US Politics

US inflation climbed to 8.5% in March, highest rate since 1981War in Ukraine drives up energy costs as figures strengthen expectations Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next month Prices in the US climbed at their highest rates since 1981, rising 8.5% over the year to the end of March as the war in Ukraine drove up energy costs for Americans, the labor department announced on Tuesday.The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) – which measures the prices of a basket of goods and services – comes after the index rose by 7.9% in the year through February, the fastest pace of annual inflation in 40 years.Driven up by continuing supply chain problems, soaring demand and rising energy prices, inflation is now at levels unseen in the US since Ronald Reagan took the White House from Jimmy Carter.Biden heads to Iowa to unveil plan to reduce gas prices as inflation soars – liveRead moreThe price increases are broad – with the cost of rent, gas and food causing particular hardship for lower income Americans and represent a major blow to the Biden administration, already facing tough odds of retaining control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.Soaring gas prices were the main driver of the rise. The gasoline index rose 18.3% in March and accounted for over half of all the items’ monthly increase. Gas prices have begun to fall, in a sign that some economists have argued may suggest inflation has reached its peak.The food index rose 1% in March compared with February, and is up 8.8% compared with the prior 12 months. Canned fruit and vegetable prices rose 3.8% from February to March, rice prices rose 3.2%, potatoes 3.2% and ground beef 2.1%.Andrew Hunter, senior US economist at Capital Economics, said energy prices would come down in the months ahead and there were signs that price pressures appear to be moderating.But, he added, the figures were likely to strengthen the Federal Reserve’s plan to increase interest rates as it struggles to tamp down inflation.“With Fed officials sounding more hawkish by the day, the March data won’t change their plans to up the pace of rate-hikes to 50 basis points per meeting from next month. Even so, it does support our view that, having been slow to realize that the initial surge wasn’t transitory, Fed officials are now being a bit too pessimistic about how quickly inflation will drop back,” he wrote in a note to investors.The White House warned ahead of the report it was expecting a bad set of figures. On Monday White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the labor department’s previous report had not included the majority of the jump in oil and gas costs caused by the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.“We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike,” Psaki said.There are two versions of the CPI, one that includes all the prices consumers face and another – core CPI – which excludes food and energy prices, which tend to be more volatile. Core prices climbed 6.5% in the year through March, up from 6.4% in the year through February.The core index did suggest the pace of inflation was slowing, rising 0.3% from February, compared with 0.5% the prior month.Psaki said the administration expected a wide disparity between the two measures because of the soaring price of gas. Nationally the average price of a gallon of gas is now $4.11, compared with $2.86 a year ago, according to AAA.“At times, gas prices were more than one dollar above pre-invasion levels, so that roughly 25% increase in gas prices will drive tomorrow’s inflation reading,” Psaki said.Joe Biden addressed the latest inflation figures at a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, where he announced plans to use more ethanol in US fuel during the summer in an attempt to tackle high gas prices. “I am doing everything in within my executive power to bring down the Putin price hike,” he said. TopicsUS economyInflationEconomicsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Much ado about Doug: second gentleman takes spotlight at Shakespeare debate Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, argues in a mock trial hosted by the Shakespeare Theatre Company and presided over by Stephen Breyer“I haven’t been in court for a few years, so excuse me if I’m a bit rusty,” said Doug Emhoff. “You know, not too much has changed in my life – except for the Secret Service, Air Force Two, the selfies, the cameras following me everywhere, and oh: my wife is the vice-president of the United States.”Mood as light as spring air as Ketanji Brown Jackson delivers words to rememberRead moreThe theatre erupted in whoops and clapping. Kamala Harris, sitting in the fifth row with her sister Maya, blew kisses through a black face mask and applauded her husband.It was one of those only-in-Washington moments. On Monday, the Shakespeare Theatre Company hosted a “mock trial” inspired by William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing and presided over by retiring supreme court justice and good sport Stephen Breyer.Much Ado is best known for Beatrice and Benedick, two proud intellects who only fall in love after others play Cupid. That seemed fitting for Harris and Emhoff, who were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend and married just shy of their 50th birthdays.But the question before the not-so-serious court was: should Margaret be held liable for Don John’s defamation of Hero? Emhoff, who was a prominent entertainment lawyer for nearly 30 years, was lead advocate on Margaret’s behalf.The event, full of inside-the-Beltway topical gags, had been due to take place last month but was postponed after the second gentleman came down with coronavirus.