US Politics

Trump porn star payment a ‘zombie case’ that wouldn’t die, ex-prosecutor says in bookMark Pomerantz writes of frustration of attempt to make hush money to Stormy Daniels a money-laundering case Donald Trump’s hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels is a “zombie case” that keeps coming back from the dead, a former New York prosecutor writes in a new book published as his former office once again considers filing criminal charges against the former president over the matter.Prosecutors likened Trump to mob boss and had to prove he wasn’t insane – bookRead morePeople vs Donald Trump: An Inside Account, will be published in the US on Tuesday. It has been extensively reported. The Guardian received a copy.Mark Pomerantz’s book has proved controversial, not least because it arrives as the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, continues to investigate Trump, empaneling a grand jury hearing evidence about the Daniels payment. Bragg and Pomerantz, who fell out over the investigation of Trump, have exchanged broadsides in the media.On the page, Pomerantz lists numerous matters on which he says New York prosecutors considered charging Trump, including his tax affairs, his relationships with financial institutions including Deutsche Bank and Ladder Capital, property deals in Washington and Chicago, and leases at Trump Tower in Manhattan.But he says the Daniels payment came to seem a viable way to take Trump on.Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims to have had an affair with Trump in 2006. He denies it, but in 2016, as he ran for president, his then lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet.News of the payment broke in early 2018, when Trump was president. Trump was revealed to have reimbursed Cohen for the payment but only Cohen paid a legal price, his breach of election finance law contributing to a three-year prison sentence. Trump has never been charged.In his book, Pomerantz writes that he came to view the payment as a potential money-laundering offence.“If Clifford had gotten money by threatening to tell the world that she had slept with Donald Trump,” he writes, “that sounded like extortion to me. And if it was extortion, then maybe the hush money she received could be regarded as criminal proceeds, so action taken to conceal Trump’s identity as the source of the money was chargeable as money laundering.”This, Pomerantz writes, was “a new idea, and I got enthusiastic about it”. He shared his ideas with other investigators, he says, and “the return to life of the hush money facts as a potential basis for prosecution sparked a nickname for this part of the investigation … the ‘zombie’ case, because it was alive, and then it was dead, and now it had sprung back to life”.Pomerantz writes that he thought the “zombie case” was “very strong”, as the basic facts were “readily provable”. He describes Cohen’s willing cooperation and evidence that Trump directed Cohen to lie about the payment in the Oval Office itself.In late February 2021, Pomerantz says, he sent a memo to the New York district attorney, then Cy Vance Jr, outlining the “zombie case” and its vital contention that the $130,000 Cohen paid Daniels was “‘dirty money’, or the proceeds of a crime”.He admits he was presenting “a somewhat awkward construct”, in part as he would have to prove Trump was a victim of blackmail.Cohen’s description of Trump’s reaction to Daniels’s claims helped. Pomerantz writes: “I asked what words did they use, and his answer was that Trump referred to it as ‘fucking blackmail’. That was more than sufficient for my purposes.”But Pomerantz says his “creative theorising smacked into [the New York district attorney’s] cautious and conservative culture”. Other investigators “balked” at his extortion theory, he writes, partially because it would be hard to prove Daniels had physically threatened Trump, as necessary under New York law.Pomerantz then focused on Daniels’s lawyer and extracting information from federal prosecutors in New York. But he said he came upon “a new legal problem” which returned the “zombie case” to its grave.Under New York law, he writes, the money Daniels received “had to qualify as ‘criminal proceeds’ when Cohen sent it; otherwise sending was not money laundering. If the money became criminal proceeds only when received, the crime of money laundering had not taken place.”And so the “zombie case” was dead again.Pomerantz describes a brief flutter back to life, when he and colleagues were “contemplating an indictment that featured false business records … which would bring the ‘zombie’ theory back from the dead once again”.But Bragg, who succeeded Vance as Manhattan district attorney, became a lightning rod for liberals when he was reported to have backed away from indicting Trump on any charge. Pomerantz resigned in February 2022, accusing Bragg of acting “contrary to the public interest”.On Sunday, discussing Trump’s tax affairs, Pomerantz told CBS: “If you take the exact same conduct, and make it not about Donald Trump and not about a former president of the United States, would the case have been indicted? It would have been indicted in a flat second.”Pomerantz also called Bragg’s decision not to indict Trump a “grave failure of justice”.Bragg told the New York Times Pomerantz “decided to quit a year ago and sign a book deal”.“I haven’t read the book and won’t comment on any ongoing investigation because of the harm it could cause to the case,” Bragg said.Bragg did secure a conviction against the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, on tax charges. Not long after that, the investigation of the Daniels payment was reported to be ongoing.Trump complained about “a continuation of the Greatest Witch Hunt of all time”.But Pomerantz’s “zombie” case has bounced back from the grave once again.In his book, Pomerantz says that if the hush money case is the only one the New York DA pursues against Trump, it will be “a very peculiar and unsatisfying end to this whole saga”, given that “persistent fraud … permeated [Trump’s] financial statements”.“That case involves serious criminal misconduct, [but] it pales in comparison to the financial statement fraud.”TopicsBooksDonald TrumpPolitics booksUS politicsUS crimeMichael CohenStormy DanielsnewsReuse this content More

