US Politics

Joe Biden to back filibuster rule change to push voting rights billUS president to throw support behind plan to change rules that allow minority of senators to kill proposed laws Joe Biden planned to use a speech in Georgia on Tuesday to make his most detailed case yet for passing sweeping voting rights legislation and to throw his support behind changing the Senate’s filibuster rules to allow such action, calling it a moment to choose “democracy over autocracy”.But some civil rights activists, proclaiming themselves more interested in action than speeches, said they planned to stay away.‘History is going to judge us,’ Biden says ahead of voting rights speech – liveRead moreThe speech comes at a pivotal moment for Democrats.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has said he will hold a vote no later than 17 January, a federal holiday to celebrate civil rights leader Martin Luther King, on voting rights legislation.If Republicans as expected use the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance legislation, to block the measure, Schumer has said he will hold a vote on changing filibuster rules.It is not clear that two key Democratic holdouts, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, are on board with the changes.On Tuesday, Biden was expected to evoke memories of the US Capitol riot a year ago in more forcefully aligning himself with the effort.Biden planned to tell his audience: “The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation.“Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice? I know where I stand. I will not yield. I will not flinch,” he will say, according to prepared remarks.“I will defend your right to vote and our democracy against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And so the question is: where will the institution of United States Senate stand?”A White House official said Biden would voice support for changing filibuster rules to ensure the right to vote was defended – a strategy Democrats have been looking to the president to embrace.Some voting rights advocates planned to boycott the speech and instead spend the day working. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, known for her voting rights work, was also due to skip the event. Aides said Abrams had a conflict but did not elaborate.So far, Democrats have been unable to agree potential changes to filibuster rules to allow action on voting rights, despite months of negotiations.Voting rights advocates are increasingly anxious about elections in 2022 and beyond, following enactment of Republican-pushed laws that make it harder to vote, inspired by Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 and his push to overturn it, despite no evidence of widespread fraud.The Democratic senator Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of a church Biden will visit and who made history as the first Black senator elected in Georgia, said: “Anything that can happen that will continue to shine a bright light on the urgency of this issue is important.”Warnock planned to travel with Biden to Georgia on Tuesday. He said he believed Biden understood that “democracy itself is imperilled by this all-out assault that we’ve been witnessing by state legislatures all across the country, and this is a moral moment. Everybody must show up.”The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, rejected some activists’ complaints that Biden had not been a strong enough advocate.“I think we would dispute the notion that the president hasn’t been active or vocal. He’s given a range of speeches, he’s advocated for voting rights to pass,” she saidBiden gave a speech in Philadelphia this summer on the need to protect voting rights, but it wasn’t until October that he endorsed getting rid of the filibuster for voting rights laws. Activists have expressed deep frustration that the White House wasn’t moving aggressively enough.Laws have already passed in at least 19 states that make it more difficult to vote. Voting rights groups view the changes as a subtler form of the ballot restrictions such as literacy tests and poll taxes once used to disenfranchise Black voters.Republicans who have fallen in line behind Trump are separately promoting efforts to influence future elections by installing sympathetic leaders in local election posts and backing for elective office some of those who participated in the riot at the US Capitol a year ago.“Joe Biden and Democrats’ election takeover attempts are blatant power-grabs designed to rig the game,” Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday.