US Politics

America is at a crossroads. The supreme court may decide which way it goesGary GerstleThe sitting justices face a once-in-a-lifetime crisis of legitimacy that could determine the future of the US Common sense suggests that America ought to reform its ancient constitution. The country, after all, is vastly different from what it was when founded in the 1780s and 1790s. The electoral college may have made sense at the dawn of the democratic age, but now it is an embarrassment, violating the core principle that every vote in presidential contests ought to count the same as any other.Pointed questions suggest US supreme court ready to ease restrictions on gunsRead moreHaving had no experience with the mass democracy they called into being, the framers of the constitution gave little thought as to how best to keep monied interests from corrupting electoral outcomes. And they had no clue about how questions of sex and sexuality would one day convulse their republic. Constitutional amendments passed today could abolish the electoral college, curtail the influence of private (and especially dark) money on politics, and establish a right to an abortion or a broader right to privacy in matters sexual and otherwise.When we ask, however, whether any of these amendments have a reasonable chance of becoming law, the answer is no. The explanation is as mind-boggling as it is straightforward: For all intents and purposes, the constitution cannot be changed. The framers set an impossibly high bar for revision: two-thirds approval for a proposed amendment from each House of Congress, followed by majority approval from three-quarters of the state legislatures. Imagine a vote for Brexit crossing that double threshold. It never would.The US constitution has been amended a mere 27 times across its 230-year history. The meaningful total is actually far less. The first 10 “Bill of Rights” amendments should not be regarded as amendments, since they were part of the original debate and ratification of the constitution in the years from 1789 to 1792. The three civil war amendments (1865-1870) were passed in unique circumstances of internal war, secession, and reconstruction. Two Prohibition amendments that canceled each other out (the first authorized a ban on alcohol and the second repealed it 14 years later) inflate the official count. A few other amendments addressed matters too minor to discuss. The total number of significant amendments passed in non-civil war circumstances, then, rapidly shrinks to single digits: about one every 25 to 30 years. Only during the Progressive era (1900-1920) did Americans find a way to make amendments a useful tool of politics: the direct election of senators, women’s suffrage and Congress’s right to levy income taxes were all written into the constitution at this time. No prior or subsequent generation has figured out how to duplicate the Progressives’ success. Even Antonin Scalia, the great believer in the genius of the constitution as it was originally written, admitted that a constitution written in stone was not serving anyone well.The unchangeability of the constitution is not a new problem, of course. Liberal and conservative jurists across the generations have creatively refashioned the constitution into new shapes to address new realities. Consider Louis Brandeis, who insisted that the constitution be treated as a living document whose principles needed to address matters “of which our fathers could not have dreamed”. Twentieth-century judges, Brandeis believed, were obligated to adapt 18th-century principles to novel circumstances and, occasionally, to discern in those principles as yet unenumerated rights. To think otherwise, Brandeis declared, would be to turn the constitution into a series of “impotent and lifeless formulas”.If the supreme court sometimes sought and achieved moments of Brandeis-style brilliance, it also suffered through periods of hubris or brittleness when justices, in pursuit of a political agenda or a misguided sense of principle, forgot where the ultimate source of their authority lay: not with the statutes themselves, or with framers of the constitution, but with the American people.Between 1789 and 1791, large assemblies of citizens in nine of the 13 states voted both to ratify and modify the document that the framers had handed them. This ratification process gave meaning to the critical preamble to the constitution: “We the people of the United States … do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.” The supreme court must sometimes rule against majority