US Politics

As scepticism continues over Russia’s claims it has withdrawn troops from the Ukrainian border, Joan E Greve speaks to congressman Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, who was in Ukraine a couple of weeks ago. He shares his thoughts on the Biden administration’s approach so far

How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

Send your questions and feedback to [email protected]. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More

Britney Spears invited to US Congress to discuss conservatorship legal battleSinger shares letter from Congressmen Charlie Crist and Eric Swalwell on Instagram, saying she was ‘immediately flattered’ The singer Britney Spears has shared a letter she received from two members of the US House of Representatives inviting her to Congress to talk about her long-running legal battle over her conservatorship that ended with victory in November.“I was immediately flattered and at the time I wasn’t nearly at the healing stage I’m in now,” Spears, 41, said in the Instagram post about the letter she received in December from Congressmen Charlie Crist of Florida and Eric Swalwell of California.Britney Spears reveals conservatorship has left her scared of music businessRead more“I’m grateful that my story was acknowledged. Because of the letter, I felt heard and like I mattered for the first time in my life!!! In a world where your own family goes against you, it’s actually hard to find people that get it and show empathy.”The letter conveyed Crist and Swalwell’s congratulations to Spears and her attorney Mathew Rosengart for winning the case that ended the conservatorship of the singer’s affairs, which lasted for almost 14 years and was mostly under the direction of her father, Jamie.In an interview following her courtroom victory in December, Spears said the entire affair had left her “scared” of the music business.The House representatives said they were troubled that “for years you were unable to hire your own counsel to represent your personal and financial interests”, among other issues, and invited Spears to Congress to speak about her “empowering” story and for them to learn more of “the emotional and financial turmoil you faced within the conservatorship system”.In her post, Spears thanked the congressmen for the invitation but did not indicate if she intended to take it up.“I want to help others in vulnerable situations, take life by the balls and be brave. I wish I would have been,” she said.“Nothing is worse than your own family doing what they did to me. I’m lucky to have a small circle of adorable friends who I can count on. In the meantime thank you to Congress for inviting me to the White House [sic].”An apparently starstruck Crist responded to Spears’ post in a short video clip of his own, released on Thursday morning.“I wanted to thank Britney Spears for sharing on social media about the conservatorship and the letter that I and Eric Swalwell wrote to her to make sure she understood what was going on,” Crist said.“I’m so happy for her, glad that her conservatorship was resolved. God bless her.”Despite winning back control of her affairs, Spears is still embroiled in disputes with her family.She has threatened legal action against her sister Jamie Lynn for a tell-all book she claims contains “misleading or outrageous claims” and is “potentially unlawful and defamatory”. And in January she made new allegations of financial impropriety against her father in response to his insistence she pay his legal bills.TopicsBritney SpearsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Thanks to new congressional maps, most Americans’ votes won’t matterAs many as 94% of representatives may be running in safe districts, fueling polarization as candidates play to their bases Hello and happy Thursday,The most fundamental concept in American government is that all politicians are accountable to the people. Constituents accept laws shaped by the people they vote for, knowing that they have the power to eventually vote them out of office if they disagree.But when it comes to the US House of Representatives, this pillar of democracy is crumbling. An overwhelming majority of seats in the US House are becoming non-competitive. That means that when voters show up at the polls in November to vote for their candidates, the contests will already be decided. Their votes won’t matter.It felt strange writing that as the opening to a story we published last weekend exploring the decline of competitive congressional seats. How could voters’ choices not matter in an American election? But academics, analysts and other experts say the trend is undeniable.America faces greater division as parties draw safe seats for congressional districtsRead moreJust 27 of the 335 congressional districts that have been drawn so far as part of the redistricting process are considered competitive – meaning either party has less than a five-point advantage – according to FiveThirtyEight. Dave Wasserman, an elections expert for the non-partisan Cook Political Report, told me he expects there to be 30 to 35 competitive seats in total once states finish drawing all 435 district boundaries. That means that as many as 94% of representatives would be running in relatively safe seats – a figure that astonished me.Why is this happening? Some of the decline in competitive seats is due to natural geographic clustering of likeminded voters. That clumping means that when states draw new lines, it’s harder to draw competitive districts. In 2012, there were 66 competitive districts, Wasserman noted. By 2020, under the same set of lines, there were 51.But politicians are undoubtedly accelerating the decline in competition by distorting district lines to their advantage. As redistricting has unfolded this year, elected officials made aggressive efforts to change district lines to shore up incumbents, locking in their seats for several more years. The clearest example of this happened in Texas, where Republicans, who have complete control over the redistricting process, reduced the number of competitive districts from 12 to one .The decline in competition has huge consequences. No longer worried about a general election, politicians become more worried about fending off challengers in a party primary. That disincentivizes bipartisan compromise and incentivizes playing to their party’s base.“This will further increase polarization … it’s also a reflection of polarization, but it’ll also entrench polarization more deeply,” Richard Pildes, a law professor at New York University, told me. “They will do even more of what we know they already do, which is tack to the more extreme wings in order to try and fight off potential primary challengers to protect themselves on that flank.”The lack of competition can have consequences beyond congressional races, said Amanda Litman, the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, which focuses on down-ballot contests. She noted that the Democratic party focuses its resources in battleground states where there are competitive congressional districts. Fewer competitive districts, she said, would mean fewer resources.“The fewer competitive elections there are, the fewer places that will be able to have concentrated effort and intentionality around [races],” she told me.Thinking about competitive districts also caused me to rethink what constituted a “fair” electoral map. A state that is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans – with 10 congressional districts, for example – could draw five safe Republican districts and five safe Democratic ones. Would that map be fair? Would it be fairer than one that has three safe districts for each party and four competitive districts?I posed this question to Pildes. He said that politicians tended to favor the former approach.“One reason parties don’t like competitive seats is that if the districts are all 3% to 4% predicted to go in one particular direction, they can all flip in a single election. Whereas if they’re plus-nine for one party, a three-point shift isn’t gonna do anything,” he said.“The value of competitive districts gets sort of short shrift in the political process because there’s not a lot of political self-interest in creating competitive districts.”Also worth watching …
Texas election officials are seeing a staggeringly high number of mail-in ballots rejected ahead of the state’s 1 March governor’s primary.
Amy Weirich, a Tennessee prosecutor, defended a six-year prison sentence for Pamela Moses, who tried to register to vote while ineligible.
A federal judge blocked a portion of a new Texas law that made it a crime for election officials to solicit mail-in ballots. Texas is appealing the ruling.
Florida Republicans are considering adopting a new measure that would make it harder to vote by mail, potentially causing headaches for at least 400,000 voters in the state.
TopicsUS CongressFight to voteUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

