US Politics

Governor Glenn Youngkin accused of ‘toxic culture’ after aides attack teen on TwitterYoungkin’s campaign named and posted photo of Ethan Lynne, 17, on Twitter after he criticized the Republican The Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, was accused of creating “a culture of toxicity” in his first months in office, after campaign aides attacked a high-school student, naming and picturing the boy, for sharing a news story about the Republican official.On Saturday, Ethan Lynne, 17 and according to his Twitter biography a Democrat, posted an article which suggested Youngkin could be trying to stop work to highlight the history of enslaved people at the Virginia executive mansion.In response, Youngkin’s campaign account posted a picture of Lynne with the former governor Ralph Northam, next to a picture from Northam’s medical school yearbook of two men in racist costumes: one in Blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan costume.“Here’s a picture of Ethan with a man that had a Blackface/KKK photo in his yearbook,” Team Youngkin tweeted.In 2019, Northam admitted being one of the men in the photograph, an admission he later recanted.Glenn Youngkin’s campaign Twitter account attacked a Hanover County high school student, @ethanclynne, last night after he shared my story. The Tweet was deleted after blowback and I’ve asked Youngkin’s team for an explanation. Ethan says he hasn’t heard anything from them. pic.twitter.com/YWMmLCOQys— Ben Paviour (@BPaves) February 6, 2022
Virginia governors cannot serve consecutive terms. Youngkin beat the Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, in a bitter 2021 election in which the Republican made teaching about race and racism in US history a key campaign issue.Amid outrage at an attack on a minor, the Team Youngkin tweet was deleted.Speaking to the Washington Post, Lynne said: “A governor’s campaign account has attacked a minor – to me that was a new low … it was up for over 12 hours. I received no apology, no communication, nothing.”On Monday, Youngkin said: “On Saturday night, an unauthorized tweet came from a campaign account. I regret that this happened and it shouldn’t have. I have addressed it with my team. We must continue to work to bring Virginians together. There is so much more that unites us than divides us.”Lynne said: “While he acknowledged the situation, Governor Youngkin did not apologize and did not condemn what happened over the weekend. I still hope he does, and that he will take time to recognize the culture of toxicity he has created within his first month of office.”A Youngkin campaign spokesman, Matt Wolking, said the tweet was deleted when it was realised Lynne was a minor.Lynne’s Twitter biography reads: “Virginian. HS Senior. Democrat.”“It was brought to [our] attention that this Democrat party official repeatedly elevated by [state] senator Louise Lucas as a source of official Democrat party communications is actually a minor, so the tweet was removed,” Wolking said.The article Lynne posted was from VPM, a public radio station in Richmond, the state capital. It alleged Youngkin was converting a classroom in the executive mansion, used to educate on ties between the building and slavery, into a family room.The article also said an archeologist and historian who worked with the two previous governors had her office cleaned out.Lynne tweeted: “NEW: The historian tasked with teaching about slavery at the Virginia Governors Mansion just resigned after finding Youngkin converted her classroom into a family room – and emptied her office.”He added: “Shameful.”Corrections were later posted, saying Youngkin had not converted the classroom and the historian had resigned, but did seem to have had her office cleaned out. Lynne retweeted the correction. Nonetheless, the Youngkin campaign team attacked. Lynne said he did not notice their tweet for hours.“In school, we are taught how to spot bullying, and their tweet last night perfectly fit that description,” Lynne wrote on Sunday, also thanking people who offered support.“It is disgusting, disturbing, and unbecoming of the commonwealth to see the governor and his office stoop this low, especially on a public platform.”TopicsVirginiaUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

‘Unions benefit all of us’: new Biden plan encourages federal workers to unionizeTaskforce sets recommendations ‘to promote my policy of support for worker power, worker organizing and collective bargaining’ The Biden administration set out 70 recommendations to encourage union membership in the US on Monday, including making it easier for many federal employees to join unions and eliminating barriers for union organizers to talk with workers on federal property.The report, compiled by the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, reiterates Biden’s robust backing of unions. “At its core,” the report says, “it is our administration’s belief that unions benefit all of us.”Traffic, tickets, gas: rideshare and delivery app workers fight to unionizeRead moreIt adds: “Researchers have found that today’s union households earn up to 20% more than non-union households, with an even greater union advantage for workers with less formal education and workers of color.”The report comes amid a surge in interest in unions in the US and follows a wave of