opinion, which can be ill-considered, even tyrannical. But if the court repeatedly ignores or, worse, displays contempt for deep-seated and enduring popular convictions, it risks not just its own authority but that of the entire governing system of which it is part.Two historical examples illustrate this point. The first was the notorious Dred Scott decision of 1857, when Chief Justice Roger Taney and a large majority of justices declared on specious grounds that African Americans, enslaved or free, were not and would never be entitled to US citizenship and thus to constitutional rights and privileges. The outrage generated in the north by this decision hastened America’s descent into civil war.The second moment occurred in the 1930s, when four conservative justices were preparing opinions to strike down two pillars of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act. These “Four Horsemen”, as they were known, were opposed by a progressive bloc consisting of Brandeis and two other justices wishing to uphold the New Deal. In the middle sat two moderates, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Owen Roberts. Had one or both joined the horsemen, they might have plunged America into a second civil war, this one between capital and labor.The scenario of war was not far-fetched. Americans had declared their support for the New Deal by giving Roosevelt a resounding election victory in the 1936; they would not have tolerated the supreme court frustrating the will of the people by striking down the New Deal.To save his legislative program, Roosevelt was threatening to push through Congress a law that would allow him to “pack” the court with his own appointees. Meanwhile, members of the United Auto Workers had occupied several General Motors factories in Michigan, forcing one of the world’s most powerful corporations to shut down production. Staying for six weeks, the “sit-down” strikers dared mayors, a governor, judges, and a president to call in the police, national guard, or US military to evict them.At this moment of industrial confrontation and looming political crisis, both Hughes and Roberts signed on to two critical decisions that secured FDR’s New Deal. Roberts insisted in subsequent years that jurisprudential evolution, not political pressure, had shaped his decision. Hughes struck a different pose. He seemed to understand that the judiciary, though independent, was part of a political system established to make the people sovereign. And that at certain crucial moments, the will of the people had to be honored. If this could not be done by constitutional amendment, it would have to occur through some other means.The supreme court today faces another critical test of its legitimacy, as it prepares to deliver pivotal rulings this year on abortion, gun rights, and government funding for religious schools. It is likely that important “right to vote” cases will soon come before the court as well. The court must render its rulings in circumstances that have already seriously damaged its reputation. I am referring, of course, to the true steal in American politics: not the presidential election of 2020 but Mitch McConnell’s hijacking of two supreme court appointments to achieve the GOP’s 40-year quest for an impregnable conservative majority. The beneficiaries of that steal – associate justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – have given conservatives their largest majority on the court in 90 years.Will this court, and its swollen Republican majority, succumb to the Taney temptation in Dred Scott, and attempt to settle divisive matters once and for all in ways that suit the wishes of their most fervent supporters? Or will the court follow the Hughes path and recognize that this is a moment when considerations of the American people’s “general welfare” must enter judicial deliberations?Chief Justice John Roberts has shown himself to be a Hughes man, able to put country before party (as he did in his critical vote upholding the Affordable Care Act). But McConnell’s machinations have removed control of the court from Roberts’s hands. Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch seem implacable in their conservatism. The progressive caucus of Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan is too small to accomplish anything on its own, even with Roberts as a sometime ally. That leaves the future of this court in the hands of Barrett and Trump’s third appointee, Brett Kavanaugh. Does either have the integrity or vision to move the court and the country to a better place? We shall see.