CDC contemplating change to mask guidance in coming weeksDirector Rochelle Walensky notes recent declines in Covid cases, hospital admissions and deaths The leading US health officials said on Wednesday that the nation is moving closer to the point that Covid-19 is no longer a “constant crisis” as more cities, businesses and sports venues began lifting pandemic restrictions around the country.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing that the government is contemplating a change to its mask guidance in the coming weeks.Noting recent declines in Covid-19 cases, hospital admissions and deaths, she acknowledged “people are so eager” for health officials to ease masking rules and other measures designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus.“We all share the same goal – to get to a point where Covid-19 is no longer disrupting our daily lives, a time when it won’t be a constant crisis – rather something we can prevent, protect against, and treat,” Walensky said.With the Omicron variant waning and Americans eager to move beyond the virus, government and business leaders have been out ahead of the CDC in ending virus measures in the last week, including ordering workers back to offices, eliminating mask mandates and no longer requiring proof of vaccine to get into restaurants, bars and sports and entertainment arenas.The efforts have been gaining more steam each day.Philadelphia officials on Wednesday said the city’s vaccine mandate for restaurants was immediately lifted, though indoor mask mandates remain in place for now.At Disney World, vaccinated guests will no longer have to wear masks at the Florida theme park starting Thursday.Professional sports teams including the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards and Capitols have stopped requiring proof of vaccine for fans.Health commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said Philadelphia’s average daily case count had dropped to 189 cases a day in the city of more than 1.5 million people.Bettigole said the plunge in infections has been steeper in Philadelphia than elsewhere in the state or the country, making it easier to lift the vaccine mandate for restaurants and other businesses announced in mid-December and that fully went into effect just this month.“Our goal has always been to be the least restrictive as possible while ensuring safety,” she said.She added that the vaccine mandate helped spur “a very large” increase in pediatric vaccinations, pushing the city way ahead of the national average for first doses among kids ages five to 11. More than 53% of Philadelphia residents in that age group have received a first dose, compared with closer to 30% nationally, she said.In Provincetown, Massachusetts, a seaside town that became a coronavirus hot spot with an early outbreak of the Delta variant last summer, officials on Tuesday lifted a mask mandate and vaccine requirement for indoor spaces like restaurants and bars.Town manager Alex Morse said the community of about 3,000 recorded zero active cases last week among Provincetown residents – something that hasn’t happened since the surge following last year’s July 4 celebrations.“We are learning to live with, and mitigate, the impact of the virus on our community,” Morse said.Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations have fallen sharply in the US, with the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases dropping from about 453,000 two weeks ago to about 136,000 as of Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.Hospitalizations are at levels similar to September, when the US was emerging from the Delta variant surge. Almost 65% of Americans are fully vaccinated.“As a result of all this progress and the tools we now have, we are moving to a time where Covid isn’t a crisis but is something we can protect against and treat,” said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.Walensky said the CDC “will soon put guidance in place that is relevant and encourages prevention measures when they are most needed to protect public health and our hospitals”.She suggested any changes will take into account measures of community transmission, as well as hospitalization rates or other gauges of whether infected people are becoming severely ill. They also would consider available bed space in hospitals.Several states with indoor mask mandates announced last week they would be lifted in coming weeks, also citing promising numbers.Two music festivals that draw thousands of people to the California desert town of Indio in April and May, Coachella and Stagecoach, also said this week there will be no vaccination, masking or testing mandates, in accordance with local guidelines.Walensky said the CDC wants to give most people “a break from things like mask-wearing” when circumstances improve, though be able to mask up again if things worsen.TopicsCoronavirusTrump administrationUS politicsInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