“Democrats want to destroy the integrity of our elections by eliminating photo ID requirements, allowing non-citizens to vote, using taxpayer dollars to fund career politicians, and silencing voters.”Georgia, one of the key battleground states in 2020, is at the centre of it all. After its vote was certified, Trump told a top state official he wanted the official to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss. The state nonetheless went to Biden, and both of its Senate seats to Democrats.Last year, the Republican governor signed a sweeping rewrite of election rules that, among other things, gives the state election board new powers to intervene in county election offices and remove and replace officials. That has led to concerns that the Republican-controlled state board could exert more influence over elections, including the certification of county results.Georgia voting activists said they worked tirelessly to give Democrats the Senate and White House, and it was time for Washington to step up.Congressional Democrats have written voting legislation that would usher in the biggest overhaul in a generation by striking down hurdles to voting enacted in the name of election security, reducing the influence of big money in politics and limiting partisan influence over the drawing of congressional districts.The package would create national election standards to trump state-level GOP laws. It would also restore the ability of the justice department to police election laws in states with recent evidence of voting discrimination.But to pass the legislation – which Republicans have outright rejected – the Democrats say they must change the Senate rules that allow a minority of 41 senators to block a bill.TopicsJoe BidenThe fight to voteUS voting rightsUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Why are US voting rights under threat and how is the filibuster related?After Republicans rammed through new restrictions, Biden and Senate Democrats are pushing back. Here’s how the fight unfolded

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The fight over voting rights in the US has arrived at a hugely consequential juncture. After watching Republicans ram through state bills that impose new voting restrictions, Joe Biden and Democrats in the Senate are set to make their most aggressive effort yet to push back. Georgia activists warn Biden against a ‘photo op’ visit that lacks voting rights planRead moreLater this week, the Senate will vote on legislation that would amount to the most significant expansion of voting rights protections since the civil rights era.Here’s a look at how the fight over voting rights has unfolded over the last year:Why are voting rights under threat?All of the data from the 2020 election points to it being one one of the most successful in American history. About two-thirds of eligible voters – 158 million people – cast a ballot, a record turnout. About a week after the election, a coalition of experts, including a top official in Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, described the election as “the most secure in American history”.Nonetheless, Republican state lawmakers fueled an unprecedented surge of legislation to impose new restrictions on voting. In total, more than 440 bills that included measures to restrict voting access were introduced in 49 states in 2021, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Thirty-four of those bills became law in 19 states.Get the latest updates on voting rights in the Guardian’s Fight to vote newsletterMany of the measures impose restrictions on mail-in voting, which was used in unprecedented numbers in 2020 amid the Covid pandemic.Republicans in Florida and Georgia, for example, limited or prohibited the use of mail-in ballot drop boxes, widely used in 2020 to ensure ballots made it back to election offices in time. Some states also imposed new identification requirements for voters both when they request and return a ballot, despite no evidence of widespread fraud. Lawmakers in Georgia passed measures that prohibit providing food or water to people standing in line to vote.Republicans have also taken up measures to exert control over who runs elections and counts. Election administration in the US has long been seen as a non-partisan job run by under-the-radar officials. But experts are concerned this new trend, which some call election subversion, could lead to partisan meddling.How do Republicans justify what they’re doing?Even though voter fraud is virtually non-existent, Republicans say their measures are needed to shore up confidence in elections. Polling shows significant numbers of Americans do not trust the results of the 2020 election. A recent UMass Amherst poll, for example, found that 33% do not believe the election was legitimate.That thinking belies reality. Much of the shaken confidence is because Trump continues to claim without evidence that the election was rigged. The Republican party has embraced his claims, ostracizing dissenters.Republicans also point to polling showing that voter ID is broadly supported, and to record high turnout as evidence voter suppression isn’t really a problem. Voting rights groups point out that while turnout was up in 2020, there are still persistent gaps between white and non-white voters. About 70.9% of white voters cast a ballot in 2020, compared with 58.4% of non-white, according to the Brennan Center.In Georgia, lawmakers have defended the ban on providing food and water to people in line by saying it’s needed to prevent unlawful electioneering.Will these new laws actually help