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      Ohio city’s mayor issues emergency order over false migrant rumors

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      The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, has issued an emergency proclamation following the continued rise in public safety threats over false rightwing rumors about the city’s migrant communities.On Thursday, Rob Rue released a statement, saying: “Ensuring the safety of Springfield’s residents is our top priority.” He added: “We are addressing these threats with the seriousness they warrant and are taking immediate steps to ensure the security of both our community and our employees. Our commitment to preventing harm is unwavering.”According to a city statement, the proclamation allows Rue and other city officials to “swiftly acquire resources needed to address potential threats” and will “enable departments to respond more efficiently to emerging risks, including civil unrest, cyber threats and potential acts of violence”.In recent days, following Donald Trump, JD Vance and other rightwing politicians publicly repeating falsehoods about the city’s Haitian immigrants eating other locals’ pets, the city has received more than 30 bomb threats against its schools, government buildings and city officials’ homes.On Wednesday, local outlets reported multiple clinics and grocery stores across the city being forced to evacuate because of bomb threats. Among the establishments forced to evacuate were two branches of Walmart, one Kroger supermarket, as well as the Pregnancy Resource Center of Clark county and Planned Parenthood in Springfield.In response to the spread of the false rumors on social media, then taken up full throat by Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and his running mate Vance, Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, also a Republican, said such escalations by national figures were “very hurtful” to the Haitian migrant community, adding: “They need to stop.”On Tuesday, Vance defended his comments about Haitian migrants eating pets, saying at a Wisconsin rally that “the media has a responsibility to factcheck” stories, rather than the candidate or his campaign. Earlier this week, Vance admitted on CNN that he was willing to “create stories” to get media attention.Trump and Vance have been told repeatedly by various authorities in Springfield and Ohio that the rumors about pets and animals such as local ducks are not true. More

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      Senate leader Schumer moves to avert shutdown after House speaker’s ‘flop’

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      The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, on Thursday took a procedural step toward setting up a vote next week on a government funding extension as the House scrambles to avert a shutdown starting on 1 October.Schumer’s move comes a day after the Republican-led House rejected a proposal by the speaker, Mike Johnson, that would have linked a six-month stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, with a controversial measure backed by conservatives mandating that states require proof of citizenship to register to vote.The final vote was 202 to 220, with 14 House Republicans and all but three House Democrats opposing the bill. Two Republican members voted “present”.At a press conference on Thursday, Schumer lamented Johnson’s approach, saying that the speaker “flopped right on his face” by pushing a GOP plan. As Congress awaits Johnson’s next move, Schumer said he was setting up a vote for early next week on a legislative vehicle for a bipartisan funding bill.“If the House can’t get its act together, we’re prepared to move forward,” he said.It remains unclear which chamber will act first on government funding, which expires at midnight on 30 September. If the Democratic-led Senate moves ahead with its proposal, it could force the Republican-led House to either agree to the continuing resolution, which conservatives oppose, or risk a shutdown just weeks from election day.Donald Trump, the former president and Republican nominee who has championed baseless claims of widespread non-citizen voting, has called on Johnson to reject any funding measure unless it includes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act.“If Republicans don’t get the Save Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a continuing resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday.Speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday, Schumer accused Trump of agitating for a shutdown and urged Republicans not to “blindly follow” the former president.“How does anyone expect Donald Trump to be a president when he has such little understanding of the legislative process? He’s daring the Congress to shut down,” Schumer said. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”Earlier this week, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, warned House Republicans that a shutdown so close to the 5 November election was politically risky and could have electoral consequences.“The one thing you cannot have is a government shutdown,” McConnell said on Tuesday. “It would be, politically, beyond stupid for us to do that.” More

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      AOC introduces legislation for low-cost housing programme backed by US funding

