained racist stereotypes, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, which also includes a depiction of rape.Between July and December 2022, the non-profit PEN America recorded nearly 1,500 instances of individual book bans, which it broadly defines as when books are deemed “off-limits” for students in school libraries or classrooms, or when books are removed during an investigation to determine if there should be any restrictions.“Instead of inheriting a debate over what more can be done with and for our libraries, I was confronted with a book-banning movement upon taking office,” testified Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois’s secretary of state since January who also serves as the state librarian, on Tuesday.“Our libraries have become targets by a movement that disingenuously claims to pursue freedom, but is instead promoting authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes ban books, not democracies,” Giannoulias said.Democratic lawmakers and education experts raised alarm bells over the rise in banned books.“Let’s be clear, efforts to ban books are wrong, whether they come from the right or the left,” said Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee chair and Democratic senator of Illinois. “In the name of protecting students, we’re instead denying these students an opportunity to learn about different people and difficult subjects.”Meanwhile, Republicans have widely backed the growing number of conservative activists seeking more control over school curriculums, including books – but also policies such as transgender students’ eligibility to use bathrooms – in the name of “parents’ rights”.“To all the parents out there who believe there’s a bunch of stuff in our schools being pushed on your children that go over the line, you’re absolutely right,” said Lindsey Graham, the committee’s top Republican.Graham briefly derailed the hearing, diverting the conversation to border security and migration, saying that fixing “Biden’s border crisis” should be the committee’s biggest priority.“The book issue is a parental awareness issue. It is not partisan to assert that children do better when their families know what’s going on in their lives,” testified Nicole Neily, the president of the conservative non-profit Parents Defending Education.According to its website, the group opposes “activists” who have sought to “impose ideologically driven curriculum with a concerning and often divisive emphasis on students’ group identities: race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionArguing that parents and institutions should have the right to ban books containing sexually explicit content, Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative thinktank American Enterprise Institute, read aloud a short passage recounting the author’s experience with child molestation from the book All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir about growing up Black and queer that is one of the most banned books.The Louisiana senator John Kennedy also read aloud explicit passages from two of the most-banned books, All Boys Aren’t Blue and Gender Queer, during the hearing.“Is this OK for kids?” said Eden. “Judging by the thoughts made by the media, NGOs and some Democratic politicians, it seems there is a politically significant contingent that believes this is all actually very good for kids. But personally, I’m not at all troubled by the fact that some moms believe that this isn’t appropriate, and that some school boards agree.”But Democratic lawmakers maintain that banning books restricts children’s ability to think for themselves, and the information access researcher Emily Knox, an associate professor at the University of Illinois, testified that books can help change a reader’s attitude toward difference, adding that campaigns to censor books were unconstitutional.“Of course there are books that are not age appropriate. But that’s what being a parent is all about – doing your best to keep an eye on what your children read and what they consume,” said Giannoulias.“No one is advocating for sexually explicit content to be available in an elementary school library or in the children’s section of a library,” said Durbin. “But no parent should have the right to tell another parent’s child what they can and cannot read in school or at home. Every student deserves access to books that reflect their experiences and help them better understand who they are.” More

From 3h agoA spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign released a statement in response to House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement backing a formal impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”, the statement by Ammar Moussa reads.
11 days ago, McCarthy unequivocally said he would not move forward with an impeachment inquiry without holding a vote on the House floor. What has changed since then?
The Biden-Harris campaign added:
Several members of the Speaker’s own conference have come out and publicly panned impeachment as a political stunt, pointing out there is no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden as Republicans litigate the same debunked conspiracy theories they’ve investigated for over four years.

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced that Republicans would open an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden over unproven allegations of corruption in his family’s business dealings. House Republicans have so far have not produced hard evidence linking the business dealings of Hunter Biden and his father.
The announcement by McCarthy kicks off what are expected to be weeks of Republican-led hearings intended to convince Americans that the president profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and other family members. While impeachment can be the first step to removing a president from office, that appears unlikely to happen.