“I thank your honours for granting my motion for a continuance due to plague,” began Emhoff, wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and blue tie, and standing at a lectern under bright stage lights. “The White House apothecary told me my symptoms would be wild but – whew!”The mock trial is a longstanding Shakespeare Theatre Company tradition but had gone virtual for the past couple of years, due to the pandemic. Monday marked a return to an in-person audience at the Sidney Harman Hall but it was also livestreamed.Emhoff, an amiable and slightly goofy presence, remarked: “My parents tonight are watching the livestream but I might have told them that I was arguing in front of the United States supreme court so, cameraperson, can you just keep a very tight shot … ?”The second gentleman faced quick-fire questioning from Breyer and four leading judges from the District of Columbia and Virginia.“How do you define woman?” asked one, a nod to the recent esoteric questioning of the supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson by Republican senators.Tongue firmly in cheek, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she was interested in Beatrice and Benedick.“He says he doesn’t want to marry anyone but I think it’s clear from the text that his real concern is that if he marries somebody who’s really pretty and is really smart and witty, she could turn out to be the one who is better known and more prominent than he is.”There was laughter from the audience. There was more when Emhoff responded dryly: “As I say, your honour, I used to be somebody.”The judges – relishing a chance to let their hair down – also made references to Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars, Britney Spears’s conservatorship, Downton Abbey, Republicans Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.Emhoff was careful not get too political. One judge asked: “So when Beatrice tore up her love letters, making them unavailable to investigators, was that a violation of the imperial records act? If so, is Merrick Garland going to get around to that?”The second gentleman demurred: “There’s certain things I’m not allowed to talk about.”Simon Godwin: how the British director is taking on US theatreRead moreBut he did take a deft swipe at Donald Trump’s oldest son, during his defence of Margaret.“She was just an unwitting pawn in the scheme of the real villain here, the self-described villain: Don Jr – I mean, Don John.”The case against Margaret was put by Debra Katz, a DC litigator and founding partner of Katz, Marshall & Banks. The judges and the theatre audience ruled in her favour, whereas the audience watching via livestream sided with Emhoff.Harris then took to the stage, gave Emhoff a hug, posed for photos and and spoke with those assembled including Britain’s Simon Godwin, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company.Someone managed to get a selfie with Emhoff before the Secret Service trod the boards and encouraged Harris to exit, stage right.TopicsUS politicsThe US politics sketchKamala HarrisDemocratsWilliam ShakespeareTheatrenewsReuse this content More

US tells some consulate staff to leave Shanghai as Covid outbreak worsensState department cites risk of children and parents being separated as EU warns zero-Covid strategy eroding investor confidence

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The US has said it has asked all its non-essential staff and their family members at the Shanghai consulate to leave, in Washington’s latest response to the financial hub’s handling of the worsening Covid outbreak.The state department ordered the departure “due to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak” there, according to a spokesperson from its Beijing embassy. “It is best for our employees and their families to be reduced in number and our operations to be scaled down as we deal with the changing circumstances on the ground,” the person said on Tuesday.Washington’s latest move came after the state department on Friday announced that non-emergency personnel could voluntarily leave the Shanghai consulate. It is not clear why the departure of those workers had become mandatory in a short span of a few days.‘This is inhumane’: the cost of zero Covid in ShanghaiRead moreChina responded angrily to the earlier voluntary departure order, saying Beijing was “strongly dissatisfied” with and “firmly opposed” the US’s “groundless accusation” about China’s Covid policy.Shanghai’s handling of the latest Covid outbreak has made international headlines in the last few weeks. But the most controversial of its practices had been separating Covid-positive children from their parents. Although the authorities have since made some concessions, the state department cited the risk of parents and children being separated in its announcement.Shanghai on Tuesday reported 22,348 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases and 994 symptomatic cases for 11 April, the local government said. Asymptomatic cases were down from 25,173 a day earlier. The symptomatic cases rose from 914.The harsh lockdown in China’s most populous city – home to nearly 26 million people – has also caused a backlash among its residents. In the last few weeks, many patients have complained about being unable to access medical care facilities. Stories of food shortages have prompted citizens in other parts of China to rush to stockpile goods.The situation in Shanghai has also