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Congress member for New York, has introduced legislation aimed at establishing an ambitious social housing programme that would see millions of new homes being built with US government funding.With Tina Smith, a Democratic senator for Minnesota, Ocasio-Cortez has introduced the Homes Act in the House of Representatives to address what they call a “housing crisis” that has left millions of low-income people unable to find rental accommodation they can afford. Smith has introduced the proposed legislation in the Senate.If passed, it would provide federal funding for millions of new homes and apartments that would have to remain affordable by law.The initiative comes against the backdrop of mounting concern that has seen soaring housing costs emerge as one of the salient campaign issues in the forthcoming presidential election.Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has tried to address it by pledging $25,000 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers – a proposal which critics say would drive up house prices.In their joint legislation, Ocasio-Cortez and Smith propose setting up an authority within the the Department of Housing and Urban Development to acquire properties and provide homes with explicit tenant protections.It would also set rents based on tenants’ incomes and mandate permanently affordable purchase prices.The homes would be run by non-profit organisations, housing associations or cooperatives.“For generations, the federal government’s approach to housing policy has been primarily focused on encouraging single-family homeownership and private investment in rental housing,” Ocasio-Cortez and Smith wrote in an editorial in the New York Times, which argues that the current system has led to America’s 44 million private tenants struggling to meet rental payments.They blame high rents and home shortages on decades-old “restrictive zoning laws” and rising building costs, meaning not enough new housing has been built.“There is another way: social housing,” they say. “Instead of treating real estate as a commodity, we can underwrite the construction of millions of homes and apartments that, by law, must remain affordable. Some would be rental units; others would offer Americans the opportunity to build equity.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe pair argue that the model already exists in some European cities, including Vienna, as well as in some projects in Ocasio-Cortez’s native New York, and in St Paul in Smith’s home state.Citing the New York complex of Co-op City in the Bronx as one template, they write: “[It] stands as not only one of the largest housing cooperatives in the world – with its own schools and power plant – but also the largest, naturally occurring retirement community in the country, a testament to its financial and social sustainability.”They invoke research estimating that their proposal could build and preserve 1.25m new homes, including more than 850,000 for the lowest-income households.“This is the federal government’s chance to invest in social housing and give millions of Americans a safe, comfortable and affordable place to call home – with the sense of security and dignity that come with it,” Ocasio-Cortez and Smith conclude. More

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      Uncommitted movement declines to endorse Harris – but warns against Trump presidency