A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign said McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”. Donald Trump has been weighing in behind the scenes in support of the House GOP push to impeach his successor, according to a report.
Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, described McCarthy’s announcement as “extreme politics at its worst”, adding that House GOP members had uncovered “no evidence of wrongdoing” in the months-long investigation into Joe Biden.
It is unclear if the GOP has the evidence to substantiate the long-running claims, or even the votes for impeachment. McCarthy plans to convene House GOP members behind closed doors this week to discuss the Biden impeachment.
James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee leading the impeachment inquiry into Biden, spent “eight months of abject failure” in trying to prove the president guilty of wrongdoing, a watchdog released earlier this week said. The report by the Congressional Integrity Project offers an anatomy of a fake scandal, detailing a series of exaggerated assertions that have shriveled under scrutiny.
Vladimir Putin described the recent indictments of Donald Trump as “political persecution” as the Russian leader waded back into a US presidential campaign for the third consecutive election cycle. “I believe that everything happening at the moment is good. Because it demonstrates the rottenness of the American political system,” Putin remarked during an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
The tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has “had conversations” with No Labels, a group considering launching a third-party candidate in the 2024 election. Names linked to a No Labels candidacy have included Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, and Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor of Maryland.You can read the full report on the impeachment inquiry here:
Almost all the Republicans running for the presidential nomination have endorsed the impeachment inquiry.Donald Trump is notably the only one who’s called impeachment outright. Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy have all expressed support for the inquiry.Meanwhile, Chris Christie said he supports investigations, but noted, “I think we’re cheapening impeachment by doing that kind of thing.”Will Hurd, meanwhile said an investigation was warranted, but warned that if no evidence is found “I worry Republicans are walking into a political trap.”Women who say they were denied abortions in medical emergencies have taken legal action in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee, in the latest attempt to challenge abortion bans that, abortion patients and doctors say, prevent people from getting care even when their health is in danger.The lawsuits in Idaho and Tennessee, along with a federal complaint against a hospital in Oklahoma, were filed on Tuesday by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of women in Texas earlier this year. Tuesday’s filings were first reported by the Washington Post.“I can’t stop bad things from happening to people’s pregnancies,” Jennifer Adkins, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Idaho, told the Post. “But I want other Idahoans to feel safe and cared for.”After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, states across the south and midwest enacted near-total abortion bans, many of which only allow abortions in cases of medical emergencies. However, doctors have repeatedly said that these bans, which contain non-medical language drafted by politicians, are too vague for medical providers to interpret. Instead, they are forced to wait until their patients get sick enough for them to intervene.Read more:It’s been a busy Tuesday so far. Here’s where things stand:
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced that Republicans would open an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden over unproven allegations of corruption in his family’s business dealings. House Republicans have so far have not produced hard evidence linking the business dealings of Hunter Biden and his father.
The announcement by McCarthy kicks off what are expected to be weeks of Republican-led hearings intended to convince Americans that the president profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and other family members. While impeachment can be the first step to removing a president from office, that appears unlikely to happen.
A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign said McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”. Donald Trump has been weighing in behind the scenes in support of the House GOP push to impeach his successor, according to a report.
Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, described McCarthy’s announcement as “extreme politics at its worst”, adding that House GOP members had uncovered “no evidence of wrongdoing” in the months-long investigation into Joe Biden.
It is unclear if the GOP has the evidence to substantiate the long-running claims, or even the votes for impeachment. McCarthy plans to convene House GOP members behind closed doors this week to discuss the Biden impeachment.
James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee leading the impeachment inquiry into Biden, spent “eight months of abject failure” in trying to prove the president guilty of wrongdoing, a watchdog released earlier this week said. The report by the Congressional Integrity Project offers an anatomy of a fake scandal, detailing a series of exaggerated assertions that have shriveled under scrutiny.