Biden has revived democratic capitalism – and changed the economic paradigmRobert ReichThe president’s domestic successes offer a rebuke to disciples of Reagan: the ‘free market’ has never existed How can inflation be dropping at the same time job creation is soaring?Schools and universities are ground zero for America’s culture war | Moira DoneganRead moreIt has taken one of the oldest presidents in American history, who has been in politics for over half a century, to return the nation to an economic paradigm that dominated public life between 1933 and 1980, and is far superior to the one that has dominated it since.Call it democratic capitalism.The Great Crash of 1929 followed by the Great Depression taught the nation a crucial lesson that we forgot after Ronald Reagan’s presidency: the so-called “free market” does not exist. Markets are always and inevitably human creations. They reflect decisions by judges, legislators and government agencies as to how the market should be organized and enforced – and for whom.The economy that collapsed in 1929 was the consequence of decisions that organized the market for a monied elite, allowing nearly unlimited borrowing, encouraging people to gamble on Wall Street, suppressing labor unions, holding down wages, and permitting the Street to take huge risks with other people’s money.Franklin D Roosevelt and his administration reversed this. They reorganized the market to serve public purposes – stopping excessive borrowing and Wall Street gambling, encouraging labor unions, establishing social security and creating unemployment insurance, disability insurance and a 40-hour workweek. They used government spending to create more jobs. During the second world war, they controlled prices and put almost every American to work.Democratic and Republican administrations enlarged and extended democratic capitalism. Wall Street was regulated, as were television networks, airlines, railroads, and other common carriers. CEO pay was modest. Taxes on the highest earners financed public investments in infrastructure (such as the national highway system) and higher education.America’s postwar industrial policy spurred innovation. The Department of Defense developed satellite communications, container ships and the Internet. The National Institutes of Health did trailblazing basic research in biochemistry, DNA and infectious diseases.Public spending rose during economic downturns to encourage hiring. Even Richard Nixon admitted “we’re all Keynesians”. Antitrust enforcers broke up AT&T and other monopolies. Small businesses were protected from giant chain stores. By the 1960s, a third of all private-sector workers were unionized.Large corporations sought to be responsive to all their stakeholders – not just shareholders but employees, consumers, the communities where they produced goods and services, and the nation as a whole.Then came a giant U-turn. The Opec oil embargo of the 1970s brought double-digit inflation followed by the Fed chair Paul Volcker’s effort to “break the back” of inflation by raising interest rates so high the economy fell into deep recession.All of which prepared the ground for Reagan’s war on democratic capitalism.From 1981, a new bipartisan orthodoxy emerged that the so-called “free market” functioned well only if the government got out of the way (conveniently forgetting that the market required government). The goal of economic policy thereby shifted from public welfare to economic growth. And the means shifted from public oversight of the market to deregulation, free trade, privatization, “trickle-down” tax cuts, and deficit-reduction – all of which helped the monied interests make more money.What happened next? For 40 years, the economy grew but median wages stagnated. Inequalities of income and wealth ballooned. Wall Street reverted to the betting parlor it had been in the 1920s. Finance once again ruled the economy. Spurred by hostile takeovers, corporations began focusing solely on maximizing shareholder returns – which led them to fight unions, suppress wages, abandon their communities and outsource abroad.Corporations and the super-rich used their increasing wealth to corrupt politics with campaign donations – buying tax cuts, tax loopholes, government subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees, non-bid government contracts and government forbearance from antitrust enforcement, allowing them to monopolize markets.Democratic capitalism, organized to serve public purposes, all but disappeared. It was replaced by corporate capitalism, organized to serve the monied interests.Joe Biden is reviving democratic capitalism.From the Obama administration’s mistake of spending too little to pull the economy out of the Great Recession, he learned that the pandemic required substantially greater spending, which would also give working families a cushion against adversity. So