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      The Uncommitted National Movement announced that it will not endorse Kamala Harris for president, saying on Thursday she failed to respond to the movement’s requests that she meet with Palestinian families in Michigan and to discuss a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza by 15 September.“Vice-President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear statement in support of upholding existing US and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her,” Abbas Alawieh, an Uncommitted leader and delegate from Michigan, said during a press conference on Thursday.After the Democratic national convention last month, Uncommitted leaders sent a letter to Harris and her senior advisers voicing their dissatisfaction with the DNC’s refusal to allow a Palestinian American to speak, as well as reiterating their demands for a ceasefire and engagement with people who have been affected by Israel’s war on Gaza. In a response to movement leaders on Sunday, Harris’s team said “they don’t have particular engagements that they can point us to, but they can keep us updated as things develop”, Alawieh said. Harris’s campaign added that it would continue to be open to opportunities to engage with communities on vital issues.However, the movement’s leaders who helped mobilize more than 700,000 Americans to vote “uncommitted” or its equivalent in Democratic party primaries throughout the nation also acknowledged the danger of Donald Trump winning the election.“At this time, our movement opposes a Donald Trump presidency whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” said Alawieh. “And our movement is not recommending a third-party vote in the presidential election, especially as third-party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency, given our country’s broken electoral college system.”For months, the movement had urged Harris to demonstrate a shift in her policy on Gaza, where more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, to no avail, said the Uncommitted leader and Palestinian American Lexis Zeidan.“We urge uncommitted voters to register anti-Trump votes and vote up and down the ballot. Our focus remains on building this anti-war coalition, both inside and outside the Democratic party,” said Layla Elabed, a leader of the Uncommitted National Movement and a Palestinian American.In a statement, a Harris campaign spokesperson said: “[T]he Vice President is committed to work to earn every vote, unite our country, and to be a President for all Americans. She will continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”The uncommitted movement originated in Michigan, where more than 100,000 people cast “uncommitted” ballots to signal to Biden their dissatisfaction with his Gaza policy, before spreading to Democratic primaries throughout the nation. A June CBS poll showed that a majority of Americans believe that the US should not send weapons to Israel, including 77% of Democrats.Arab American voters in Michigan and other swing states will play a critical role in the presidential election. Joe Biden won Michigan, where 278,000 Arab Americans live, by just 154,000 votes in 2020. Four years earlier, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes.Several Arab and Muslim American leaders have endorsed Harris in recent months, including the Black Muslim Leadership Council Fund and the US representative Ilhan Omar. Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, which disbanded after the Democratic national convention because of its denial of a Palestinian American speaker, reaffirmed their support for Harris a week later.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe uncommitted leaders who spoke on Thursday were split on their voting plans for the top of the ticket. Alawieh said that he plans to vote for Harris so that he can continue with his anti-war efforts, despite her lack of alignment with his values on the issue. “But I am concerned with Donald Trump’s very specific plans to suppress pro Palestinian human rights organizing,” he said.As a Palestinian American with family in the occupied West Bank, Elabed said, whenever she’s questioned on her voting choice, she feels like she’s “being asked that question at a funeral”. While she said that she won’t vote for Harris, Trump or a third-party candidate for president, she continued: “I will be going out to vote and ensuring that I’m voting up and down the ballot for candidates that I have a shared value with.”Zeidan said that she also plans to abstain from voting at the top of the ticket. “Still, I’m open to having that very perspective change as it relates to what VP Harris and the administration and her campaign plan to do between now and November,” she said.Until the November election, the Uncommitted National Movement plans to continue applying pressure on the Biden administration to adopt an arms embargo on Israel and support a permanent ceasefire, as well as to block a Trump presidency. Over the next few months, Zeidan said, the movement will produce content “that is cutting through the noise and building coalitions that are going to continue to challenge both Trump’s extremism and also Harris’s status quo”. They will also continue to educate voters on the risk of a Trump presidency and will continue pushing Harris to stop sending arms to Israel.“The Democratic party, pro-war forces like [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] want to drive us out of the Democratic party, but we won’t concede,” said Elabed. “We’re here to stay.” More

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      Confusing language on gerrymandering proposal will stay on Ohio’s ballot

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      Ohio voters will see misleading language when they go to vote on an anti-gerrymandering proposal this fall after the state supreme court greenlit the deceptive wording written by Republicans.The Republican-controlled Ohio ballot board approved the language on Wednesday in a 3-2 party-line vote, two days after the Republican-led state supreme court voted 4-3 to correct various defects the justices found in what the board had already passed. The court’s ruling, however, did not require the ballot board to rewrite some of the most significant portions of the amendment.If enacted, the proposal – Issue 1 – would strip lawmakers of their power to draw the boundaries for state legislative and congressional districts and hand it to a 15-person bipartisan independent commission composed of regular citizens. The panel would be constitutionally prohibited from distorting district lines to give one party an unfair advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering.But the language the Ohio ballot board approved for the ballot says that the panel would be “required to gerrymander”. Citizens Not Politicians, the group behind the 5 November amendment, sued last month, asserting the language “may be the most biased, inaccurate, deceptive, and unconstitutional” the state has ever seen.In an unsigned opinion, the state supreme court said the language was acceptable. Because the panel would be required to draw districts that roughly represented the partisan results in recent statewide Ohio elections, it was not misleading to say that the panel would be required to gerrymander, the court majority said. “They mandate the new commission draw district boundaries that give a political advantage to an identifiable group – Republicans in some districts and Democrats in others,” the court said.The high court ordered two of eight disputed sections of the ballot description to be rewritten while upholding the other six the issue’s backers had contested. The court’s three Democratic justices dissented. “What the ballot board has done here is tantamount to performing a virtual chewing of food before the voters can taste it for themselves to decide whether they like it or not,” Justice Jennifer Brunner wrote for the dissent.Republicans, who currently control the mapmaking process, drew districts that gave them a distorted advantage and repeatedly ignored prior rulings from the state supreme court to redraw the lines.State senator Paula Hicks-Hudson, one of the two Democrats who sit on the ballot board, told reporters after it met: “This was done and it was created for the main purpose of hoodwinking voters.” The Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, who chairs the board, did not take questions from the press after the vote.In Monday’s opinion, the high court’s majority noted that it can only invalidate language approved by the ballot board if it finds the wording would “mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters”. The majority found most of the language included in the approved summary and title did not do that but merely described the extensive amendment in detail.The two sections that justices said were mischaracterized involve when a lawsuit would be able to be filed challenging the new commission’s redistricting plan and the ability of the public to provide input on the mapmaking process.The exact language of the constitutional amendment will be posted at polling locations. More