Vladimir Putin described the recent indictments of Donald Trump as “political persecution” as the Russian leader waded back into a US presidential campaign for the third consecutive election cycle. “I believe that everything happening at the moment is good. Because it demonstrates the rottenness of the American political system,” Putin remarked during an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
The tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has “had conversations” with No Labels, a group considering launching a third-party candidate in the 2024 election. Names linked to a No Labels candidacy have included Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, and Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor of Maryland.
Donald Trump has been weighing in behind the scenes in support of the House GOP push to impeach Joe Biden, including regularly speaking with a member of leadership in the lead up to Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement on Tuesday, according to a Politico report. Trump has been speaking on a weekly basis with House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik, who was the first member of Republican leadership to come out in support of impeachment, the report says.The former president had dinner on Sunday night with the far-right congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the topic of impeachment was discussed, the report says.Two Ron DeSantis hats put up for auction at a Republican dinner in Florida at the weekend received precisely no bids, according to local party officials, suggesting his presidential campaign in his home state is going as badly as it is nationwide.Details come in this story by Newsweek, which says nobody signed up to bid on either of the red and white caps at the St Johns county GOP founders dinner in Ponte Vedra Beach on Saturday. St Johns is where the Florida governor was born.A photo of the barren sign-up sheets was posted to X, formerly Twitter, by Republican fundraiser Caroline Wren, the image taken two and a half hours after the event began.Blake Paterson, chair of the county’s Republican party, confirmed to Newsweek that the hats had attracted no bidders, though he characterized the event as a giveaway in exchange for donations rather than an auction.Those in attendance at the dinner appeared to be overwhelmingly supporters of Donald Trump, DeSantis’s rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. They included Florida congressman Byron Donalds, a vocal Trump acolyte, and extremist conspiracy theorist Kari Lake, failed candidate for governor of Arizona in last year’s election.Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to convene House GOP members behind closed doors this week to discuss the Biden impeachment, amid uncertainty over whether he even has the support of rank-and-file Republicans behind him.McCarthy is launching the impeachment inquiry on his own and without a House floor vote, as he may not have enough support from his slim GOP majority, AP reported.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has warned House Republicans off the effort, but on Tuesday he said:
I don’t think Speaker McCarthy needs advice from the Senate.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer called the impeachment inquiry “absurd”. He told reporters:
The American people want us to do something that will make their lives better, not go off on these chases and witch hunts.
House GOP members have found an “overwhelming” amount of evidence showing Joe Biden “lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family’s influence peddling schemes”, according to a joint statement by James Comer, Jim Jordan and Jason Smith.Comer, Jordan and Smith chair the three committees expected to take the lead in the impeachment inquiry into the president. They are: the House committee on oversight and accountability, committee on the judiciary, and the committee on ways and means.The statement says the investigation into Biden uncovered “bank records, suspicious activity reports, emails, texts, and witness testimony” that showed the president “allowed his family to sell him as ‘the brand’ around the world”.
Based on the evidence, we support the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The House Committees on Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means, will continue to work to follow the facts to ensure President Biden is held accountable for abusing public office for his family’s financial gain. The American people demand and deserve answers, transparency, and accountability for this blatant abuse of public office.
House Republicans have so far have not produced hard evidence linking the business dealings of Hunter Biden and the president.Senate Republicans are unhappy with House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden and concerned that it will backfire on the party, according to the Hill.A Senate Republican, speaking on condition on anonymity, told the newspaper that even if the House did vote to impeach Biden after an inquiry, there is no way the Democrat-controlled Senate would vote to convict. Reports indicate McCarthy does not yet have enough votes in support of impeaching Biden.“It’s a waste of time. It’s a fool’s errand,” the GOP senator was quoted as saying.
We know how this is going to end. It just creates tumult within the conference. I can see it already how people are going to react when they send a message over if they go that far.