he pushed for the giant $1.9tn American Rescue Plan.This was followed by a $550bn initiative to rebuild bridges, roads, public transit, broadband, water and energy systems. And in 2022, the biggest investment in clean energy in American history – expanding wind and solar power, electric vehicles, carbon capture and sequestration, and hydrogen and small nuclear reactors. This was followed by the largest public investment ever in semiconductors, the building blocks of the next economy.Notably, these initiatives are targeted to companies that employ American workers.Biden has also embarked on altering the balance of power between capital and labor, as did FDR. Biden has put trustbusters at the head of the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the justice department. And he has remade the National Labor Relations Board into a strong advocate of labor unions.Unlike his Democratic predecessors, Biden has not sought to reduce trade barriers. In fact, he has retained several from the Trump administration. But unlike Trump, he has not given a huge tax cut to corporations and the wealthy. It’s also worth noting that in contrast with every president since Reagan, Biden has not filled his White House with former Wall Street executives. Not one of his economic advisers – not even his treasury secretary – is from the Street.I don’t want to overstate Biden’s accomplishments. His ambitions for childcare, eldercare, paid family and medical leave were thwarted by senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. And now he has to contend with a Republican House.Biden’s larger achievement has been to change the economic paradigm that has reigned since Reagan. He is teaching America a lesson we once knew but have forgotten: that the “free market” does not exist. It is designed. It either advances public purposes or it serves the monied interests.Biden’s democratic capitalism is neither socialism nor “big government”. It is, rather, a return to an era when government organized the market for the greater good.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
TopicsState of the Union addressOpinionJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsDemocratsUS domestic policyUS economycommentReuse this content More

Trump documents: Congress offered briefing on records kept at Mar-a-LagoLawmakers may not be satisfied given subsequent discoveries involving Joe Biden and Mike Pence US officials have offered to brief congressional leaders on their investigation into classified documents found at Donald Trump’s Florida residence, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.Ted Cruz wants two-term limit for senators – and a third term for himselfRead moreA briefing could come as soon as this week but may not meet demands from lawmakers who want to review documents taken not just from Mar-a-Lago but also from the Delaware home and former Washington office of Joe Biden and the Indiana home of Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence.Six months after agents at Mar-a-Lago conducted an unprecedented search of a former president’s home, the Biden White House faces bipartisan pressure to share what it found. Separate special counsels are investigating documents found in the possession of Trump and Biden.Officials have declined to answer most questions about what they found at Mar-a-Lago, citing the ongoing criminal investigation and a separate “risk assessment” of possible damage to intelligence sources.Mike Turner, who chairs the House intelligence committee, told NBC’s Meet the Press the administration told him it would brief this week.“This administration needs to understand we do have national security urgent matters,” the Ohio Republican said. He also called on the White House to brief him on the Chinese balloon shot down off the Carolinas on Saturday.He said: “What’s interesting is that the moment this balloon became public, I got a notice not from the administration that I’m going to get a briefing on this balloon, but they have to rush to Congress now to talk to us about Donald Trump’s documents.”Three people familiar with the matter confirmed a briefing was offered to the “gang of eight” – the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and both intelligence committees. The people spoke on condition of anonymity. Any briefing is not expected to include direct access to documents, the people said.Senators Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate intelligence committee, asked for that access in a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines.It was unclear if the administration will discuss the Biden and Pence records. Turner told NBC records linked to Biden and Pence would be included but two sources said the briefing was expected to focus on Trump.The director of national intelligence and Department of Justice declined to comment.The justice department says around 300 documents with classified markings, including at the top-secret level, were recovered from Mar-a-Lago last August. FBI agents executed a search warrant after evidence led them to believe Trump and his representatives had not returned all classified files.Material taken included around 13,000 government documents, about 100 bearing classification markings. Some material was so sensitive justice department prosecutors and FBI investigators required additional security clearance.A special counsel, Jack Smith, is investigating whether to bring charges against Trump or anyone else. Prosecutors have said they are investigating possible violations of criminal statutes including willful retention of national defense information and obstruction. A grand jury in Washington has been hearing evidence and prosecutors have interviewed Trump associates.Trump has claimed the materials were declassified and that he had the power to do so just by thinking – a claim his lawyers have not repeated. They tried to have an independent arbiter conduct a review of the documents. A federal appeals court said Trump’s team was not entitled to that assessment.TopicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS SenateUS politicsUS national securitynewsReuse this content More