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      Pelosi criticises McConnell for failing to hold Trump accountable over January 6

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      Nancy Pelosi has criticised Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Senate minority leader, for failing to hold Donald Trump accountable for inspiring the violent January 6 mob to attack the US Capitol in a bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives whose office was vandalised in the attack, also told Semafor she felt sorry for McConnell, who has endorsed Trump’s current campaign for the White House despite being repeatedly insulted by the former president.McConnell “knew what had happened on January 6”, Pelosi said.“He said the president was responsible and then did not hold him accountable.”She added that she and other congressional leaders unsuccessfully begged Trump to send in the national guard while the mob besieged the building.In the days after the riot – which resulted in five deaths at the time, with four police officers killing themselves in the following seven months – McConnell gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he said Trump was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events”.However, he voted to acquit Trump in a Senate trial after the House had impeached Trump for a second time. A Senate conviction, which needs a two-thirds majority to pass, could have barred Trump from holding elective office again. In the event, 57 senators – including just seven Republicans – voted to convict, 10 short of the numbers needed.McConnell’s vote contradicted his belief that Trump was guilty, according to the book This Will Not Pass, by the New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns. “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is,” the book quotes McConnell as saying, adding that he also said holding Trump to account should be left to the Democrats. “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” the book says he told two associates.Explaining the contradiction, McConnell apparently told a friend: “I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference.”In 2022, McConnell criticised the Republican National Committee for censuring Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, GOP House members at the time, over their role in a Democrat-led congressional investigation into January 6. Kinzinger and Cheney have since left Congress and are among several prominent Republicans who have endorsed Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy.“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” McConnell said in response to the censure.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAsked if she had any advice for McConnell – who will step down as the GOP leader in November but will remain in the Senate – Pelosi said: “I feel sorry for Mitch McConnell.”Pelosi has not always been so scathing. She issued a generous tribute when McConnell announced his decision to step down from the Senate leadership, saying: “Mitch McConnell is to be recognized for his patriotism and decades of service to Kentucky, to the Congress and to our country. He and I have worked together since we were appropriators … While we often disagreed, we shared our responsibility to the American people to find common ground whenever possible.”Trump has frequently targeted McConnell for abuse and has aimed racial slurs at his wife, Elaine Chao, who served as transportation secretary in his administration.The former president has variously described McConnell as a “broken-down crow”, a “stone-cold loser” and a “dumb son of a bitch”. More

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      Is circular migration a solution to the crisis at the US border? Guatemala provides a clue