Trump’s interior secretary misused position and lied to ethics official, watchdog saysRyan Zinke lied to agency ethics official about his involvement with foundation to advance project in his Montana home town Government investigators say the former US interior secretary Ryan Zinke misused his position to advance a development project in his Montana home town and lied to an agency ethics official about his involvement.The interior department’s inspector general said in a report made public on Wednesday that Zinke continued working with a foundation on the commercial project in the community of Whitefish, Montana, even after he committed upon taking office to breaking ties with the foundation.The report also says Zinke gave incorrect and incomplete information to an interior department ethics official who confronted him over his involvement and that Zinke directed his staff to assist him with the project in a misuse of his position.The Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation was established by Zinke and others in 2007. Zinke and his wife were in negotiations with private developers for the use of foundation land for a commercial development project.Zinke is a candidate in the June Republican primary for an open Montana congressional seat, a position he held before joining Trump’s cabinet.He stepped down from his role as interior secretary in the Trump administration in December 2018 following a series of scandals in which he was accused of using his position for personal gain.On Wednesday Zinke’s campaign called the report “a political hit job” and said his family’s involvement in the land deal led to the creation of a children’s sledding park.Investigators referred the matter to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution but they declined to pursue a criminal case, according to the report.The investigation into the land deal was one of several focused on Zinke that began when he was in Trump’s cabinet.In another case, investigators found that he violated a policy that prohibits non-government employees from riding in government cars after his wife traveled with him, but he said ethics officials approved it.Zinke was cleared of wrongdoing following a complaint that he redrew the boundaries of a national monument in Utah to benefit a state lawmaker and political ally.Under Zinke’s leadership, the interior department sought to advance oil and gas drilling and mining on or near public land, rolled back protections for threatened species and shrank national monuments.“Zinke’s days of plundering our lands and enriching himself and his friends are over,” said Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager for Friends of the Earth, said at the time he stepped down. Trump had praised him saying he had “accomplished much during his tenure”.Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsTrump administrationUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