Ted Cruz wants two-term limit for senators – and a third term for himselfTexas senator says he ‘never said I’m going to unilaterally comply’ with his own proposed restriction Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to limit US senators to two terms in office, thereby removing from Washington what he calls “permanently entrenched politicians … totally unaccountable to the American people”.Buttigieg backs Biden 2024 run but poll says most Americans don’tRead moreOn Sunday, however, he said he saw no problem with running for a third term himself.“I’ve never said I’m going to unilaterally comply,” the Texas senator said.Cruz was speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation.Elected to the US Senate in 2012, Cruz emerged as a face of the Republican hard right through stunts including reading Dr Seuss and impersonating Darth Vader during a marathon floor speech and prompting a government shutdown.Such behaviour did not make him popular in Congress. Al Franken, then a Democratic senator, once said, “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”Nonetheless, Cruz challenged strongly for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, finishing the primary second to Donald Trump.After a brief spell as a rightwing alternative to Trump, Cruz won a second term in 2018 despite a strong challenge from the Democrat Beto O’Rourke.Cruz’s name now features, if not strongly, in polling regarding the notional field for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 – when he will be up for Senate re-election.Congressional term limits are a popular policy offering on the American right.Introducing his bill to achieve a constitutional amendment, an effort mounted with Ralph Norman, a House Republican from South Carolina, Cruz said term limits were “critical to fixing what’s wrong with Washington DC”.Bemoaning “a government run by a small group of special interests and lifelong, permanently entrenched politicians … totally unaccountable to the American people”, he said: “Terms limits brings about accountability that is long overdue”.On Sunday, his CBS host, Margaret Brennan, said: “You introduced a bill to limit terms to two six-year terms in office for senators. Why aren’t you holding yourself to that standard? You said you’re running for a third term.”Cruz said: “Well, listen, I’m a passionate defender of term limits. I think that Congress would work much better if every senator were limited to two terms, if every House member were limited to three terms. I’ve introduced a constitutional amendment to put that into the constitution.”Brennan said: “But you’re still running.”Cruz said: “And if and when [the term limits amendment] passes I will happily, happily comply. I’ve never said I’m going to unilaterally comply. I’ll tell you what, when the socialists and when the swamp …”Brennan interrupted, asking: “Are you running for president?”Cruz carried on, saying “… are ready to leave Washington, I will be more than happy to comply by the same rules that apply for every one. But until then, I’m going to keep fighting for 30 million Texans because they’ve asked me to do” so.Brennan said: “I think you’ve heard me ask if you’re running for president.”Cruz said: “I’m running for re-election to the Senate. There’s a reason I’m in Texas today. I’m not in Iowa, I’m in Texas, and I’m fighting for 30 million Texans.”In 2018, 4.26 million Texans voted to send Cruz back to the Senate. More than 4 million voted to restrict him to one term.TopicsTed CruzRepublicansUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsTexasnewsReuse this content More

Buttigieg backs Biden 2024 run but poll says most Americans don’tPoll shows 60% of Democrats want someone else as 2024 nominee and nearly 50% of Republicans want someone other than Trump Nearly 60% of Democrats and nearly 50% of Republicans want someone other than Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be their party’s nominee for president in 2024, a new poll showed on Sunday.Biden faces ‘tightrope’ in balancing realism and optimism in State of the UnionRead moreA key member of Biden’s cabinet, however, insisted Biden’s record in office was more important than any “generational argument” for change.Among Americans overall, the poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, released two days before Biden’s State of the Union address, showed that 62% would be “dissatisfied” or “angry” if Biden were re-elected in two years’ time, while 56% said the same about Trump returning to the role he lost in 2020.A little more than a third of all respondents (36%) said they would be “enthusiastic” or “satisfied but not enthusiastic” if Biden were re-elected. For Trump, that total was 43%.Biden’s secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union.Asked if he thought arguments for generational change, such as he advanced in his own presidential run two years ago, might be gaining strength, the 41-year-old said: “Generational arguments can be powerful [but] the most powerful argument of all is results.