They noted that all the internal polling they had seen suggested GOP primary voters do not see impeachment as a priority. The senator added:
It seems like we’re spending a lot of time on things that matter to them that don’t matter to the people I want to have a positive opinion of Republicans next November … This is not driving [general election] turnout.
“They’re all acting like children,” the GOP senator added.Here’s a statement from Jamaal Bowman, a Democratic congressman from New York, who accused House speaker Kevin McCarthy of announcing a “sham” impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden in order to “bring attention away from the failures of House Republicans to be able to pass a budget and avoid a government shutdown”.The statement reads:
Speaker McCarthy and the dysfunctional Republican party are wasting time with their comical impeachment inquiry into President Biden instead of focusing on passing appropriations bills. We’re just 3 weeks away from a government shutdown where millions of government employees won’t get paid, small businesses won’t be able to apply for federal loans, the NIH has to shut down most medical research, and more. We should be focused on doing our job by helping the American people & funding critical services, not forcing a shutdown & plotting baseless impeachment inquiries.
It goes on:
This is yet another example of Republican dysfunction and continues to show why many across the country do not want to trust or participate in our government.
Ken Buck, a Republican congressman for Colorado and House Freedom caucus member, has previously expressed skepticism about an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.On Sunday, Buck said any evidence linking the president to any high crime or misdemeanor “doesn’t exist right now”. His recent comments against the House GOP’s investigative efforts and track record of bucking his own party have put a target on his back, according to a CNN report.A serious effort is now under way to find a candidate to mount a primary challenge against Buck in his eastern Colorado seat, the news channel reported, citing sources.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman from Georgia and ally of House speaker Kevin McCarthy, told the channel there is an “unbelievable” level of frustration with Buck inside the House GOP. Greene added that she didn’t think he should remain in his role on the House judiciary committee or the GOP whip’s team.“This is the same guy that wrote a book called ‘Drain the Swamp’, who is now arguing against an impeachment inquiry,” Greene said.
I really don’t see how we can have a member on Judiciary that is flat out refusing to impeach … It seems like, can he even be trusted to do his job at this point?
A spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign released a statement in response to House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement backing a formal impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.McCarthy has “cemented his role as the Trump campaign’s super-surrogate by turning the House of Representatives into an arm of his presidential campaign”, the statement by Ammar Moussa reads.
11 days ago, McCarthy unequivocally said he would not move forward with an impeachment inquiry without holding a vote on the House floor. What has changed since then?
The Biden-Harris campaign added:
Several members of the Speaker’s own conference have come out and publicly panned impeachment as a political stunt, pointing out there is no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden as Republicans litigate the same debunked conspiracy theories they’ve investigated for over four years.
A Virginia Democrat running in a closely contested legislative election has denounced reports that she and her husband engaged in sex acts livestreamed on an online platform in exchange for “tips”.Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner and a first-time candidate seeking a seat in Virginia’s house of delegates, shared the videos on a platform called Chaturbate.The videos, which were first reported by the Washington Post and then confirmed by the Associated Press, show Gibson urging viewers to provide tips in the form of Chaturbate tokens in exchange for her performance of specific sex acts with her husband. The videos were archived in 2022, though it is unclear when the live streams occurred.According to the Post’s report, a Republican operative first alerted the newspaper to the existence of the videos, which had been archived on another site. In a statement, Gibson denounced the report as a form of “gutter politics” and “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family”.“It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” Gibson said.
My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.
A lawyer representing Gibson, Daniel P Watkins, told the Post that the videos may have violated Virginia’s revenge porn law, adding: “We are working closely with state and federal law enforcement.”Gibson’s district, located just north-west of Richmond, is considered one of just a handful of competitive seats in the race to control Virginia’s house of delegates. In the last legislative session, Republicans narrowly controlled the chamber, while Democrats maintained a slim majority in the state senate.Peter Navarro’s contempt of Congress conviction has “everybody in that frigging White House” feeling as if they are grappling with “massive legal bills and … prison time”, the ex-Donald Trump administration official said on Monday.Navarro’s remarks came in an interview with the far-right media outlet Newsmax in which he used the term “SOBs” – short for sons of bitches – to refer to the US justice department prosecutors who secured a guilty verdict against him last week.Lamenting that prosecutors had pushed to “stick me in leg irons … [and] with half a million dollars of legal bills”, Navarro pledged to seek a reversal of his conviction from an appellate court. Navarro told the host Eric Bolling:
We’re gonna win this fight – that’s why God created the appeals court.