PJ O’Rourke obituaryConservative American humorist, political satirist and writer who took aim at his own generation – the baby boomers The American humorist PJ O’Rourke, who has died aged 74 of lung cancer, was a writer of sharp wit that ranged from dry to lusciously over the top, but was always leavened by a measure of self deprecation that stopped it from being cruel or harsh. In the political satire that dominated his later writing, he became that rarest of things, a funny conservative.His political writing was based on his early change of tack from 1960s lefty to what he could call the libertarian right, libertarian being the escape hatch for those trapped within the Republican party. His changing stance mirrored the course of his career, from the satire of the National Lampoon and hipness of Rolling Stone to more earnest outlets such as the Atlantic Monthly and the rightwing Cato Institute.He had been instrumental in making the Atlantic Monthly Press a success; its editor Morgan Entrekin called him “one of the major voices of his generation”.The recurrent theme in his writing was his place in his generation – the baby boomers. “My generation spoiled everything for you,” he told younger readers. “It has always been the prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grownups. But my generation exhausted the earth’s resources of the weird … all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologise.”He was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Delfine (nee Loy), a housewife and later a school administrator, and Clifford O’Rourke, a car salesman. He went to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio – “the one where you can’t major in windsurfing” – and took a master’s in English (1970) at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where he began writing for a local underground paper, Harry, and the Rip-Off Review of Western Culture, which got him a gig with the National Lampoon magazine in 1973.He made his mark quickly, working on the stage show Lemmings, which made stars of John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest, and co-writing with the Lampoon founder Doug Kenney The National Lampoon High School Yearbook, based on a piece by Michael O’Donoghue. There was a strong Irish-American wise-guys at the back of the class vibe at the Lampoon.Kenney also hailed from Ohio, but had attended a private school; the record of the fictional class of 1964 at a high school in Dacron (the name a cross between Ohio cities Dayton and Akron, but also a popular brand of cheap polyester cloth) was based squarely on O’Rourke’s days at Toledo’s DeVilbiss high. The yearbook itself was purportedly the property of one Larry Kroger, who would reappear in 1978 as the naive protagonist of the film National Lampoon’s Animal House.By the time Animal House became a hit, O’Rourke was the editor-in-chief of the Lampoon, charged with “the Squaresville task of making the magazine show a profit”. In the 2018 biopic of Kenney, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, O’Rourke is portrayed in just that light – but his empathy with squares was crucial to the yearbook’s success.Now he found himself out of place in a “clubby and snitty” atmosphere which remained as the creative core of the Lampoon moved on to Hollywood and Saturday Night Live. He turned the magazine, according to one critic, into “comedy you can jack off to”.In 1981 he went freelance, writing for the top-payers such as Vanity Fair and Playboy. His key Lampoon essay “How To Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink”, was reprinted in his first book, Republican Party Reptile (1987), a homage to Hunter Thompson, the chief exponent of gonzo journalism, that saw him appointed “foreign desk chief” at Rolling Stone, the ultimate hip boomer journal.His writing moved from social satire to politics and he reported from war zones, where his knack for satirising the absurd found its true metier. His 1988 collection, Holidays in Hell, is perhaps the best of his 20 books. He became a celebrity, without slowing down in the least, but as I can attest after surviving a London evening with him and my then ABC television colleague Charles Glass, O’Rourke was one of those rare people who was nicer in private, going beyond his public affability, which often surprised those expecting combative wit.In 1991 O’Rourke interviewed Bill Clinton, along with his Rolling Stone colleagues Thompson and William Greider, and its publisher, Jann Wenner. He quickly slid Clinton into identity politics via the Lampoon yearbook template. Clinton’s favourite Beatle was Paul McCartney: Clinton was the “band geek” who paid attention in class.For a short time O’Rourke held down the right side of Point/Counterpoint on CBS’s flagship news show 60 Minutes, opposite the equally funny and acerbic Molly Ivins, but they were too brilliant a mix to last on network TV. As he once wrote, “no humorist is under any obligation to provide answers”.That voice could lose its affability when writing for the Cato Institute, but the new millennium presented new problems, which his work for the Atlantic laid out clearly. A 2004 essay on listening to the radio host Rush Limbaugh shouting to his echo chamber of “ditto heads” led him to search for a leftwing equivalent, but when he could not find one he wound up blaming the entire media landscape. He complained in another essay you could not tell the “liberals who once led Vietnam protests in clown pants from the car ads”, ironically putting his young self and his father into the same boat.His libertarian conservatism reached its apotheosis with Donald Trump’s taking over the Republican party, reflected in his 2016 book of election coverage How the Hell Did This Happen? He endorsed Hillary Clinton, because “she’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters”. Although he claimed in 1992 he had “given up” the 60s, Trump was exactly the sort of spoiled preppy boomer O’Rourke could despise. But he might have looked back to his childhood, and Walt Kelly’s comic strip Pogo. It was Pogo who said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”In 1990 O’Rourke married Amy Lumet, daughter of the film director Sidney and granddaughter of the entertainer Lena Horne.They divorced three years later, and in 1995 he married Tina Mallon. She and their children, Olivia, Clifford and Elizabeth, survive him.TopicsMediaUS politicsComedyMagazinesUS televisionobituariesReuse this content More

Florida lawmakers have advanced a bill that would bar teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom. The parental rights in education bill, labelled the “don’t say gay” bill by critics, would also prevent teachers and school counsellors from giving support to LGBTQ+ students, without first getting permission from their parents.