“I would say you can’t argue with a straight face that it isn’t a good thing that we have had 12 million jobs created under this president. And, by the way, a lot of the jobs are in manufacturing.“As somebody who grew up in the industrial midwest, it’s been so moving to see hundreds of thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs being created, including in rural areas, small towns in places like Tennessee and Louisiana, and Georgia and Indiana, the kind of growth that benefits the entire American people.”In 2020, a presidential election between Biden and Trump was fought in the shadow of Covid-19 but produced huge turnout, Biden taking more than 81m votes to more than 74m for Trump.Pursuing his lie about voter fraud, Trump sought to overturn his defeat, leading to the deadly Capitol riot and a second impeachment, for inciting that insurrection.Acquitted after sufficient Republicans stayed loyal, Trump is still the only declared candidate for the GOP nomination in two years’ time. Biden has said he intends to run but has not officially declared his candidacy.Already the oldest president inaugurated for the first time, Biden would be 82 when inaugurated for a second term and 86 by the end of his time in office. Trump would be 77 on his return to the White House.On leaving the White House this week, Biden’s first chief of staff gave a heavy hint that Biden will run.“As I did in 1988, 2008 and 2020, I look forward to being on your side when you run for president in 2024,” Ron Klain said, prompting applause from staff and a smile from Biden.Buttigieg said: “I think, when you look at what America was up against when President Biden took office, and what has been delivered just in these first two years of this administration … I think those results are going to continue to accumulate.“People will toss whatever argument they can into the mix that they think is going to benefit them the most. But at the end of the day you can’t argue with the extraordinary accomplishments, more than almost any other modern president, that President Biden has achieved under the toughest of circumstances.”According to the Post-ABC poll, a 2024 match-up between Biden and Trump would land 48%-45% in Biden’s favour: “A gap within the poll’s margin of error”.TopicsUS elections 2024US politicsPete ButtigiegJoe BidenDonald TrumpDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

Schools and universities are ground zero for America’s culture warMoira Donegan It’s easy to get people riled up and panicked about kids, about a changing culture and about lost innocence. That’s exactly what the right is doing You could be forgiven for losing track of all the lurid and inventive ways that Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor with presidential ambitions, has attacked education in his state. Last year he signed the Don’t Say Gay bill, a nasty little law that bans classroom discussion of sexuality or gender identity issues – effectively forcing children and teachers alike to stay silent about their families and lives, under the threat of lawsuits. The bill caused confusion and controversy, frightening gay students and teachers, leading to preemptive compliance in some sectors and defiant disobedience in others – and, not coincidentally, drawing quite a bit of culture-war attention to DeSantis himself.Since then, the Florida governor has repeated the playbook in increasingly ambitious fashion. Last April, DeSantis signed the exhaustingly titled “Stop Woke Act,” which restricts lessons on racial inequality in public schools. The bill prohibits the teaching of material that could cause a student to “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress,” due to US racial history – the implication being that these are not appropriate responses to an encounter with this history, or that protection from such emotions is more important than a confrontation with the facts.In mid-January, DeSantis’ Department of Education issued new guidance to educators, saying that all books that have not been approved by a state compliance censor – euphemistically termed a “school media specialist” – should be concealed or removed from classrooms. Because the law deems some books “pornographic” or “obscene,” it also creates the possibility that teachers who provide books that feature LGBT content to students could be given third-degree felony charges. The guidance prompted teachers in several populous counties to remove books from their classrooms altogether. Photos of bare shelves in classroom libraries went viral; other teachers hid the books from students’ view, draping them behind ominous curtains of paper. There were reports of children crying, and begging for the books back.DeSantis has also set about narrowing the scope of inquiry for all students – not just those in Florida – by picking a very public fight with the College Board. The private organization runs much of America’s standardized testing regime, as well as the nationwide Advanced Placement, or AP, program, a series of courses that allow high school students to receive college credits at a lesser cost.Last month, DeSantis announced that he would ban the AP African American studies course, saying that the course, which had initially included readings on Black feminism, the Black queer experience, and the Black Lives Matter movement, violated his Stop Woke Act, and was “pushing an agenda on our kids.” In response, the College Board almost immediately dropped the offending material from their curriculum, eliminating instruction in the work of Black feminist thinkers like bell hooks, Angela Davis, and Audre Lorde, and making study