Republicans?It’s not clear that new restrictions will benefit the GOP. A study from March 2021 found that vote-by-mail neither boosted turnout nor helped Democrats. That said, there is still deep concern that Republicans appear to be pushing restrictions in response to an election where more Americans than ever, including a high numbers of non-white people, cast a ballot.Republicans could benefit significantly from efforts to take over election administration. Election officials often wield tremendous power to set rules.What are Democrats doing to push back?The Democratic response is built around two pieces of federal legislation. One measure is the Freedom to Vote Act, which would overhaul rules for federal elections and set an expansive baseline for voter access. States would be required to offer 15 days of early voting, same-day voter registration and ballot drop boxes, among other measures. It also would prevent the removal without cause of elections officials.The second bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, requiring places where there is repeated evidence of recent voting discrimination to get changes to elections approved by the federal government. The US supreme court gutted a similar requirement in 2013.What is the filibuster and how is it related to all of this?The filibuster is a longstanding rule in the Senate. It requires 60 votes to move legislation to a final vote. The Senate is currently split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats but Democrats control it via Vice-President Kamala Harris’s casting vote. Because there are not 10 Republicans who support the voting rights bills, Democrats have been unable to move either.There has been growing criticism of the filibuster from Democrats, who say Republicans have weaponized it into a tool of obstruction.How can Democrats change the filibuster?Democrats can change the filibuster with a majority vote. The problem is that two Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, staunchly support leaving the filibuster in place. They say it is an important way to forge bipartisanship. And they argue that getting rid of the rule would allow Republicans, when back in control, to exert unlimited power.There have been aggressive negotiations to get both senators to support tweaking but not eliminating the filibuster. Ideas for such changes include requiring senators to actually talk on the floor of the Senate to hold up legislation, or to require 41 senators to actively show up to block a vote, instead of requiring 60 votes to advance.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has pledged a vote on changes to the filibuster this week. It’s unclear what changes, if any, Manchin and Sinema support.TopicsUS voting rightsThe fight to voteUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansexplainersReuse this content More

DoJ creates unit to counter domestic terrorism after Capitol attack‘We face an elevated threat from domestic violent extremists,’ says assistant attorney general of the national security division

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The Biden administration is creating a new unit in the justice department to counter domestic terrorism following the deadly US Capitol attack by supporters of Donald Trump, a senior official said on Tuesday.‘The Timothy McVeighs are still there’: fears over extremism in US militaryRead more“We face an elevated threat from domestic violent extremists,” Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general of the national security division, told a hearing held by the Senate judiciary committee.Olsen was testifying days after the US observed the first anniversary of the violent attack on Congress, in which Trump supporters sought to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.Olsen said the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists had more than doubled since the spring of 2020.In November, a top FBI official told Congress the bureau was conducting around 2,700 investigations related to domestic violent extremism.Olsen defined such extremists as “individuals in the United States who seek to commit violent criminal acts in furtherance of domestic social or political goals”.“Domestic violent extremists are often motivated by a mix of ideologies and personal grievances,” he said. “We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.”The attorney general, Merrick Garland, told lawmakers last May domestic violent extremist groups, particularly white supremacists, posed a growing threat to the US.The DoJ national security division has a counter-terrorism section. Olsen told the committee he decided to create a specialised domestic terrorism unit “to augment our existing approach”.Olsen said the new unit will be housed within the national security division and will work to “ensure that these cases are properly handled and effectively coordinated” across the department and around the country.Five people died around the Capitol attack and more than 100 police officers were hurt. The DoJ has brought criminal charges against more than 725 participants.Some of the defendants are members or associated with far-right groups or militia including the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.TopicsBiden administrationThe far rightUS politicsUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