Florida follows other states with similar statutes restricting classroom discussion of same-sex relationships or mandating that sex education teaches “honor and respect for monogamous heterosexual marriage”. Florida’s bill also allows parents to sue school districts for damages if they believe a teacher has broken the law.

This bill has strong echoes of section 28, the 1988 law that prevented local authorities in the UK from promoting homosexuality. As state schools were at the time led by local authorities, section 28 prevented schools from teaching the acceptability of homosexuality as a “pretended family relationship”.

Teachers believed they would lose their jobs if they gave advice and support to LGBTQ+ students, or challenged homophobic language and bullying. LGBTQ+ teachers were left in fear, believing that their identity alone was grounds for dismissal from their job.

The legacy of section 28 shows the long-term impact legislation like this can have on students and teachers. Section 28 emerged from the Conservative party’s 1987 election campaign, based around family values and a “parents know best” agenda. The Conservatives portrayed the opposition Labour party as pro-gay, and school teachers, who traditionally voted Labour, as a danger to children.

Florida’s bill is similarly suspicious of teachers and advocates parental vigilance. Ron DeSantis, Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential hopeful, stated: “Parents must have a seat at the table when it comes to what’s going on in their schools.” This is reminiscent of a comment in 2000 by Conservative MP Theresa May, who voted to keep section 28 in place: “Most parents want the comfort of knowing section 28 is there.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signalled support for the ‘don’t say gay’ bill.
Caroline Brehman / EPA-EFE

Lasting legacy

Research shows that section 28 left a damaging legacy for the LGBTQ+ young people who were students at the time. Many are still scarred by the absence of any pastoral or mental health support at the most challenging period of their adolescence. As one student who went on to become a teacher said:

I thought I was the only person who was gay at my school. I couldn’t talk to my teachers, though I didn’t know why until years later … I now try to be the role model I never had at school, but I know some parents are not happy.

LGBTQ+ teachers are similarly, deeply affected. Fifteen years after section 28 was repealed, I surveyed LGBTQ+ teachers who had taught under the law and compared their responses with LGBTQ+ teachers who entered teaching after section 28 had been repealed. I found that teachers who worked during the section 28 era remain more cautious, vigilant and anxious in their school workplaces than those LGBTQ+ teachers entering the profession more recently.

My research showed that LGBTQ+ teachers’ principal fear remains that parents of students they teach will associate their identity with hypersexuality and paedophilia. One teacher with experience of section 28 said:

I know that I have a responsibility to LGBT+ kids in school and it upsets me when I see them struggling like I did … but I worry what parents will think of me if I try to help. Sometimes I feel like I’d be viewed as a predator or something.

64% of LGBTQ+ teachers who taught under section 28 have experienced a serious episode of anxiety or depression linked to their sexual or gender identity and role as a teacher. This compares with just 31% of the overall teaching population.

LGBTQ+ students and teachers who experienced section 28 have lasting emotional scars.
Syda Productions / Shutterstock

The LGBTQ+ teachers who had not worked under section 28 were much more confident to be themselves at school. One teacher new to the profession said:

I should be able to bring my whole self to work. I couldn’t stay at a school if I had to keep details of my private life a secret. If anyone had a problem with me I’d expect my headteacher to back me 100%.

Florida’s bill still has to make its way through the rest of the state’s legislature (and the governor’s desk) before it becomes law. LGBTQ+ advocates have begun to mobilise in opposition to the bill, just as opponents of section 28 did 34 years ago.

Florida should look to the UK before passing “don’t say gay”. It took 15 years to repeal section 28 and will take many more to repair the damage done to a generation of LGBTQ+ young people and teachers.

This story has been updated to clarify that the bill has been advanced, not made law, and to clarify the nature of similar statutes in the US.

What did you think of this article? Great | Good | Okay | Weak More