led the EU chamber of commerce to warn that China’s zero-Covid strategy was “eroding foreign investors’ confidence”. In a letter, it urged the Chinese government to shift its approach by giving the Chinese population access to mRNA vaccines and allowing people with mild symptoms to quarantine at home.Despite international pressure, Beijing did not seem able to adjust its zero-Covid policy, said Chen Zhengming, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University. “China is in such a dilemma right now that if it sticks to this policy there’d be big burden to the economy and cause secondary disasters such as [those] in medical care. But if it loosens the policy, there may be a huge spike in new infections.”On Monday, Shanghai authorities started easing lockdown in some parts of the city, despite reporting a record of more than 25,000 new Covid cases. Residents of neighbourhoods where there have been no positive cases for at least two weeks were allowed some degree of freedom, but they were not allowed to travel to those still under severe lockdowns.Chinese officials admitted the situation in Shanghai was concerning. “The epidemic is in a rapid increase phase, with social transmission still not brought under effective control,” said Lei Zhenglong of the National Health Commission at a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday. “The forecast for the next few days is that the number of infected people will remain at a high level.”TopicsChinaCoronavirusAsia PacificUS foreign policyUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

The Republican judge blocking her party from rigging electoral districts Some Republicans are calling for Ohio supreme court chief justice Maureen O’Connor’s impeachment because she is refusing to let them distort electoral districts to their advantageIn one of the final acts in a 24-year political career, the Republican chief justice of the Ohio supreme court is defying her party and refusing to let them distort electoral districts to their advantage, a move that has some fellow Republicans calling for her impeachment.Get the latest updates on voting rights in the Guardian’s Fight to vote newsletterSince January, Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has served as the decisive vote on three separate occasions blocking Ohio Republicans from enacting proposed state legislative maps. She also sided with Democrats to block an initial GOP proposal for congressional districts before going into effect in January. Those decisions have prompted chatter among Republicans about impeaching O’Connor, 70, who will leave the court after nearly two decades at the end of this year because she has reached the mandatory retirement age for judges in Ohio.O’Connor has a long independent streak. A decade ago, she joined a dissent when the supreme court upheld the state legislative districts drawn by Republicans. “I broke away from the mould in some people’s minds,” she would later say of that decision. “Party affiliation should not – and people have to understand it should not – have anything to do with how a judge does their job.”In 2018, she joined with the lone Democrat on the court to dissent from a ruling upholding the forced closure of the last abortion clinic in Toledo. She has backed criminal justice and bail reform, as other Ohio Republicans are pushing to make it harder for someone to be released on bond. She has called for less partisan influence in the way judges are elected in the state. In 2020, just before the presidential election, she blasted the state Republican party for accusing a local judge of colluding with Democrats, saying the attack was “disgraceful and deceitful”.“She’s no shrinking violet. She’s got sharp elbows,” said Paul Pfeifer, a Republican who served on the supreme court with O’Connor from when she joined in 2003 until he retired in 2017. “​​No amount of public criticism is going to change her mind if she feels that she’s right in the position she’s taking.”William O’Neill, a Democrat who served with O’Connor on the court from 2013 to 2019, said she was the justice he wound up voting with the most. They were the only two members of the court who dissented in 2018 in the Toledo abortion clinic case.“She can be swayed to reasonable arguments,” he said. “Her legacy is already carved in stone. The stand she is taking is consistent with her entire career.”She’s also one of the most successful politicians in the history of Ohio, said David Pepper, a former chair of the Ohio Democratic party. She’s been elected five times statewide, none of which have been close. The then Ohio governor, Robert Taft, picked the former prosecutor to be his running mate in 1998 to add law enforcement experience to the ticket. Once she was elected lieutenant governor, she oversaw the state’s department of public safety, taking on a leading role after the 9/11 attacks. She would travel overseas with troops being deployed from Ohio, even though that doesn’t typically fall within the responsibilities of her role.“She took the initiative to do that and I would say it was above and beyond what she would have to do in her role,” Taft said in an interview. “She was part of our team but she was also her own person. She was an independent thinker.”She was elected to the court in 2002, and became chief justice in 2010.Now, O’Connor and the court are not backing down in their refusal to let Republicans in the state get away with one of the most brazen efforts to gerrymander electoral districts to their benefit.A new provision in the Ohio constitution requires partisan makeup of the state’s 132 legislative districts roughly reflect the partisan breakdown of statewide elections over the last decade, which is 54% Republican and 46% Democrat. The three plans Republicans have passed so far, and a fourth one currently pending before the court, however, would enable Republicans to win a veto-proof majority in the legislature in a favorable year for the party.