Why is so little known about the 1930s coup attempt against FDR?Sally DentonBusiness leaders like JP Morgan and Irénée du Pont were accused by a retired major general of plotting to install a fascist dictator Donald Trump’s elaborate plot to overthrow the democratically elected president was neither impulsive nor uncoordinated, but straight out of the playbook of another American coup attempt – the 1933 “Wall Street putsch” against newly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt.America had hit rock bottom, beginning with the stock market crash three years earlier. Unemployment was at 16 million and rising. Farm foreclosures exceeded half a million. More than five thousand banks had failed, and hundreds of thousands of families had lost their homes. Financial capitalists had bilked millions of customers and rigged the market. There were no government safety nets – no unemployment insurance, minimum wage, social security or Medicare.Many are disillusioned with American democracy. Can Joe Biden win them over? | Francine ProseRead moreEconomic despair gave rise to panic and unrest, and political firebrands and white supremacists eagerly fanned the paranoia of socialism, global conspiracies and threats from within the country. Populists Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin attacked FDR, spewing vitriolic anti-Jewish, pro-fascist refrains and brandishing the “America first” slogan coined by media magnate William Randolph Hearst.On 4 March 1933, more than 100,000 people had gathered on the east side of the US Capitol for Roosevelt’s inauguration. The atmosphere was slate gray and ominous, the sky suggesting a calm before the storm. That morning, rioting was expected in cities throughout the nation, prompting predictions of a violent revolution. Army machine guns and sharpshooters were placed at strategic locations along the route. Not since the civil war had Washington been so fortified, with armed police guarding federal buildings.FDR thought government in a civilized society had an obligation to abolish poverty, reduce unemployment, and redistribute wealth. Roosevelt’s bold New Deal experiments inflamed the upper class, provoking a backlash from the nation’s most powerful bankers, industrialists and Wall Street brokers, who thought the policy was not only radical but revolutionary. Worried about losing their personal fortunes to runaway government spending, this fertile field of loathing led to the “traitor to his class” epithet for FDR. “What that fellow Roosevelt needs is a 38-caliber revolver right at the back of his head,” a respectable citizen said at a Washington dinner party.In a climate of conspiracies and intrigues, and against the backdrop of charismatic dictators in the world such as Hitler and Mussolini, the sparks of anti-Rooseveltism ignited into full-fledged hatred. Many American intellectuals and business leaders saw nazism and fascism as viable models for the US. The rise of Hitler and the explosion of the Nazi revolution, which frightened many European nations, struck a chord with prominent American elites and antisemites such as Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford. Hitler’s elite Brownshirts – a mass body of party storm troopers separate from the 100,000-man German army – was a stark symbol to the powerless American masses. Mussolini’s Blackshirts – the military arm of his organization made up of 200,000 soldiers – were a potent image of strength to a nation that felt emasculated.A divided country and FDR’s emboldened powerful enemies made the plot to overthrow him seem plausible. With restless uncertainty, volatile protests and ominous threats, America’s right wing was inspired to form its own paramilitary organizations. Militias sprung up throughout the land, their self-described “patriots” chanting: “This is despotism! This is tyranny!”Today’s Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have nothing on their extremist forbears. In 1933, a diehard core of conservative veterans formed the Khaki Shirts in Philadelphia and recruited pro-Mussolini immigrants. The Silver Shirts was an apocalyptic Christian militia patterned on the notoriously racist Texas Rangers that operated in 46 states and stockpiled weapons.The Gray Shirts of New York organized to remove “Communist college professors” from the nation’s education system, and the Tennessee-based White Shirts wore a Crusader cross and agitated for the takeover of Washington. JP Morgan Jr, one of the nation’s richest men, had secured a $100m loan to Mussolini’s government. He defiantly refused to pay income tax and implored his peers to join him in undermining FDR.So, when retired US Marine Corps Maj Gen Smedley Darlington Butler claimed he was recruited by a group of Wall Street financiers to lead a fascist coup against FDR and the US government in the summer of 