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      Arnoldo Chile, 33, drives his old Toyota pickup truck through the orchards that stretch across the slopes of the mountains surrounding the Guatemalan community of El Rejón in Sumpango, about 45 minutes from Antigua Guatemala, one of the country’s leading tourist destinations. People in this small village in the Sacatepéquez department rely almost entirely on agriculture as their primary source of income.View image in fullscreenHowever, most struggle to make a living, leading to poverty and social exclusion. Facing these challenges, several of Chile’s neighbours have emigrated illegally to the US, hoping to make enough money to support their families.His case, however, is different. Thanks to the circular migration programme by the Cuarto Pinos agricultural co-operative and the Juan Francisco García Foundation, he obtained an H-2A visa that allows him to work in agriculture in the US for several months each year.“At first, I was a bit sceptical that this project could work; I thought it might be a scam like others that have happened in Guatemala before. But since my first time in 2016, I’ve been to the US several times under this programme,” says Chile.He harvested broccoli, cabbage and lettuce in the early years, eventually being promoted to row boss, assisting the supervisor. “I earned $19 (£14.50) an hour and made about $3,500 (£2,700) a month, while here in Guatemala, I could only earn about $450 (£340) a month,” he says.Using his earnings, Chile bought a small plot of land near his village, El Rejón, and now provides work for several family members, primarily in blackberry production.View image in fullscreenAs migration across the US-Mexico border hit its lowest level in three years in the first few months of 2024, driven by the Joe Biden administration’s strict enforcement policy, the humanitarian costs of crossing are mounting. People arriving from South and Central America stranded in Mexico are facing increasing dangers, and reports of deaths at the border are on the rise.In this context, Guatemala’s circular migration offers legal, safer pathways for workers to make a living in the US and support their home communities – surely a better alternative to the migration crisis in the Americas.An estimated 2.9 million Guatemalans live outside their country, mainly in the US. According to Úrsula Roldán, who has a PhD in geography and is the director of the Institute of Socio-Humanistic Sciences at Rafael Landívar University, they usually migrate to escape low incomes, poverty and the risk of social exclusion in a country where the state often fails to meet their needs for education, health and other basic public services.Another reason, she says, is chain migration, when individuals already established in the US call for their relatives to join them. “With the climate crisis, the country has been facing floods and droughts that further worsen this situation. This results in crop failures, leaving rural families in even more dire conditions in Guatemala,” Roldán adds.The results of circular immigration leave scholars such as Roldán in little doubt about its efficiency. The immediate families of regular migrants who participate in these programmes receive better education and healthcare access, which is crucial in avoiding social exclusion.View image in fullscreen“This project was created in response to a combination of economic, social and environmental factors affecting rural families in our country,” says Vanessa García, the head of social responsibility at Cuatro Pinos. “Many families seek better job opportunities, and remittances sent by migrants have become a crucial source of income, motivating many to migrate irregularly.”Different studies suggest that over the years, gender roles tend to shift within families with regular migrants, showing a greater focus on gender equity and a gradual empowerment of women, those who migrated and those who remained in the home country managing the family income.“The communities have seen improvements in development as migrants have bought more land and increased their vegetable production for export, providing jobs for women and men in their communities,” says García.View image in fullscreen“There have also been improvements in housing, education, and the nutrition of their children, which is essential. Some families have also started businesses within the community,” she adds.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionElsewhere in El Rejón, Juan Francisco Yucute, 32, reviews the accounts of the small store he managed to open with his wife, thanks to the money he made working in the US under the circular migration programme, where he earned about $12 (£9) an hour. He participated in the scheme on four occasions, and was away for four to five months each time.View image in fullscreenHe is has left the programme, as the company he worked for in Arizona no longer needed him. However, the money he saved allowed him to start his small business and build two adjacent premises he now rents to neighbours.“My wife and I used to work in the fields before I went to the US, just like most people in our community,” says Yucute, who thought about going to the US illegally until he heard about the circular migration scheme. “My idea of opening the store was so that she and my daughters could have a less strenuous job than agriculture, where you have to spend hours under the sun and rain, and in a village where the roads to the fields are dangerous.”According to a report, the expenses for circular migration typically range between $500 (£382) and $1,000 (£765), covering administrative costs, travel and other fees. This is significantly less than the $12,000 (£9,200) to $15,000 (£11,500) demanded by smugglers for irregular entry into the US, a method that does not always guarantee success.“For migrants, using coyotes [people smugglers] is an alternative route to reach the US. We know that US anti-immigration policies have tightened border controls, which has increased the risks posed by drug trafficking and organised crime along the migration route, making circular migration a viable option,” says Roldán.View image in fullscreenThe process to obtain a temporary work visa in the US is complex. It can take up to 120 days, as the Department of Labor requests certification to justify hiring foreign workers where there is no local workforce. If no local candidates are found for the position, the employer can apply for a visa for foreign workers and often starts international recruitment with the help of specialised agencies.Despite increasing numbers of Guatemalans seeking H-2A and H-2B visas to take part in circular migration programmes, irregular migration continues to prevail. In 2022, it was estimated that about 11,000 temporary workers from Guatemala arrived in the US under circular migration programmes.However, these numbers are significantly lower compared with the 55,302 Guatemalans deported by air from the US or the 222,085 encounters with law enforcement while attempting to cross the US border illegally in 2023.View image in fullscreenBlanca Paola Canel, 25, is well acquainted with this situation as her husband emigrated to the US irregularly. She choose to stay in their village of San José Yalú, near Sumpango, where she now runs the bakery they started together two years ago. Since then, her business has thrived. Not only has she succeeded, but she has also employed some of her relatives and several local young people.“I know many people from here who went to the US illegally. As for me, I never wanted to leave because I have this business that I need to oversee and manage,” says Canel. “I’ve been able to sustain and expand the business and offer employment to five or six people. I hope we can continue to create jobs in Guatemala.” More