of the Black Lives Matter movement “optional.” Instead, the course now encourages research into Black conservatism. The changes to the curriculum are not localized to Florida – they apply to students nationwide. DeSantis’ war on education, it seems, is now a national affair.As for the activities that are still permitted in schools, DeSantis seems determined to make them as invasive, dangerous, and unpleasant as possible. His administration is weighing whether to require all girls on school athletic teams to answer detailed questions about their menstrual periods in order to participate in sports. The interrogations could come as DeSantis fights to keep trans girls out of sports, and as his Florida Republican party moves to tighten Florida’s abortion ban from an already-strict 15 weeks, to six. The questions would likely discourage sports participation for teenage girls, who would be made to face invasive, intimate, and embarrassing inquiries from prurient adults as a precondition of their athletic lives.And that’s just DeSantis’ agenda for K-12 education. Last week, the governor announced a sweeping agenda to overhaul the state’s public universities, aiming to make their curricula more conservative by eliminating tenure protections for progressive faculty and requiring courses on “Western Civilization.” He’s started with the New College of Florida, a small liberal arts honors college with an artsy reputation. There, DeSantis installed a new board made up of Christian college administrators, Republican think-tank denizens, and the right-wing online influencer Christopher Rufo. The board promptly fired the college president, and has set about reshaping the mission and instruction of the college in DeSantis’ image.Much of the right-wing culture war that has emerged since the onset of the pandemic has focused on schools, and in crass political terms, it’s not hard to see why DeSantis has chosen to attack education. Schools are spaces where lots of voters – and crucially, lots of the white, conservative voters that DeSantis needs to mobilize – feel they have a stake. It’s easy to get people riled up and panicked about kids, easy to pray on people’s protectiveness towards their children as a way to exploit their anxieties about the future, about a changing culture, about lost innocence. And frankly, it’s easy to get people to be mad at teachers: you would be surprised how easily grown men can be prodded into reviving an old adolescent resentment of a teacher’s scolding authority.But there is a more foundational reason why DeSantis and the far right are attacking education: it is the means by which our young people are made into citizens. Schools and universities are laboratories of aspiration, places where young people cultivate their own capacities, expose themselves to the experiences and worldviews of others, and learn what will be required of them to live responsible, tolerant lives in a pluralist society.It is in school where they learn that social hierarchies do not necessarily correspond to personal merit; it is in school where they discover the mistakes of the past, and where they gain the tools not to repeat them. No wonder the DeSantis right, with it’s fear of critique and devotion to regressive modes of domination, seems to hostile to letting kids learn: education is how kids grow up to be the kinds of adults they can’t control.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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George Santos accused of sexual harassment by congressional aideDerek Myers alleges he was put to work as a volunteer before controversial Republican touched him and asked him over The embattled New York Republican congressman George Santos has been accused of sexual harassment by a former aide.George Santos’s lies are so big you almost have to admire them | Emma BrockesRead moreSantos already faces local, state, federal and international investigations over professional and personal behaviour, campaign finance filings and a campaign résumé shown to be largely made-up.He has admitted embellishing his résumé but denied wrongdoing and said he will not resign, as members of his own party and Democrats have repeatedly urged him to do.Republican leaders who must govern with a slim House majority have stood by him, though he has withdrawn from two committees.On Friday, the former aide, Derek Myers, published on Twitter a letter to the House ethics committee in which he claimed to have been put to work in Santos’s office as a volunteer, in violation of ethics rules, and to have been harassed.“Today,” he wrote, “I filed a police report with Capitol police and a complaint with the House ethics committee regarding ethical violations and sexual harassment by Congressman George Santos during my time working in his office.Myers added: “These matters will not be litigated on social media or through news media. They are serious offenses and the evidence and facts will speak for themselves if the committee takes up the matter. This tweet is being made public in light of transparency.”In his letter, Myers wrote that he was “alone with the congressman” in his personal office on 25 January, going over constituents’ mail.