1933, Washington took him seriously. Butler, a Quaker, and first world war hero dubbed the Maverick Marine, was a soldier’s soldier who was idolized by veterans – which represented a huge and powerful voting bloc in America. Famous for his daring exploits in China and Central America, Butler’s reputation was impeccable. He got rousing ovations when he claimed that during his 33 years in the marines: “I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”Butler later testified before Congress that a bond-broker and American Legion member named Gerald MacGuire approached him with the plan. MacGuire told him the coup was backed by a group called the American Liberty League, a group of business leaders which formed in response to FDR’s victory, and whose mission it was to teach government “the necessity of respect for the rights of persons and property”. Members included JP Morgan, Jr, Irénée du Pont, Robert Sterling Clark of the Singer sewing machine fortune, and the chief executives of General Motors, Birds Eye and General Foods.The putsch called for him to lead a massive army of veterans – funded by $30m from Wall Street titans and with weapons supplied by Remington Arms – to march on Washington, oust Roosevelt and the entire line of succession, and establish a fascist dictatorship backed by a private army of 500,000 former soldiers.As MacGuire laid it out to Butler, the coup was instigated after FDR eliminated the gold standard in April 1933, which threatened the country’s wealthiest men who thought if American currency wasn’t backed by gold, rising inflation would diminish their fortunes. He claimed the coup was sponsored by a group who controlled $40bn in assets – about $800bn today – and who had $300m available to support the coup and pay the veterans. The plotters had men, guns and money – the three elements that make for successful wars and revolutions. Butler referred to them as “the royal family of financiers” that had controlled the American Legion since its formation in 1919. He felt the Legion was a militaristic political force, notorious for its antisemitism and reactionary policies against labor unions and civil rights, that manipulated veterans.The planned coup was thwarted when Butler reported it to J Edgar Hoover at the FBI, who reported it to FDR. How seriously the “Wall Street putsch” endangered the Roosevelt presidency remains unknown, with the national press at the time mocking it as a “gigantic hoax” and historians like Arthur M Schlesinger Jr surmising “the gap between contemplation and execution was considerable” and that democracy was not in real danger. Still, there is much evidence that the nation’s wealthiest men – Republicans and Democrats alike – were so threatened by FDR’s policies that they conspired with antigovernment paramilitarism to stage a coup.The final report by the congressional committee tasked with investigating the allegations, delivered in February 1935, concluded: “[The committee] received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country”, adding “There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”As Congressman John McCormack who headed the congressional investigation put it: “If General Butler had not been the patriot he was, and if they had been able to maintain secrecy, the plot certainly might very well have succeeded … When times are desperate and people are frustrated, anything could happen.”There is still much that is not known about the coup attempt. Butler demanded to know why the names of the country’s richest men were removed from the final version of the committee’s report. “Like most committees, it has slaughtered the little and allowed the big to escape,” Butler said in a Philadelphia radio interview in 1935. “The big shots weren’t even called to testify. They were all mentioned in the testimony. Why was all mention of these names suppressed from this testimony?”While details of the conspiracy are still matters of historical debate, journalists and historians, including the BBC’s Mike Thomson and John Buchanan of the US, later concluded that FDR struck a deal with the plotters, allowing them to avoid treason charges – and possible execution – if Wall Street backed off its opposition to the New Deal. “Roosevelt should have pushed it all through and then welshed on his agreement and prosecuted them,” presidential biographer Sidney Blumenthal recently said.What might all of this portend for Americans today, as President Biden follows in FDR’s New Deal footsteps while democratic socialist Bernie Sanders also rises in popularity and influence? In 1933, rather than inflame a quavering nation, FDR calmly urged Americans to unite to overcome fear, banish apathy and restore their confidence in the country’s future. Now, 90 years later, a year on from Trump’s own coup attempt, Biden’s tone was more alarming, sounding a clarion call for Americans to save democracy itself, to make sure such an attack “never, never happens again”.If the plotters had been held accountable in the 1930s, the forces behind the 6 January coup attempt might never have flourished into the next century.