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      JD Vance is factually challenged – and morally deficient | Margaret Sullivan

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      There was a moment when JD Vance could have turned back from the story.After the vice-presidential candidate posted on social media about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets – based on the flimsiest of supposed evidence – a Vance staffer checked it out.“His staff member asked Springfield’s city manager if the claim was true,” according to new Wall Street Journal reporting. The city manager responded clearly: “I told him no … I told him these claims were baseless.”Then and there, Vance could have deleted the post, which had already done damage. He could have disavowed it and tried to limit the harm.Nothing doing. He left the post up and Donald Trump immediately took it from there. As nearly 70 million people watched, the former president blasted the lie out to the world at the presidential debate.We know what followed: not just viral memes and hip-hop songs that feature the words: “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”It was far worse. Bomb threats plagued Springfield’s hospitals, and officials closed schools. Racist rhetoric circulated, harming the lives of Vance’s own constituents – he is, after all, an Ohio senator.Innocent people were portrayed as villains. Despite all the Trump campaign’s trashing of “illegals”, the Haitian immigrants in Springfield are largely there legally, through a temporary protected status, as the Guardian recently reported. Local business owners say they have been a welcome addition to the city’s workforce.But Vance is fine – more than fine – with having turned rumors into real damage.He told CNN that he is willing “to create stories” to focus the media’s attention on his and Trump’s relentless, though often false, message about the harm that immigrants are doing to American society – and of course to blame Trump’s Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, at every turn.Vance’s rejection of the chance to take down his original post speaks volumes about how he and Trump operate. And his doubling down by asserting that making up lies is acceptable should be a red-alarm warning – yet another – about a second Trump term. There are so many.The ugly episode reminds me of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway’s remark to NBC News’s Chuck Todd soon after the 2016 election. As Trump spread ego-driven nonsense about the unprecedented size of his inaugural crowd – and insisted that his press secretary Sean Spicer do the same – Conway offered a blithe defense.Spicer, she said, was merely providing “alternative facts”.“Look, alternative facts are not facts,” Todd pointed out. “They’re falsehoods.” Or, as the mainstream media has finally brought itself to say: they are lies.Nearly eight years later, the Trump team is even bolder about lying, expressing that practice not just as defensible but a necessity. It spreads hatred so efficiently.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis chapter is sad – even tragic – for many reasons. The continual rejection of truth by some of the most prominent people in public life does real damage, not only to innocent people’s lives and to a community’s safety, but more broadly to our society and democracy.One bit of heartening news emerged amid all this ugliness. As the Wall Street Journal reporters explored the original rumor about pets in Springfield, a Vance spokesperson came up with a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by her Haitian neighbors.But when a reporter checked it out by going to Anna Kilgore’s house, she told him that her cat, Miss Sassy, had returned a few days after having gone missing.Imagine that: not stolen, not eaten, Miss Sassy was found safe – in Kilgore’s own basement.Afterwards, with the help of a translation app, Kilgore did the right thing: she apologized to her Haitian neighbor. That apology was a touch of human decency amid the ugliness.Don’t look for any such thing from Vance or Trump. They have no regrets, and – on the contrary – take all of this as proof that their methods are working very well indeed.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More