“The congressman earlier in the day had asked me if I had a Grindr profile,” Myers wrote, “which is widely known as an LGBTQ+ social networking app, more commonly used for sexual intercourse”.Santos told him he had a profile, he said.In the personal office, Myers alleged, Santos “called me ‘buddy’ and insisted I sit next to him on a small sofa”.The congressman, Myers said, put a hand on his knee and asked if he wanted to go out to karaoke. Myers said he declined, whereupon Santos moved his hand to Myers’ inner thigh and groin.Myers alleged Santos said: “My husband is out of town tonight if you want to come over.” Myers said he pushed Santos away and left the office.Five days later, he wrote, he was asked, as he had been during his hiring process, about his background as a journalist in Ohio, where he faced wiretapping charges after publishing recorded court testimony. The next day, Myers says, he was “informed that my job offer was being rescinded”.The New York Times reported that a spokesperson for the ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee acknowledged receipt of Myers’ letter. The paper said Capitol police did not confirm receipt of a report.Santos’s lawyer declined to comment, the paper said.On Thursday, Santos told Semafor he did not hire Myers because of the Ohio charges. Santos’s chief of staff said the same to Talking Points Memo (TPM), to which Myers gave a recording of the conversation with Santos in which he was let go.Santos said Myers’ charges in Ohio were “not concerning to us, it’s concerning to this institution”. Myers told TPM that as Santos spoke, he was “thinking to myself, ‘I’m a threat and concern to this institution – George Santos, you’re George Santos!’”TopicsGeorge SantosRepublicansUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Biden faces ‘tightrope’ in balancing realism and optimism in State of the Union President’s second address on Tuesday comes at a critical moment, as House Republicans are eager to damage his 2024 election prospectsJoe Biden’s second annual State of the Union address on Tuesday comes at a critical juncture for the president, as he contemplates a second term. ​The race for the 2024 election is on. But who will take on Trump?Read moreHe faces a newly empowered House Republican majority eager to damage ​his political prospects with investigations into him, his administration and his family while a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents brings a degree of legal uncertainty.​In recent weeks, the country has also been convulsed yet again by mass shootings and police brutality while states continue to grapple with the consequences of the supreme court decision ending the constitutional right to abortion. And on Saturday the US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon​ ​​after it floated across the country, roiling diplomatic relations between the nations at a time of already heightened tensions. ​Yet there are welcome bright spots for a president emboldened by his party’s history-defying performance in the November midterm elections. Since then, Democrats have largely rallied around Biden as their standard-bearer in 2024, amid the possibility of a rematch against Donald Trump.The economic outlook has brightened. The coronavirus public health emergencies are set to expire in May, three years after they were declared, with the majority of US adults now vaccinated. At home, Biden has an arsenal of legacy-defining achievements to tout. And on the world stage, the global coalition he rallied in support of Ukraine remains strong.Chris Whipple, author of The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, said the president’s challenge on Tuesday will be to strike the right balance between optimism and realism – highlighting the progress he’s made since his last address to a joint session of Congress, particularly on Covid and the economy, while acknowledging that there is more work left to do.“It’s a tightrope,” he said. “He has to take credit for what he’s achieved without sounding too celebratory.”Halfway through his first term, the president’s own position is precarious. Nearly two-thirds of Americans, on average, believe the country is on the wrong track. His approval ratings remain mired in the low 40s with many Americans unconvinced of the 80-year-old’s desire to stand for re-election.Striking a defiant tone ahead of Tuesday’s primetime address, Biden previewed his diagnosis of the state of the union. Like many of his recent predecessors, he declared it “strong.”“I’m happy to report that the state of the union and the state of our economy is strong,” Biden said on Friday, celebrating an unexpectedly strong jobs report.“Today’s data makes crystal clear what I’ve always known in my gut,” he added. “These critics and cynics are wrong. While we may face setbacks along the way, and there will be some, there is more work to do, it’s clear our plan is working.”EconomyOn the economy, Biden is likely to point to signs of improvement.Unemployment is the lowest it’s been in nearly half a century. Inflation, after reaching a 40-year peak, is finally relenting, though still painful for many American households. On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve announced the smallest hike in interest rates in almost a year, signaling a more cautious approach as it tries to rein in inflation without triggering a recession. But worrying indicators remain.