“The constitutional violations of the maps that the Ohio redistricting commission continues to pass are obvious,” said Jen Miller, the executive director of the Ohio chapter of the League of Women Voters, which is involved in suits challenging the plans.Republicans have forged a sneaky attempt to enact their maps. The initial plan the court struck down in January would have given them control of 64.4% of districts. They then submitted a new plan to the court that nominally had the required 54-46 split, but several of the districts were barely majority Democratic – essentially toss-ups – meaning Republicans could still win them in a favorable election. After the court rejected that plan, Republicans came back with a third plan that slightly increased the Democratic majority in those districts, which was again rejected by the court. Last month, Republicans submitted a fourth plan that took the same approach.“It’s a pure power play,” said Paul Beck, a retired political science professor at the Ohio State University. “It’s almost like they’re saying we have the power to do this and so we’re gonna do it.”O’Connor has bluntly called out the way Ohio Republicans are abusing the redistricting process. The first time the court struck down the legislative maps, back in January, she went out of her way to write a concurring opinion urging Ohio voters to strip lawmakers of their redistricting power entirely.“Having now seen first-hand that the current Ohio Redistricting Commission– comprised of statewide elected officials and partisan legislators – is seemingly unwilling to put aside partisan concerns as directed by the people’s vote, Ohioans may opt to pursue further constitutional amendment to replace the current commission with a truly independent, nonpartisan commission that more effectively distances the redistricting process from partisan politics,” she wrote.The standoff has left Ohio at a chaotic impasse. Unlike supreme courts in other states, like Virginia that have stepped in to draw maps, the Ohio supreme court is prohibited from making its own plan. Early voting began on 5 April without state legislative districts on the ballot. Last month, a coalition of civic action groups challenged the maps to request that the redistricting commission be held in contempt for failing to comply with the court’s orders.The hard line from O’Connor and three other Democrats on the supreme court, where Republicans have a 4-3 majority, is extremely consequential. This is the first redistricting cycle the partisan fairness requirements are in effect (voters approved them overwhelmingly through a ballot measure in 2015). By refusing to accept the Republican maps, O’Connor and the court are setting a precedent that signals how aggressively the justices are going to police partisan gerrymandering.“The consequence of caving would be a disaster. This has gone from a battle over democracy in Ohio to a battle over democracy and the rule of law in Ohio,” said Pepper, the former Democratic party chair. “No other citizens who violate the law four times get rewarded for it.”After the court blocked Republican maps for the third time, Republicans in the statehouse began openly weighing her impeachment, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “It’s time to impeach Maureen O’Connor now,” Scott Wiggam, a GOP state Representative, tweeted. “I don’t understand what the woman wants,” state representative Sara Carruthers told the Dispatch. Ohio’s secretary of state, Frank LaRose, a Republican who sits on the panel that draws districts, said recently he would not stand in the way of an impeachment effort, saying “she has not upheld her oath of office”.Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican who also sits on the redistricting panel, has been more outspoken against impeachment. “I don’t think we want to go down that pathway because we disagree with a decision by a court, because we disagree with a decision by an individual judge or justice,” he said in March.Though it’s unclear if the impeachment effort will move forward, many doubted it would succeed.Both O’Neill and Pfeifer, the former justices who served with O’Connor said they were confident the impeachment efforts would not affect her work. “What in the world is she supposed to have done that violated her oath of office?,” O’Neill said.“It will have the opposite effect of what they’re seeking.”TopicsOhioFight to voteUS politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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Biden announces ghost gun restrictions, seeks to end ‘terrible fellowship of loss’

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Joe Biden said it was “basic common sense” to want untraceable, so-called ghost guns off the street, during a White House address to announce new firearms restrictions.
In an event at the Rose Garden attended by numerous survivors and families of victims of gun violence, the president said he was clamping down on the kit-form guns to try to prevent others joining the “terrible fellowship of loss.”
He also took a swipe at Republicans in Congress, and the gun rights lobby, including the national rifle association (NRA), that have opposed his efforts to enact reform.