high-profile industrial actions last year.The taskforce, which includes 13 members of Biden’s cabinet and is chaired by Vice-President Kamala Harris, calls for stepping up enforcement to ensure that money going to federal contractors – whether manufacturers, food-processing companies or other contractors – is not spent on anti-union campaigns.The taskforce calls for requiring disclosure of any instances when federal contractors use anti-union consultants or lawyers to persuade employees working on a federal contract not to unionize.While corporations typically prohibit union organizers from setting foot on company property – as Amazon has done recently in Alabama – the taskforce recommends removing many barriers that block union organizers from being able to talk with employees on federal property about the benefits of unionizing. This applies not just to federal employees, but also to employees of private contractors on federal property, such as a grocery store on a military base or in a national park.Biden said the taskforce’s charge was to identify executive branch policies, practices and programs that could be used “to promote my administration’s policy of support for worker power, worker organizing, and collective bargaining”.The taskforce said the range of policies and programs “that can be leveraged is significant”.Its recommendations include making the federal government a model employer in terms of shaping jobs, ensuring that federal employees know their labor rights, and improving labor-management communications. The federal government is the nation’s largest employer, with more than 2.1 million non-postal employees. Of those, 1.2 million are represented by unions, but only 33% of those workers pay union dues – that small percentage limits the power of federal employee unions.Noting that screeners for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are largely excluded from having the collective bargaining rights available to other non-military federal employees, the taskforce instructed the Department of Homeland Security to issue expanded bargaining rights for TSA’s screening workforce.The report is likely to strengthen the notion that Biden is the most pro-union president since Franklin Roosevelt – and perhaps the most pro-union president in US history. That might help Biden when he seeks to persuade and mobilize union members to vote for Democrats this November. At the same time, the report’s pro-union tone and substance might result in more opposition from business.In its first sentence, the report says: “The Biden-Harris administration believes that increasing worker organizing and empowerment is critical to growing the middle class, building an economy that puts workers first, and strengthening our democracy.” The report catalogues several executive orders and other pro-union steps by the president and his administration.It reads: “Unions have fought for and helped win many aspects of our work lives many of us take for granted today, like the 40-hour work week and the weekend, as well as landmark programs like Medicare.”The report adds that research has shown that increased economic inequality, growing pay gaps for women and workers of color, and the declining voice of working-class Americans in the nation’s politics “are all caused, in part, by the declining percentage of workers represented by unions”.The taskforce calls on the Department of Labor – whose secretary, Martin Walsh, is the taskforce’s vice-chair – to become a resource center that provides materials on the advantages of union representation and collective bargaining.TopicsUS unionsBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

‘Let’s do it’: John McCain knew Palin VP pick was a huge gamble, new book saysReporter says 2008 Republican nominee mimed rolling dice and said ‘Fuck it’ before picking hard-right Trump precursor Deciding to pick the inexperienced and extreme Sarah Palin as his running mate – a choice many say facilitated the rise of Donald Trump, threatening US democracy itself – John McCain mimed rolling a pair of dice and said: “Fuck it. Let’s do it.”Reuse this content More

Madison Cawthorn backed the Capitol attack. Will he be barred from office?Jan-Werner MüllerWe should be cautious about barring people from seeking office. But in the case of pro-insurrectionists, there is a very strong case To this day, only footsoldiers have paid a price for the riot at the Capitol last January 6th. Politicians who spurred them on, praised them afterwards, and now incite further hatred with hallucinatory talk of “political prisoners” have remained smugly immune.This could change in one case: Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who was on the mall that fateful day, implored Trumpists to “fight,” and is now seeking re-election in North Carolina. His candidacy is being challenged on the basis of the 14th Amendment. Passed after the Civil War, it disqualifies from holding office anyone who has sworn allegiance to the Constitution and then engages in insurrection.Other democracies are comfortable not just with restricting individual rights to run for office, but with banning entire parties suspected of undermining democracy. Americans, by contrast, have been inclined to leave things to sort themselves out in the political process.But here drastic measures are justified: citizens in a democracy have to accept being governed by politicians they disagree with; they don’t have to put up with politicians who start insurrections when things don’t go their way. Disqualification could have a salutary effect on the Republican Party as such; and it might provide a model for banning Trump from holding office again – something that was on the table during the 2021 impeachment and endorsed by seven Republican senators at the time.In North Carolina, citizens can challenge a candidate to prove they meet qualifications for Congress. Unlike the House Committee investigating the events of January 6th, the board on elections could force a sitting member of Congress to testify about the role he played before, during, and after the insurrection. In the end, his fate could resemble that of many Confederates after the Civil War: not necessarily criminal punishment, but exclusion from exercising power.Many American constitutional lawyers feel ambivalent about an approach known elsewhere as “militant democracy”: measures to restrict the rights of people posing a threat to democracy but who have – unlike terrorists, for instance – not done anything criminal. Courts in Germany, Spain, and South Korea ban entire political parties; in the US, even at the height of McCarthyism, the Communist Party was not prohibited. Why, skeptics might ask, not have faith in politics instead of democracies doing something that looks pretty undemocratic? After all, if the people themselves are not able to see dangers to democracy for what they are, democracy might be lost anyway.That’s not where worries stop. If you go down the path of prohibitions, for example, what would prevent Republicans from McCarthy-style retaliation against figures like AOC? After all, they could argue, she’s a socialist, capitalism’s the American way, and hence she’s obviously engaged in overthrowing our political system. This is not paranoia: in Indiana, Republicans are pushing a school bill which would declare socialism incompatible with the principles on which the US was founded.As a matter of principle, it seems inconsistent to oppose felon disenfranchisement and yet demand rights restrictions for office-seekers. People ought to be punished for actual criminal behavior, but why also deny them a role in our process of self-government? After all, no democracy should create situations where some people look like second-class citizens not enjoying full use of political freedoms.Such worries must be taken seriously. A democracy that is trigger-happy about taking individuals or entire groups out of the political game is probably not as democratic as it sees itself to begin with. (In Europe, for example, Turkey holds the record in party bans – and these bans have often been aimed at legitimate advocates for the Kurdish minority.)But ultimately these worries do not weaken the case for disqualifying pro-insurrectionist Republicans. Constitutional requirements are not something that can be dispensed with ad hoc: you either meet the age, residency, and citizenship requirements for Congress or you don’t. What matters is that the process ascertaining what Cawthorn said and did is fair.True, anyone disqualified will style themselves a martyr – further proof of Democrats’ tyranny! They will wallow in the culture of victimhood which, in a typical form of projection, the far right always attributes to left-wing proponents of identity politics. Of course, the far right itself relentlessly pushes people to indulge the fantasy of being a persecuted minority: as a result, insurrectionists do not regard themselves as aggressors at all, but as merely engaged in self-defense and saving the Republic.Since this game is being played no matter what, there are hardly prudential considerations to go easy on pro-insurrection politicians. Plus, if disqualified figures feel that a great injustice was done, they can appeal to Congress, which, with a “two-thirds majority in each House,” can decide to lift restrictions, for instance if politicians stop lying that January 6th was a tourist outing for patriots. Unlike in the case of so many felons, this not a political life sentence.Of course, there is always a predictable chorus of pundits and politicians lamenting that all this will further “deepen our divisions.” But they should ask themselves whether such disqualifications and demarcations are not the kind of thing that a normal center-right party would not undertake itself: because the Republican Party has become a Trump personality cult, it might actually be in the interest of those too afraid to speak out against the cult to outsource the necessary boundary-drawing to what Cawthorn himself dismisses as “state bureaucrats.” After all, to paraphrase Lyndon Johnson, even strident left-wingers have an interest in a democratic rightwing party that is inside the tent pissing out rather than an anti-democratic, violence-prone one pissing in.Those crying that disqualifications re-open political wounds and delay national “healing” – often a demand pushed by rightwingers to distract from their complicity in the assault on the Capitol – have to realize that the issue will not go away. Other figures will be challenged as well, and, of course, Trump himself, if he tries to get on state ballots in 2024.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.