Sally Denton is the author of The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right. Her forthcoming book is The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land
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GOP state senator walks back comments on Nazi history in schoolsScott Baldwin faced backlash after his comments during a hearing on Senate Bill 167, which would ban ‘concepts that divide’ in schools An Indiana state senator has backtracked on his remarks that teachers must be impartial when discussing nazism in classrooms after he sparked widespread backlash.During a state senate committee hearing last week about Senate Bill 167, a proposed bill that would ban “concepts that divide”, Republican Senator Scott Baldwin, who co-wrote the bill, said teachers should remain unprejudiced when teaching lessons about fascism and nazism.“Marxism, nazism, fascism … I have no problem with the education system providing instruction on the existence of those ‘isms’,” Baldwin said, adding, “I believe we’ve gone too far when we take a position … We need to be impartial.” He went on to say that teachers should “just provide the facts” and that he is “not sure it’s right for us to determine how that child should think and that’s where I’m trying to provide the guardrails”.Texas school official says classrooms with books on Holocaust must offer ‘opposing’ viewsRead moreBaldwin has since walked back on his remarks. In an email to the Indianapolis Star last Thursday, he said that his intention with the bill was to make sure teachers are being impartial when discussing and teaching “legitimate political groups”.“When I was drafting this bill, my intent with regard to ‘political affiliation’ was to cover political parties within the legal American political system,” Baldwin said. “In my comments during committee, I was thinking more about the big picture and trying to say that we should not tell kids what to think about politics.”He went on to denounce the aforementioned ideologies, saying, “nazism, Marxism and fascism are a stain on our world history and should be regarded as such, and I failed to adequately articulate that in my comments during the meeting. I believe that kids should learn about these horrible events in history so that we don’t experience them again in humanity.”SB 167 was filed in recent weeks in response to the fierce debates that have emerged across Indiana and the rest of the country in the past year regarding the ways schools should teach children about racism, history and other subject matters.The bill prohibits kindergarten through 12th grade schools from teaching students that “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation” is inherently superior, inferior, racist, sexist, oppressive. Teachers would also be prohibited from making individuals feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, responsibility or any other form of psychological distress” when it comes to meritocracy and the notion that it was created by one group to oppress another.The bill also prohibits teachers and curriculums from teaching that Indiana and the United States was founded as a racist or sexist state or nation.The midwest chapter of the Anti-Defamation League has criticized Baldwin’s apology, arguing that it “doesn’t change the deep harms of using ‘impartiality’ or ‘neutrality’ as tools to sanitize history”.“This is part of the continued efforts by some to try and rewrite history and characterize extremism, racism, and genocide as somehow legitimate That is dangerous and despicable. It should be categorically, universally, and loudly rejected,” the organization added.The incident comes less than three months after a north Texas school official said that classrooms with books on Holocaust must offer “opposing” viewpoints.TopicsUS educationNazismRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Voters move to block Trump ally Madison Cawthorn from re-electionNorth Carolina group files candidacy challenge, citing Republican congressman’s alleged involvement in 6 January attack A group of North Carolina voters told state officials on Monday that they want Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn to be disqualified as a congressional candidate, citing his involvement in the 6 January attack on the Capitol.Cawthorn questioned the outcome of the presidential election during the “Save America Rally” before the Capitol riot later that day that resulted in five deaths.At the rally, Cawthorn made baseless claims that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump, and has been accused of firing up the crowd, many of whom went on to storm the Capitol.Lawyers filed the candidacy challenge on behalf of 11 voters with North Carolina’s board of elections, which oversees a process by which candidate qualifications are scrutinized.The voters say Cawthorn, who formally filed as a candidate last month, cannot run because he fails to comply with an amendment in the constitution ratified shortly after the civil war.The 1868 amendment says no one can serve in Congress “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.The written challenge says the events on 6 January “amounted to an insurrection”, and that Cawthorn’s speech at the rally supporting Trump, his other comments, and information in published reports, provide a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that he helped facilitate the insurrection and is thus disqualified.