“The gun lobby tried to tie up the regulations and paperwork for a long, long time. The NRA called this rule I’m about to announce extreme,” Biden said. More

Republican-run states mimic Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ bill in chilling wave of gag ordersOver 156 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced or refiled in 39 states since January 2021, according to report Since Florida passed its controrversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill, conservative states across America have been taking on similar style bills as they attempt to ban the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms.Last month, Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education bill. The law prohibits all discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, a move that advocates say will “erase” LGBTQ+ students and history.Since the bill’s introduction and passage, various Republican-run states have filed similar legislation that mimics Florida’s, reflecting a chilling wave of speech and identity restrictions across the country.Over 156 gag order bills have been introduced or refiled in 39 states since January 2021, according to a February report by Pen America, a nonprofit that seeks to protect freedom of expression in the US. At least 105 of those target K-12 schools, 49 target higher education and 62 include mandatory punishments for those found in violation.“Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill is just the tip of the iceberg. While race, sex, and American history remain the most common targets of censorship, bills silencing speech about LGBTQ+ identities have also surged to the fore,” the organization said.In March, Georgia legislators introduced the Common Humanity in Private Education Act. According to the act, “No private or nonpublic school or program…shall promote, compel, or encourage classroom discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not appropriate for the age and developmental stage of the student.”The act, which is sponsored by 10 Republican state senators, says “a focus on racial and gender identity and its resulting discrimination on the basis of color, race, ethnicity and national origin is destructive to the fabric of American society.”LGBTQ+ advocates in Georgia have pushed back heavily against the bill, arguing that it is not about parental rights but rather “restricting the activities, participation and learning” of children in schools.In Louisiana, a Republican state representative introduced a bill last month that seeks to ban discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in certain public school classrooms.The bill, proposed by representative Dodie Horton, seeks to prohibit “teachers and others from discussing their sexual orientation or gender identity with students” from kindergarten through twelfth grade. It also seeks to also ban teachers and other presenters from discussing topics o sexual orientation and gender identity with students in kindergarten through eighth grade.In February, Republicans in Kansas introduced a state House bill that would make the depiction of homosexuality in classroom materials a class B misdemeanor.In Indiana, state legislators proposed a bill that would require schools to “obtain prior informed written consent from the parent of a student who is less than eighteen years of age…before the student may participate in any instruction on human sexuality.”The listed topics in the bill that would require parental consent includes abortion, birth control or contraceptives, sexual activity, sexual orientation, transgenderism and gender identity. Prior to obtaining written consent from parents, the bill would require schools to provide parents with “informed written notice which shall accurately describe in detail the contents and nature of the instruction on human sexuality, including the purpose of the instruction on human sexuality.”A bill introduced by Tennessee state Republicans in February seeks to prohibit any instructional materials that “promote, normalize, support, or address lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, or transgender issues or lifestyles”.In Arizona, proposed bills by Republican state senators include those that would block gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth, as well as force teachers, nurses and other school staff to disclose a minor’s gender identity to their parents.Oklahoma state legislators recently passed a bill that prevents students enrolled in colleges from being “required to engage in any form of mandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling; provided, voluntary counseling shall not be prohibited”. The law also states, “Any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex shall be prohibited.”Earlier this week, Ohio Republican representatives Jean Schmidt and Mike Loychik introduced a bill that would ban kindergarten through third grade classrooms from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity. Additionally, classrooms with older students would be disallowed from featuring those topics in ways that are “not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”In response to the bill’s introduction, Democratic representative Brigid Kelly called it a “huge problem} and said: “We’re not giving people access to the tools, the materials, the lessons they need to prepare children for the diverse world that exists.”Similarly, South Carolina state lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban state entities, including schools from subjecting students to “instruction, presentations, discussions, counseling, or materials in any medium” that involves topics including “sexual lifestyles, acts, or practices,” as well as “gender identity or lifestyles”.Additionally, like the Oklahoma law, another South Carolina bill seeks to prevent teachers, staff members and district employees from engaging in gender and sexual diversity training.In states such as Wisconsin and Rhode Island, personal pronouns have also become a contentious subject for conservative lawmakers. Both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature have approved a bill which has yet to be signed into law that includes a parent’s right to choose pronouns for their children.In Rhode Island, a proposed bill would require children to “be addressed by their common names and the pronouns associated with their biological gender” unless their parents grant permission to change them.