Gary Gerstle is Mellon Professor of American History at Cambridge. His new book, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, will be published in April. He is a Guardian US columnist
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Xi Jinping expected in talks to tell Joe Biden to ‘step back’ on TaiwanWar of words begins before leaders’ meeting, with US president warned Taiwan is China’s ‘ultimate red line’ China’s president, Xi Jinping, is expected to warn his US counterpart, Joe Biden, to “step back” on the Taiwan issue in their first virtual meeting on Monday evening Washington time, according to Chinese state media.State media outlets such as China Daily are briefed by authorities on important issues such as China-US relations and have been accurate in reflecting the priorities of Chinese leaders.“The Taiwan question is the ultimate red line of China,” said a Monday editorial in the Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist party’s People’s Daily.“In order to reduce the risk of a strategic collision between China and the US, the latter must take a step back from the Taiwan question and show its restraint,” it added.The two leaders have talked twice by phone since Biden took office in January, but this video conference will be their most substantial discussion so far.It comes days after the two countries surprised analysts by agreeing at Cop26 in Glasgow to boost climate cooperation. But it also comes at a time of increasing friction over Taiwan – the most dangerous potential flashpoint between the two countries.On Tuesday, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted the latest in a series of combat readiness exercises off the Taiwanese coast, while in a phone call on Saturday the nations’ top diplomats traded warnings about the island.Ahead of the meeting, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that any show of support for Taiwan’s independence would “boomerang” on the US. Blinken in turn raised concerns over China’s growing “military, diplomatic, and economic pressure” on the island.US allegations of repeated cyber-attacks from China, deep divisions over human rights in the Xinjiang region, Hong Kong and Tibet, as well as lingering trade disputes have also contributed towards the steady souring of relations.The US-China climate agreement is imperfect – but reason to hope | Sam GeallRead moreThe US is frustrated by Chinese obstruction of multilateral investigations of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has been angered by Chinese government pressure on US companies to lobby Congress to drop legislation Beijing does not like, as Reuters reported on Friday.The stakes have been raised by the rapid expansion of China’s military capabilities, including its nuclear arsenal. According to the US, Beijing has tested a new weapon, a nuclear-capable hypersonic glider launched from orbit, and China is reported to be building at least 250 new silos for long-range missiles.Expectations for the summit have been set low. There is not likely to be a joint statement, and the White House has indicated that Biden will not answer press questions after the talks are over.“Overall, in both Washington and Beijing, the expectation of convergence is pretty much dead. Instead, the relationship has become more transactional,” Scott Moore, the director of China programmes and strategic initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, said.“For Biden, he is facing political challenges at home with the midterm elections looming [next year]. Therefore, he will likely face political constraints in terms of taking any actions that could be perceived or characterised as making significant concessions to China.”“For Xi, his biggest vulnerability is on the economic front. That’s why Beijing has been signalling its interest in making progress on trade. Recent comments from Biden administration officials suggest there is interest in engaging on these issues, but again there are likely to be significant political constraints.”Both leaders will seek to limit the dangers of the rivalry spiralling out of control.In a message to the National Committee on US-China Relations, Xi said that the bilateral relationship was at a “critical historical juncture”.“Both countries will gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. Cooperation is the only right choice,” Xi said in his statement. In his message to the committee’s gala on 9 November, Biden also pointed to an “inflection point in history”.“From tackling the Covid-19 pandemic to addressing the existential threat of the climate crisis, the relationship between the United States and China has global significance.”The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said Biden would be “clear and candid” about US concerns, but would look for ways to “responsibly manage competition” between the world’s two largest economies and also seek “to work together where our interests align”.Wang has said Monday’s summit is a potentially pivotal event in efforts to improve the trajectory in bilateral relations.“The two sides should meet each other halfway … ensuring that the meeting will be smooth and successful, and push Sino-US relations back on the track of healthy and stable development,” Wang said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.Xi will be seeking to head off moves to boycott the Winter Olympics in China this year, and he is also expected to invite Biden to the games as a conciliatory gesture.But Taiwan remains on top of Xi’s talking points, particularly after a series of steps the Biden administration has taken to raise Taiwan’s status, which China sees as breaking with Washington’s long-held “one China policy”, recognising the People’s Republic as the sole sovereign Chinese government.