“Challengers have reasonable suspicion that Representative Cawthorn was involved in efforts to intimidate Congress and the Vice-President into rejecting valid electoral votes and subvert the essential constitutional function of an orderly and peaceful transition of power,” the complaint read.The complaint went on to detail the ways Cawthorn allegedly promoted the demonstration ahead of time, including him tweeting: “The future of this republic hinges on the actions of a solitary few … It’s time to fight.” The complaint also details reports of Cawthorn meeting with planners of the 6 January demonstration and possibly the Capitol assault.Cawthorn, 26, became the youngest member of Congress after his November 2020 election, and has become a social media favorite of Trump supporters. He plans to run in a new district that appears friendlier to Republicans. He formally filed candidacy papers just before filing was suspended while redistricting lawsuits are pending.Last September, Cawthorn warned North Carolinians of potential “bloodshed” over future elections he claims could “continue to be stolen”, and questioned whether Biden was “dutifully elected”. He advised them to begin amassing ammunition for what he said is likely American-v-American “bloodshed” over unfavorable election results.“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes your duty,” he said, in addition to describing the rioters who were arrested during the January 6 insurrection as “political prisoners”. He said “we are actively working” on plans for a similar protest in Washington.Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, a national election and campaign finance reform group backing the challenge to Cawthorn, told the Guardian the complaint was “the first legal challenge to a candidate’s eligibility under the disqualification clause filed since post civil war reconstruction in the 19th century.”He said: “It sets 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.”Fein said the challenge will be the first of many against members of Congress associated with the insurrection. Free Speech for People and the group Our Revolution announced last week they would urge state administrators to bar Trump and members of Congress from future ballots.He said: “This isn’t just about the voters of that district. The insurrection threatened our country’s entire democratic system and putting insurrectionists from any state into the halls of Congress threatens the entire country.”The challenge asks the board to create a five-member panel from counties within the proposed 13th district to hear the challenge. The panel’s decision can be appealed to the state board and later to court.The challengers also asked the board to let them question Cawthorn under oath in a deposition before the regional panel convenes, and to subpoena him and others to obtain documents.John Wallace, a longtime lawyer for Democratic causes in North Carolina, who also filed the challenge, told the Guardian: “The disqualification of Representative Cawthorn certainly should provide a deterrent to others who might try and obstruct or defeat our democratic processes.”Cawthorn spokesperson Luke Ball said “over 245,000 patriots from western North Carolina elected Congressman Cawthorn to serve them in Washington” – a reference to his November 2020 victory in the current 11th district.Now “a dozen activists who are comically misinterpreting and twisting the 14th amendment for political gain will not distract him from that service,” Ball wrote.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

Georgia activists warn Biden against a ‘photo-op’ visit that lacks voting rights planPresident and vice-president urged to come to state with meaningful plan or risk visit being dismissed as ‘waste of time’ A coalition of influential political activists in Georgia that boosted turnout in a state that was crucial to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 is now collectively refusing to attend the visit planned on Tuesday by the US president and Kamala Harris to speak on voting rights. The group had previously warned the president and vice president that they needed to announce a specific plan to get national voting rights legislation passed or risk their high-profile trip to Atlanta being dismissed as “a waste of time”.The racist 1890 law that’s still blocking thousands of Black Americans from votingRead moreOn Monday evening, the coalition of activist groups – Black Voters Matter, Galeo Impact Fund, New Georgia Project Action Fund, Asian American Advocacy Fund, Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council – along with James Woodall, the Georgia NAACP president, announced that “we will not be attending” when Biden and Harris give addresses on Tuesday afternoon.“Instead of giving a speech tomorrow, the US Senate should be voting tomorrow. What we need now, rather than a visit from the president, vice-president and legislators is for the White House and Senate to remain in DC and act immediately to pass federal legislation to protect our freedom to vote,” the groups said in joint statement.Instead of giving a speech tomorrow, the U.S. Senateshould be voting. What we need now, rather than a visit from @POTUS, @VP, and legislators, is for the @WhiteHouse and Senate to remain in DC and act immediately to pass federal legislation to protect our freedom to vote.— Black Voters Matter (@BlackVotersMtr) January 10, 2022