“Florida’s cruel ‘don’t say gay’ bill is one of hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills moving through state legislatures, most of which primarily attack trans youth,” the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted in February.“Censoring classroom discussions won’t keep kids from being LGBTQ. It just piles on to the national pattern of attacks,” it added.TopicsFloridaLGBT rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

What happens when a group of Fox News viewers watch CNN for a month?A study that paid viewers of the rightwing cable network to switch shed light on the media’s influence on people’s views Watching Fox News can be like entering an alternative universe. It’s a world where Vladimir Putin isn’t actually that bad, but vaccines may be, and where some unhinged rightwing figures are celebrated as heroes, but Anthony Fauci, America’s top public health official, is an unrivaled villain.Given the steady stream of misinformation an avid Fox News consumer is subjected to, the viewers – predominantly elderly, white and Donald Trump-supporting – are sometimes written off as lost causes by Democrats and progressives, but according to a new study, there is still hope.Biden finds Murdoch ‘most dangerous man in the world’, new book saysRead moreIn an unusual, and labor intensive, project, two political scientists paid a group of regular Fox News viewers to instead watch CNN for a month. At the end of the period, the researchers found surprising results; some of the Fox News watchers had changed their minds on a range of key issues, including the US response to coronavirus and Democrats’ attitude to police.The findings suggest that political perspectives can be changed – but also reveals the influence partisan media has on viewers’ ideology.Polls have previously shown that viewers of Fox News, the most-watched cable news channel in the US, are far more likely to believe the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen than the average American, and are more likely to believe falsehoods about Covid-19.The extent of the network’s influence on American politics was highlighted this week, with a report that Joe Biden has privately referred to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, as “the most dangerous man in the world” and “one of the most destructive forces in the United States”.David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, political scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and Yale university, respectively, paid 304 regular Fox News viewers $15 an hour to instead watch up to seven hours of CNN a week during the month of September 2020. The switchers were given regular news quizzes to make sure they were indeed watching CNN, while a control group of Fox News viewers continued with their regular media diet.Much of the news cycle in September 2020 focused on policing and protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which began after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot and seriously injured by police in late August. During the protests Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager from Illinois, shot and killed two men and wounded another. The events became a political tool for Republicans, including Donald Trump, who later announced he would send federal law enforcement agents to Kenosha.By the end of September, the CNN watchers were less likely to agree that: “It is an overreaction to go out and protest in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin” and less likely to believe that: “If Joe Biden is elected President, we’ll see many police get shot by Black Lives Matter activists”, when compared with their peers who continued watching Fox News.The CNN switchers were also, as Bloomberg’s Matthew Yglesias reported, 10 points less likely to believe that Joe Biden supporters were happy when police officers get shot, and 11 points less likely to believe that it is “more important for the President to focus on violent protests than the coronavirus pandemic”.In addition the CNN viewers were 13 points less likely than the Fox News viewers to agree that: “If Joe Biden is elected President, we’ll see many more police get shot by Black Lives Matter activists.”In an email interview, Kalla said he and Broockman had not necessarily expected people’s opinions to change.“I think the most surprising finding is that shifting people’s media diets from Fox News to CNN for a month had any effect,” Kalla said. “People who watch cable news tend to be very politically engaged and have strong opinions about politics, limiting the impact of the media. Similarly, they also tend to be strong partisans who might not trust any source not associated with their party.”The people in the experiment, Kalla said, were “overwhelmingly pro-Trump Republicans”. Given Trump had spent much of his presidency bashing CNN – a regular chant at his rallies was “CNN sucks!” – the results are particularly surprising.“A lot of people might expect this audience to completely resist what CNN had to say, but we see people learning what CNN was reporting and changing their attitudes, too. It is therefore surprising that watching CNN had any impact at all in this experiment,” Kalla said.Fox News, and liberal networks, can influence their viewers through “agenda-setting” – covering a certain topic relentlessly – and “framing”, Kalla said – by emphasizing certain aspects of an issue.Kalla and Broockman were particularly interested in a third method of influencing: “partisan coverage filtering” – which they defined in the study as the process where “partisan outlets selectively report information, leading viewers to learn a biased set of facts”.They gave a hypothetical example of how news channels might cover a war. In the example, CNN might cover the cost of the war and the number of military personnel and civilians who died. Fox News, on the other hand, could focus on the severity of the threat that Trump’s military campaign had countered, and feature stories of liberated civilians welcoming American soldiers.