“Beijing has noticed recent statements by senior Biden officials such as Jake Sullivan, saying that Washington no longer wants to change China’s system. It is a positive signal,” said Wang Huiyao, the president of the Centre for China and Globalisation, who also advises the Beijing government. “But if this is the case, the US should cease using Taiwan as a card to irritate China, and leave the Taiwan affairs to the peoples on both sides of the Taiwan strait.”Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said Beijing was concerned about whether the Biden administration was really sticking to its one China policy or whether there was “a lot of salami-slicing” going on. “They want to hear greater reassurance about what the US will and will not do with Taiwan,” she said.The US side will be pushing for more routine contacts between the defence and diplomatic establishments, but Xi is likely to resist any action that he sees as normalising the US role in China’s immediate neighbourhood.‘We need to be much clearer’: leading Democrat questions US strategy on defending TaiwanRead more“It’s something that the Chinese have so far been very resistant to because they don’t want to give the US military a licence to operate anywhere near their shores,” Glaser said.As for nuclear arms control, China has so far resisted any approaches on entering bilateral negotiations, and spurned Donald Trump’s attempts to start trilateral talks with Russia.“Sadly I don’t think it’s going to be a major topic at the meeting. The United States hasn’t proposed anything that China can talk about, and China doesn’t like to negotiate outside of the UN,” said Gregory Kulacki, the China project manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists.“They could make some sort of vague statement about wanting to check the nuclear arms race, but anything concrete coming out of it seems unlikely.”Reuters news agency contributed to this reportTopicsUS foreign policyXi JinpingJoe BidenChinaTaiwanAsia PacificUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

The big idea: are we really so polarised? In many democracies the political chasm seems wider than ever. But emotion, not policies, may be what actually divides us In 2020, the match-making website OkCupid asked 5 million hopeful daters around the world: “Could you date someone who has strong political opinions that are the opposite of yours?” Sixty per cent said no, up from 53% a year before.Scholars used to worry that societies might not be polarised enough. Without clear differences between political parties, they thought, citizens lack choices, and important issues don’t get deeply debated. Now this notion seems rather quaint as countries have fractured along political lines, reflected in everything from dating preferences to where people choose to live.Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind the scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.Just how stark has political polarisation become? Well, it depends on where you live and how you look at it. When social psychologists study relations between groups, they often find that whereas people like their own groups a great deal, they have fairly neutral feelings towards out-groups: “They’re fine, but we’re great!” This pattern used to describe relations between Democrats and Republicans in the US. In 1980, partisans reported feeling warm towards members of their own party and neutral towards people on the other side. However, while levels of in-party warmth have remained stable since then, feelings towards the out-party have plummeted.The dynamics are similar in the UK, where the Brexit vote was deeply divisive. A 2019 study revealed that while UK citizens were not particularly identified with political parties, they held strong identities as remainers or leavers. Their perceptions were sharply partisan, with each side regarding its supporters as intelligent and honest, while viewing the other as selfish and close-minded. The consequences of hating political out-groups are many and varied. It can lead people to support corrupt politicians, because losing to the other side seems unbearable. It can make compromise impossible even when you have common political ground. In a pandemic, it can even lead people to disregard advice from health experts if they are embraced by opposing partisans.The negativity that people feel towards political opponents is known to scientists as affective polarisation. It is emotional and identity-driven – “us” versus “them”. Importantly, this is distinct from another form of division known as ideological polarisation, which refers to differences in policy preferences. So do we disagree about the actual issues as much as our feelings about each other suggest?Despite large differences in opinion between politicians and activists from different parties, there is often less polarisation among regular voters on matters of policy. When pushed for their thoughts about specific ideas or initiatives, citizens with different political affiliations often turn out to agree more than they disagree (or at least the differences are not as stark as they imagine).More in Common, a research consortiumthat explores the drivers of social fracturing and polarisation, reports on areas of agreement between groups in societies. In the UK, for example, they have found that majorities of people across the political spectrum view hate speech as a problem, are proud of the NHS, and are concerned about climate change and inequality.As psychologist Anne Wilson and her colleagues put it in a recent paper: “Partisans often oppose one another vehemently even when there is little actual daylight between their policy preferences, which are