Jan-Werner Mueller teaches at Princeton and is a Guardian US columnist. His most recent book is Democracy Rules
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Conservatives are pushing to ban books from school libraries. At a time of crisis, a group of Pennsylvania teenagers are fighting backby More

The long list of legal cases against Donald TrumpThe former president faces 19 legal actions, from alleged financial improprieties to his role in the insurrection riotsFormer president Donald Trump is facing a total of 19 legal actions – about half of which allege improper conduct during his presidency.Most of the cases fall under three themes: financial wrongdoings that made him more money; his role in the January 6 2021 insurrection; and his alleged interference in the 2020 election. Trump has denied wrongdoing in most of these cases. He has filed motions to dismiss several of them and has filed countersuits in some cases.Here are all the legal cases as of 1 February 2022:@font-face{font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:”Guardian Headline 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Trump’s incendiary Texas speech may have deepened his legal troubles, experts sayPromising pardons for insurrectionists and calling for protests if indicted could help make a case for obstruction of justice Donald Trump’s incendiary call at a Texas rally for his backers to ready massive protests against “radical, vicious, racist prosecutors” could constitute obstruction of justice or other crimes and backfire legally on Trump, say former federal prosecutors.Trump’s barbed attack was seen as carping against separate federal and state investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his real estate empire.Trump’s rant that his followers should launch the “biggest protests” ever in three cities should prosecutors “do anything wrong or illegal” by criminally charging him for his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, or for business tax fraud, came at a 30 January rally in Texas where he repeated falsehoods that the election was rigged.Legal experts were astonished at Trump’s strong hints that if he runs and wins a second term in 2024, he would pardon many of those charged for attacking the Capitol on 6 January last year in hopes of thwarting Biden’s certification by Congress.‘The walls are closing in’: Trump reels from week of political setbacksRead moreFormer Richard Nixon White House counsel John Dean attacked Trump’s talk of pardons for the rioters as the “stuff of dictators” and stressed that “failure to confront a tyrant only encourages bad behavior”.Taken together, veteran prosecutors say Trump’s comments seemed to reveal that the former president now feels more legal jeopardy from the three inquiries in Atlanta, Washington and New York, all of which have accelerated since the start of 2022.Trump’s anxiety was especially palpable when he urged supporters at the Texas rally to stage “the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington DC, in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere,” should any charges be brought, a plea for help that could boomerang and create more legal problems for the former president.Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor who is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy, told the Guardian Trump “may have shot himself in the foot” with the comments. “Criminal intent can be hard to prove, but when a potential defendant says something easily seen as intimidating or threatening to those investigating the case it becomes easier,” Aftergut said.Aftergut added that having proclaimed “his support for the insurrectionists, Trump added evidence of his corrupt intent on January 6 should the DOJ prosecute him for aiding the seditious conspiracy, or for impeding an official proceeding of Congress”.Likewise, a former US attorney in Georgia, Michael Moore, said Trump’s comments could “potentially intimidate witnesses and members of a grand jury”, noting that it is a felony in Georgia to deter a witness from testifying before a grand jury.Trump “is essentially calling for vigilante justice against the justice system. He’s not interested in the pursuit of justice but blocking any investigations”, Moore added.Trump’s angry outburst came as three investigations by prosecutors that could lead to charges against Trump or top associates all seemed to gain steam last month.A special grand jury, for example, was approved in Atlanta focused on Trump’s call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger on 2 January last year, asking him to just “find” enough votes to block Joe Biden’s Georgia victory, a state Trump lost by more than 11,700 votes.Trump’s call for huge protests prompted the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, who is leading the criminal inquiry, to ask the FBI to do a threat assessment to protect her office and the grand jury that is slated to meet in May.Last month too a top justice official revealed that DOJ is investigating fake elector certifications declaring Trump the winner in several states he lost, a scheme reportedly pushed by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani by which vice-president Mike Pence could block Congress from certifying Biden’s win. To Trump’s chagrin, Pence rejected the plan.Further, the New York state attorney general last month stated in a court document that investigators had found evidence that Trump’s real estate business used “fraudulent or misleading” asset valuations to obtain loans and tax benefits, allegations Trump and his lawyers called politically motivated.Trump’s election advisers were like ‘snake oil salesmen’, ex-Pence aide saysRead moreEx-prosecutors say that Trump’s Texas comments are dangerous and could legally boomerang as the prosecutors appear to have new momentum.