Navarro served as a senior trade adviser during Trump’s presidency, which ended in the Republican’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Congress subpoenaed him in February 2022 to answer questions about why Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, temporarily delaying certification of Biden’s electoral victory.A House committee convened to investigate the attack suspected Navarro had more information about any connection between false claims of voter fraud in that election which Trump allies had pushed and the assault on the Capitol. But Navarro refused to testify while also declining to turn over any emails, reports or notes.Navarro’s attorney argued that the defendant asked the committee to talk to Trump to see what information he wanted protected under executive privilege, which never happened. Prosecutors countered that Navarro should have handed over the materials he had while labeling those he believed were privileged.On Thursday, a jury convicted Navarro of two misdemeanor charges of contempt of Congress, each of which is punishable by between 30 days and a year in prison. His sentencing has tentatively been scheduled for 12 January. More

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, on Tuesday announced that Republicans would open an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden over unproven allegations of corruption in his family’s business dealings.The announcement by McCarthy kicks off what are expected to be weeks of Republican-led hearings intended to convince Americans that the president profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and other family members, but it is unclear if the GOP has the evidence to substantiate the long-running claims, or even the votes for impeachment.The campaign comes as McCarthy tries to hang on to his position as leader of Congress’s lower chamber, despite a mere four-seat Republican majority and rising discontent among its most extreme conservative lawmakers, who are upset over a deal McCarthy reached with Biden to raise the debt ceiling while cutting some government spending, and have demanded recompense in the form of an impeachment inquiry.“House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” McCarthy announced as lawmakers in Congress’s lower chamber resumed work following a month-long recess in August.“I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public. That’s exactly what we want to know – the answers. I believe the president would want to answer these questions and allegations as well,” McCarthy said.While impeachment can be the first step to removing a president from office, that appears unlikely to happen. If the House impeaches Biden, the matter would then go to the Senate, which would have to support his conviction with a two-thirds majority – a high bar to clear in a chamber currently controlled by Democrats. The White House spokesman Ian Sams called McCarthy’s announcement “extreme politics at its worst”.“House Republicans have been investigating the President for 9 months, and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing[.] His own GOP members have said so[.] He vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, now he flip flopped because he doesn’t have support,” Sams wrote on Twitter.The impeachment inquiry will be handled by the oversight, judiciary and ways and means committees, all of which are controlled by McCarthy allies and since the start of the year have spent much of their time trying to make corruption allegations against the president stick.In a sign of the paucity of the results of their efforts, reports indicate McCarthy does not yet have enough votes in support of impeaching Biden. Earlier this month, the speaker told Breitbart News, “If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person,” but backtracked on Tuesday, making no mention of holding a vote to start the investigation.The corruption allegations against the president have generally focused on his son Hunter, who has been under federal investigation since 2018. In July, the collapse of a plea agreement he reached with prosecutors to resolve charges related to failing to pay his income taxes for two years and lying about using drugs when buying a gun. Last week, prosecutors said Hunter Biden could be indicted on the gun charge by the end of the month.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRepublicans insist that Joe Biden illicitly profited from his son’s business dealings overseas, but have yet to turn up proof. In July, Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer spoke behind closed doors to the House oversight committee, and said the younger Biden would sometimes put his father on speakerphone during meetings.But the former vice-president “never once spoke about any business dealings”, Archer said, adding that he felt Hunter was trying to create an “illusion of access” to his father as he pursued deals in Ukraine.