“This leaves viewers of each network with different factual understandings of the conflict, and subsequently different levels of support for the conflict and the president,” Broockman and Kalla wrote.Most of the CNN switchers stuck to the length of the task, according to the study. But once it was over, and the $15 an hour was taken away, “viewers returned to watching Fox News”, Kalla said.While the study proved that people are susceptible – at least under the right conditions – to different political opinions, in the longer-term the skewing of media has had a broader, and negative, impact on the way the US functions, Kalla said.“When politicians do something bad, we hope that voters will punish them, irregardless of their party – otherwise, politicians won’t have to work hard to make our lives better in order to keep their jobs,” Kalla said.“However, this type of behavior becomes less possible if the media engages in partisan coverage filtering. If CNN doesn’t cover bad things Democrats do or good things Republicans do, and if Fox News doesn’t cover bad things Republicans do or good things Democrats do, then voters become less likely to learn this information and less able to hold their elected officials accountable.“This is troubling for the functioning of a healthy democracy.”TopicsMediaFox NewsCNNUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Marjorie Taylor Greene: judge mulls move to bar Republican from CongressJudge to rule on challenge from Georgia voters that says far right congresswoman should be disqualified under the 14th amendment A federal judge has indicated that an attempt to stop the far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene running for re-election will be allowed to proceed.Liz Cheney disputes report January 6 panel split over Trump criminal referralRead moreThe challenge from a group of Georgia voters says Greene should be disqualified under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, because she supported insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.A similar challenge in North Carolina, against Madison Cawthorn, another prominent supporter of Donald Trump, was blocked.But on Friday Amy Totenberg, a federal judge in Georgia, said she had “significant questions and concerns” about the ruling in the Cawthorn case, CNN reported.Totenberg said she was likely to rule on Greene’s attempt to have her case dismissed on Monday, two days before a scheduled hearing before a state judge.The 14th amendment was passed by Congress in 1866, a year after the end of the civil war, and ratified in 1868.It says: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Congress can reverse any such prohibition.In March, the challenge to Cawthorn was shut down by a Trump-appointed judge with reference to a civil war amnesty law passed by Congress in 1872. According to CNN, Totenberg said she thought that law was retroactive and not meant to apply to future insurrectionists.A bipartisan Senate committee connected seven deaths to the Capitol riot, in which Trump supporters sought to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.Greene has been widely linked to events on January 6. In one example, an organiser of pro-Trump events in Washington that day told Rolling Stone Greene was among a group of far-right Republicans who coordinated with protesters.“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the anonymous source said. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”A spokesperson for Greene said she and her staff “were focused on the congressional election objection on the House floor and had nothing to do with planning of any protest”.In the immediate aftermath of the storming of Congress, in the last legalistic gasp of Trump’s attempt to stay in power, 147 Republicans voted to object to results in key states.Greene has said she does not encourage violence. Her attorney in the Georgia case is James Bopp Jr, who cited the 1872 amnesty law in his successful attempt to have the Cawthorn challenge dismissed.Like the challenge to Cawthorn, the challenge to Greene is backed by Free Speech for People, a group which seeks election and campaign finance reform.Is Trump in his sights? Garland under pressure to charge ex-presidentRead moreResponding to the Cawthorn dismissal, Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for the People, told the New York Times: “According to this court ruling, the 1872 amnesty law, by a trick of wording – although no one noticed it at the time, or in the 150 years since – completely undermined Congress’s careful decision to write the insurrectionist disqualification clause to apply to future insurrections.“This is patently absurd.”In January, Fein told the Guardian his group aimed to set “a line that says that just as the framers of the 14th amendment wrote and intended, you can’t take an oath to support the constitution and then facilitate an insurrection against the United States while expecting to pursue public office”.He added: “The insurrection threatened our country’s entire democratic system and putting insurrectionists from any state into the halls of Congress threatens the entire country.”Writing for the Guardian, the Princeton academic Jan-Werner Muller said: “Whether a heavily right-leaning US supreme court will uphold disqualifications is a very open question indeed – but there is every reason to try enforcing them.”TopicsRepublicansThe far rightUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More