“Looking backward, the economy is in a very good place, with the good things still good and the bad things getting better,” said Jason Furman, who served as the chair of the White House council of economic advisers under Barack Obama. “Looking forward, there’s still a tremendous amount of uncertainty as to whether that can last.”A major focus for the Biden administration over the next two years will be to implement the sweeping legislative policies he enacted during the first years of his presidency – a trillion-dollar infrastructure law; a sweeping health and climate package and major new investments in domestic, hi-tech manufacturing.Of pressing concern is the looming deadline to raise the federal debt ceiling. Economists are warning of a financial crisis if Congress fails to lift the country’s borrowing cap as House Republicans are threatening to do unless the president accepts steep cuts to federal spending. Already the treasury department has said it is resorting to “extraordinary measures” to ensure that the US can continue paying its bills.It is unclear if Biden will explicitly address the brinkmanship on Tuesday, with the new House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, seated behind him on the dais for the first time. But the stakes remains high for the president – and the country’s economy.UkraineNearly a year ago, Biden’s state of the union address – and his presidency – were upended by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Assuming the mantle of world leader, the US president used his speech to rally the nation and its allies behind Ukraine. Since then the US has sent billions of dollars in humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine. Last month, Biden approved sending battle tanks to Ukraine, a significant escalation in the US effort to counter Russian aggression.But with the war nearing its first anniversary, and public support for Ukraine softening slightly, analysts hope Biden uses Tuesday’s address to explain why the US is committed to Ukraine’s success – and what that support will look like going forward.“The future of the international system as we understand it runs through Ukraine,” said Heather Conley, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. From China to Iran to North Korea, she said anti-democratic forces are studying how the global response to the brutal war in Ukraine.“If Ukraine and therefore the United States and the west are not successful, that sends a powerful message to [those] leaders,” Conley said. “So I hope the president uses this moment to make a convincing case to the American people why we have to stick to this course of action.”Police reformA president’s state of the union address is often a highlight reel of accomplishments, mixed with a wishlist of policy proposals and direct appeals to the American people. The president will invite guests who represent policy successes or help to make the moral case for action.Ahead of the speech, activists have urged the president to use his executive authority to expand abortion protections and declare a climate emergency. And the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was brutally beaten by Memphis police officers and died days later, has reignited calls for police reform.Nichols mother and stepfather are expected to be in the chamber for Biden’s speech on Tuesday, likely ensuring the issue will not go unaddressed.Vice-president Kamala Harris, who will also be seated behind Biden on Tuesday, delivered a call to action at Nichols funeral last week. Yet the prospect for passing federal policing reforms remains dim.Rashad Robinson, president of the racial justice organization, Color of Change, urged Biden to come with a plan – not a list of policies that will never pass a Republican-controlled House.“Beyond rhetoric and tone or even specific policies, I’m interested in the president talking about strategy,” Robinson said, adding: “You don’t get a whole lot of moments like a State of the Union. We need to use this opportunity to give people marching orders.”Other guests on Tuesday include Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old man hailed as a hero after he disarmed a gunman who opened fire at two dance halls in Southern California during Lunar New Year celebrations earlier this month.After a spate of mass shootings last year, Biden signed into law the first gun reform legislation in decades. But the legislation fell far short of what the president and activists had called for.Moments after the president finishes his remarks, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the newly elected governor of Arkansas and Trump’s former press secretary, will deliver the Republican rebuttal.“The American people deserve better than Democrats’ runaway inflation, surging crime, open borders, and failing schools,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said in a statement. He added that Sanders, who at 40 is currently the youngest governor in the country, would deliver a “sharp contrast with this exhausted and failing administration”.Embracing the opportunity, Sanders said: “We are ready to begin a new chapter in the story of America – to be written by a new generation of leaders ready to defend our freedom against the radical left and expand access to quality education, jobs, and opportunity for all.”With Republicans intent on making Biden a one-term president, should he run again, the president has signaled that he will spend the next two years focusing the public on what he has already accomplished – and making the case for the policy priorities he has yet to achieve.The president “looks forward to speaking with Republicans, Democrats, and the country about how we can work together to continue building an economy that works from the bottom up and the middle out, continue boosting our competitiveness in the world, keep the American people safe, and bring the country together”, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a statement.Following the state of the union she said Biden, Harris and other cabinet officials ​would “blitz” the country to promote his agenda.TopicsState of the Union addressJoe BidenUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More