This article was amended on 12 September 2023 to correct the number of seats that make up the Republican majority in the US House. More

A Virginia Democrat running in a closely contested legislative election has denounced reports that she and her husband engaged in sex acts livestreamed on an online platform in exchange for “tips”.Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner and a first-time candidate seeking a seat in Virginia’s house of delegates, shared the videos on a platform called Chaturbate.The videos, which were first reported by the Washington Post and then confirmed by the Associated Press, show Gibson urging viewers to provide tips in the form of Chaturbate tokens in exchange for her performance of specific sex acts with her husband.The videos were archived in 2022, though it is unclear when the live streams occurred.According to the Post’s report, a Republican operative first alerted the newspaper to the existence of the videos, which had been archived on another site. In a statement, Gibson denounced the report as a form of “gutter politics” and “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family”.“It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” Gibson said. “My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”A lawyer representing Gibson, Daniel P Watkins, told the Post that the videos may have violated Virginia’s revenge porn law, adding: “We are working closely with state and federal law enforcement.”Gibson’s district, located just north-west of Richmond, is considered one of just a handful of competitive seats in the race to control Virginia’s house of delegates. In the last legislative session, Republicans narrowly controlled the chamber, while Democrats maintained a slim majority in the state senate.The Virginia governor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, has invested heavily in his party’s efforts to take full control of the state legislature in November. If Republicans are successful, Youngkin would face few hurdles in enacting his legislative agenda, including a proposed 15-week abortion ban.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFollowing the overturning of Roe v Wade last year, many Republican-controlled states enacted new restrictions and, in some cases, bans on abortion access. Virginia is now the last remaining state in the US south without severe abortion restrictions, and Democrats fear that a Republican trifecta in Richmond would quickly move to curtail access to the procedure.The Democratic party of Virginia declined to comment. More

A group of Minnesota voters filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in their state, escalating the effort to disqualify the former president from running based on untested constitutional language that prohibits anyone who has “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.The voters are being represented by Free Speech for People, a left-leaning group that has aggressively been pushing to remove Trump from the ballot in several states. A similar lawsuit was filed in Colorado last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, another watchdog group.The petition, filed with the Minnesota supreme court, argues that Trump’s activities to overturn the election, including those on 6 January, amounted to engaging in insurrection. Section 3 of the 14th amendment says that anyone who takes an oath to the United States and then subsequently engages in “insurrection or rebellion against the same” is disqualified from holding public office.“The events of January 6, 2021 amounted to an insurrection or a rebellion under Section 3: a violent, coordinated effort to storm the Capitol to obstruct and prevent the Vice President of the United States and the United States Congress from fulfilling their constitutional roles by certifying President Biden’s victory, and to illegally extend then-President Trump’s tenure in office,” the petition says.The push to disqualify Trump under the 14th amendment gained steam after two prominent conservative legal scholars concluded he was disqualified under the language. The push for disqualification also picked up momentum after Trump was criminally charged, both by the justice department and in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the election. A conviction, however, is not required to disqualify him from running.“Donald Trump violated his oath of office and incited a violent insurrection that attacked the US Capitol, threatened the assassination of the vice-president and congressional leaders, and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history,” Ron Fein, Free Speech for People’s Legal director, said in a statement. “Our predecessors understood that oath-breaking insurrectionists will do it again, and worse, if allowed back into power, so they enacted the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause to protect the republic from people like Trump. Trump is legally barred from the ballot and election officials must follow this constitutional mandate.”Still, there is not widespread consensus on whether the challenges will be successful. Some scholars have questioned whether Trump’s conduct legally amount to insurrection (the justice department did not charge him specifically with that crime). It’s also unclear what the proper process and mechanism for disqualification is, or if one even exists at all.In Minnesota, Free Speech for People previously sent a letter to secretary of state Steve Simon, a Democrat, asking him to use his authority as the state’s top election official to disqualify Trump from the ballot. Simon responded by saying that his office didn’t have the power to investigate Trump’s eligibility, but that state law allowed for voters to bring legal challenges to a candidate’s qualifications in court.Trump is already taking action to try and head off the disqualification efforts. In Colorado, he is fighting to have the case removed from state to federal court. Trump’s campaign also publicized a letter on Tuesday from New Hampshire state legislatures urging the state’s top election official not to remove Trump from the ballot.“There is no legal basis for these claims to hold up in any legitimate court of law. The opinions of those perpetuating this fraud against the will of the people are nothing more than a blatant attempt to affront democracy and disenfranchise all voters and the former President,” the letter says.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe New Hampshire secretary of state has faced harassment as he weighs how to address issues around Trump’s eligibility. He has one of the most pressing deadlines because it will hold one of the first Republican primaries next year.