Biden and Harris have planned a joint visit to Atlanta to advocate for flagship bills, currently stalled in the US Senate, to protect voting rights, which are increasingly under threat across the country, including in Georgia.But many Georgia activists and organizers have spoken out to make it clear they don’t support the leadership using the state and its civil rights legacy as “a photo-op” without a meaningful plan of legislative action.“If this is just a rhetorical exercise, just an attempt to perform advocacy, then I think it might be a waste of time,” Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project voting rights advocacy, told the Guardian prior to the news that the coalition of groups will stay away.She said it was the work of local organizers that helped deliver the Democrats’ White House and Senate victories, and she’s pushing for the elimination of the filibuster rule that requires 60 senators to bring laws to a vote, while the Democrats only have 50 seats and Republicans won’t support the voting rights legislation.“There needs to be a federal standard for elections or the 2022 midterms are going to be chaotic,” Ufot said.Last Thursday the coalition of activists released a scorching letter warning the leaders not to travel without a “finalized plan” for new laws.It noted that Georgia voters “made history” to flip the state blue in November 2020, the first time it put a Democrat in the White House since 1992, with a huge turnout from Black voters in particular, then also elected Georgia Democrats Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff to give the party the edge in the US Senate.The letter said of those Georgia voters: “In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable.Don’t come to Atlanta without a plan to pass voting laws! – @BlackVotersMtr @ngpaction @AsianAAF @GALEOImpactFund #GaPol #Georgiahttps://t.co/VsJcHyDmzH— GALEO Impact Fund (@GALEOImpactFund) January 7, 2022
“As civil rights leaders and advocates, we reject any visit by President Biden that does not include an announcement of a finalized voting rights plan that will pass both chambers, not be stopped by the filibuster, and be signed into law.”The bills blocked by Senate Republicans using the filibuster are the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.The latter would create a “baseline national standard for voting access”, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.The former, named after the late Georgia congressman and civil rights activist, would restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibiting states with a history of voter suppression from making changes to voting laws without federal approval, a key provision removed by a 2013 supreme court decision.Georgia passed a new voter restriction law in spring 2021 dubbed “Jim Crow in the 21st century” by Biden.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer hopes to change the filibuster rules if necessary to pass national voting rights legislation. But he faces opposition from centrist Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who also stand in the way of Biden’s Build Back Better bill.Cliff Albright, executive director of the Black Voters Matter Fund, said that potential speeches on Tuesday without a specific plan of action could send the message that the administration believes it’s possible to continue to “out-organize voter suppression”.“That’s just a bad strategy,” Albright said. “It’s not that we don’t want the president talking about these issues, but we don’t want it to just be a photo-op.”James Woodall, the Georgia NAACP president, said activists understand the challenges but it’s time for the White House to figure out how to make change.“We understand civics. We get it. They’re not senators and there are processes in place, like the filibuster, that require reform. But, that’s not our job,” Woodall said.“Our job was to get Ossoff and Warnock elected and to ensure that Donald Trump was not the president… Biden won and it was all because of what we did here in Georgia. Now, we’re asking them to do their part, which is to protect democracy.”Atlanta’s Bishop Reginald Jackson of the AME church, who pushed Georgia-based Coca Cola and Delta Air Lines to criticize voter suppression, said he “strongly supports” the visit.“They’ll be coming at a time when our democracy and its future is at great risk,” he said.But Ufot warned that if election integrity isn’t protected in time for midterm elections: “We’re talking about losing a generation of voters who think this is a Banana republic and their vote doesn’t matter.”TopicsGeorgiaUS voting rightsJoe BidenKamala HarrisUS politicsRacenewsReuse this content More

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The first prisoners arrived at the newly built Camp X-Ray prison at the US naval base in Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay on 11 January 2002. It was a makeshift jail formed of chain-link cages and barbed-wire fences, watched over by snipers in plywood guard towers. It was never intended to be permanent, but from the start it had an ambiguous legal status: outside normal US law, it housed what the military called ‘enemy combatants’, not prisoners of war. Twenty years on, approximately 780 prisoners have been held at Guantánamo in total. However, beset by allegations of abuse and torture at the camp, authorities have only been able to bring charges against 12 men and convictions against two. The Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, tells Nosheen Iqbal that the murky legal status of Guantánamo Bay that made it so attractive to the US government in 2002 is now making it so difficult to close. Despite the hopes of three presidents (Bush, Obama and Biden, but not Trump) to close it, progress has been glacially slow. It requires the willingness of US allies to accept the transfer of prisoners, and while there was some momentum in the early phase of Obama’s presidency, it has since dried up. Meanwhile, 39 prisoners continue to spend their days inside Guantánamo, with little prospect of release for many of them. More