“Our criminal laws seek to hold people accountable for their purposeful actions,” Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at DOJ, said. “Trump’s history of inciting people to violence demonstrates that his recent remarks are likely to cause a disruption of the pending investigations against him and family members.”Pelletier added: “Should his conduct actually impede any of these investigations, federal and state obstruction statutes could easily compound Mr Trump’s criminal exposure.”Trump’s remarks resonated especially in Georgia, where former prosecutors say he may now face new legal problems.Former prosecutor Aftergut noted that Willis understood the threat when she quickly asked the FBI to provide protection at the courthouse, and he predicted that the immediate effect on the deputy DAs working on the case would be “to energize them in pursuing the case”.In a similar vein, ex-ambassador Norm Eisen and States United Democracy Center co-chair said Trump’s call for protests in Atlanta, New York and Washington if prosecutors there charge him “certainly sounds like a barely veiled call for violence. That’s particularly true when you combine it with his other statements at the Texas rally about how the last crowd of insurrectionists are being mistreated and did no wrong”. In addition, congresswoman Liz Cheney, the co-chair of the House panel investigating the 6 January Capitol assault by Trump followers, has stated that Trump’s talk of pardons and encouraging new protests suggests he would “do it all again if given the chance”.On another legal front, Aftergut pointed out that some Trump comments at the rally might help prosecutors at DOJ expand their inquiry. “Trump handed federal prosecutors another gift when he said that Mike Pence should have ‘overturned the election’.” Some veteran consultants say Trump’s latest attacks on prosecutors shows he is growing more nervous as investigations appear to be getting hotter.“Trump’s prosecutor attacks are wearing thin with the broad Republican electorate,” said Arizona Republican consultant Chuck Coughlin “He’s trying to whip up the base for his personal gain. This is another iteration of Trump’s attacks on the government.”From a broader perspective, Moore stressed that Trump’s multiple attacks on the legal system at the Texas rally represent “just another erosion of the norms of a civilized society by Trump. The truth has taken a backseat to Trumpism”.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Trump’s election advisers were like ‘snake oil salesmen’, ex-Pence aide saysFormer chief of staff Marc Short joins several senior Republicans to defend the former vice-president in escalating feud with Trump Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short joined several senior Republicans in rallying to defend the former vice-president on Sunday in his escalating feud with Donald Trump over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.Some of Trump’s advisers on the 2020 election were like “snake oil salesmen”, Short said on Sunday.Pence angered the former president this week by rejecting Trump’s false claim that he had the power to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by refusing to accept results from seven contested states.At a conference hosted by the conservative Federalist Society in Florida on Friday, Pence delivered his strongest rebuke to date of Trump’s election lies, declaring that it was “un-American” to believe that any one person had the right to choose the president.On Sunday, Short, and Republican senators John Barrasso, Lisa Murkowski and Marco Rubio, were among senior party figures who backed Pence’s position, adding their voices to a backlash by other prominent Republican figures apparently growing weary of Trump’s continued obsession with his election defeat and subversion of democracy.“There’s nothing in the 12th amendment or the Electoral Count Act that would afford a vice-president that authority,” Short told NBC’s Meet the Press, describing advisers who told Trump that Pence could send election results back to the states as “snake oil salesmen”.“The vice-president was crystal clear from day one that he didn’t have this authority.”Pence, as president of the US senate, certified Biden’s victory in the early morning of 7 January 2021, hours after a mob incited by the defeated president launched a deadly insurrection on the US capitol.Short, who sheltered with Pence in the Capitol as the mob outside erected a gallows and called for the then vice-president to be hanged, added that his boss had no alternative but to certify Biden’s win. “He was following what the Constitution afforded the vice-president … he was doing his duty, which was what he was required to, under an oath to the constitution to defend it,” he said.“Unfortunately the president had many bad advisers, who were basically snake oil salesmen giving him really random and novel ideas as to what the vice-president could do. But our office researched that and recognized that was never an option.”Short also attacked the Republican party’s position – crystalized this week in a widely derided censure motion for Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only two Republicans on the House committee investigating the insurrection, that the January 6 rioters were engaging in “legitimate political discourse”.“From my front-row seat, I did not see a lot of legitimate political discourse,” said Short, who along with the vice-president had to be hustled to a place of safety as the mob rampaged through the building.“They evacuated us into a secure location at the bottom of the Capitol. There was an attempt to put the vice-president into a motorcade but he was clear to say: ‘That’s not a visual I want the world to see of us fleeing.’ We stayed there and worked to try and bring the business back together and complete the work that night.”Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican and ranking member of the Senate foreign affairs committee, agreed with Short’s assessment in an appearance on Fox News Sunday.“I voted to certify the election, Mike Pence did his constitutional duty that day,” Barrasso said.“It’s not the Congress that elects a president, it’s the American people.”Rubio, a Republican Florida senator, told CBS’s Face the Nation that he had long known that Pence lacked the authority to bend to Trump’s will. “I concluded [that] back in January of 2021, when the issue was raised,” he said. “I looked at it, had analyzed it, and came to the same conclusion that vice-presidents can’t simply decide not to certify an election.”Rubio refused to say whether he thought the riot was political discourse, but added: “Anybody who committed crimes on January 6th should be prosecuted. If you entered the Capitol and you committed acts of violence and you were there to hurt people, you should be prosecuted.”Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, is among the supporters of an “aggressive” bipartisan effort in Congress, criticized by Trump, to overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act and enshrine in statute that a vice-president has no role in deciding a presidential election.“We’ve identified clearly some things within the act, the ambiguities that need to be addressed,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.TopicsMike PenceUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More