Join us for a livestreamed event on 26 September, Democracy and Distrust: Overcoming threats to the 2024 election More

The tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has “had conversations” with No Labels, a group considering launching a third-party candidate in the 2024 election.“I’ve had conversations with various folks who are associated with No Labels,” Yang told Politico.Asked “repeatedly” if the group had asked him to be its candidate in an election shaping up to be a repeat of Joe Biden v Donald Trump in 2020, Yang “side-stepped a direct response”, Politico said.“We have a lot of friends and people in common,” Yang said, while wearing a lapel pin promoting his own third-party effort, Forward, Politico noted.Citing polling which shows scant public appetite for a rematch between Biden, 80, and Trump, 77, as well as widespread concern about the two men’s ages, No Labels has trumpeted its fundraising for a possible third-party presidential tilt. Reporting, including by Mother Jones, has shown contributions from both sides of the political aisle.Names linked to a No Labels candidacy have included Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, and Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor of Maryland. Neither has counted out the possibility.No Labels has attracted widespread opprobrium from anti-Trump campaigners, who fear a third-party candidate could peel off Biden voters and hand Trump a White House return even as he faces 91 criminal charges – 17 concerning election subversion and 40 over retention of classified information – and assorted civil suits.On Tuesday, Reed Galen, a former Republican operative now part of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said: “If you didn’t think ⁦No Labels was dangerous and unserious before, check out them talking to ⁦Andrew Yang, an unserious person who would love to be considered dangerous.”Having made his fortune in tech-angled investing, Yang showed well in the 2020 Democratic primary before fading. In 2021, he ran for New York mayor.He told Politico he was an “anyone-but-Trump guy” and said: “I would not run for president if I thought that my running would be counterproductive, or if it would increase the chances of someone like Donald Trump becoming president again.”But he also said a Biden v Trump rematch would be “terribly unrepresentative and borderline ridiculous”, adding: “I mean, you’re talking about two guys whose combined age is [nearly] 160. In a country of 330 million people, you would choose these two gentlemen at this stage? I mean, it makes zero sense.”Third-party candidates have affected presidential elections. In 2000, the Green candidate, Ralph Nader, was widely seen to have peeled votes from the Democrat, Al Gore, in an election decided by fewer than 600 votes in Florida, in favour of the Republican George W Bush.In 2016, another Green, Jill Stein, and the Libertarian, Gary Johnson, were seen to have undermined the Democrat, Hillary Clinton, in a tight election won by Trump.Yang told Politico he thought the 2024 Green candidate, the academic Cornel West, would get more votes than Stein. He also predicted that Robert F Kennedy, the conspiracy theorist challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination, would be the Libertarian candidate.Asked who he would vote for, he said: “The field’s still coming together.” He also said he would appear with Marianne Williamson, a self-help author also running for the Democratic nomination.No Labels did not comment.Yang is promoting a novel, The Last Election, co-written with Stephen Marche. In publicity material, the book is described as “a gripping, intricately plotted political thriller set on the campaign trail of the USA’s next and – because of crucial flaws in the electoral system – its last election”. More