often tenuously held and contextually malleable.”This relative lack of divergence would, of course, come as a surprise to partisans themselves. This is the phenomenon of false polarisation, whereby there is widespread misperception of how much people on the left and the right are divided, not only on issues but also in their respective ways of life. When asked to estimate how many Republicans earn more than $250,000 a year, for example, Democrats guessed 38%. In reality it is 2%. Conversely, while about 6% of Democrats self-identify as members of the LGBT community, Republicans believed it was 32%. New research from Victoria Parker and her colleagues finds that partisans are especially likely to overestimate how many of their political opponents hold extreme opinions. Those overestimates, in turn, are associated with a disinclination to talk or socially engage with out-party members, avoidance that is likely to prevent people from forming more accurate impressions of the other side.What drives these misperceptions? And why do citizens so dislike one another if they aren’t necessarily deeply divided on policy matters? Politicians certainly have incentives to sharpen differences in order to motivate and mobilise voters, rallying support by portraying themselves as bulwarks against the barbarians on the other side. Divisiveness also plays well on social media, where extreme voices are amplified. Moral outrage is particularly likely to go viral.In a recent project led by Steve Rathje and Sander van der Linden at Cambridge University, we examined more than 2.5m posts on Twitter and Facebook. We found that posts were significantly more likely to be shared or retweeted if they referenced political opponents. Every word about the out-group increased the odds of a post being shared by 67% – and these posts were, in turn, met with anger and mockery.In this increasingly toxic environment, reducing false polarisation and affective polarisation are major challenges. It is often suggested, for example, that if people were only to expose themselves to perspectives from the other side, it would breed greater understanding and cooperation. Yet this intuition turns out to be flawed.The big idea: Is the era of the skyscraper over?Read moreSociologist Christopher Bail and his colleagues offered sets of Democrats and Republicans money to follow a bot that would retweet messages from politicians, media companies and pundits every day for a month. Importantly, the messages always came from the other side of the political spectrum. Far from promoting harmony, it backfired. After a month of being exposed to conservative talking points, Democrats’ attitudes had become, if anything, marginally more liberal. And Republicans became more conservative following their diet of liberal views. When what you see from the other side strikes you as biased or obnoxious, it doesn’t endear you to their perspectives.In this regard, the behaviour of elites matters. Political scientist Rasmus Skytte showed people messages from politicians that were either civil or rude. Interestingly, aggressive and unkind messages didn’t reduce trust in politicians or increase affective polarisation. It seems that incivility is what people have come to expect. But when they saw polite and respectful messages, they subsequently felt more trust towards politicians and became less affectively polarised.These results suggest that we should expect better from our leaders and those with large platforms. Don’t reward divisive rhetoric with “likes”. Instead, follow politicians and pundits who embody norms of respect and civility, even when they disagree on policy matters. In fact, many of us might be better off if we took a break from social media altogether. When economists found that whenpeople who were encouraged people to disconnect from Facebook for a month spent less time online and were less politically polarised. They also experienced improved psychological wellbeing.No one these days is worried that our societies are insufficiently polarised. But because so much of the polarisation is about emotions and identities rather than issues, it is still not clear that citizens are presented with good choices or that important issues are being deeply debated. Here again, we must expect better. Demand that politicians and pundits get into policy specifics. Let’s focus more on actual ideas for solving actual problems, where we, as citizens, may well turn out to agree on more than we realise. Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel are psychologists and the authors of The Power of Us. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.Further readingUncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason (Chicago, £19)Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing by Chris Bail (Princeton, £20)The Wealth Paradox: Economic Prosperity and the Hardening of Attitudes by Frank Mols and Jolanda Jetten (Cambridge, £19.99)TopicsBooksThe big ideaSociety booksSocial trendsSocial mediaDigital mediaPsychologyUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in USReligious freedom is enshrined in first amendmentIlhan Omar: ‘These people hate the US constitution’ Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, was widely condemned after calling for the establishment of “one religion” in the US.‘Terrifying for American democracy’: is Trump planning for a 2024 coup?Read moreReligious freedom is enshrined in the first amendment to the US constitution, which says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.Regardless, at a rally staged in San Antonio on Saturday by the Christian “nonprofit news media network” American Faith, Flynn said: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God.”In response, the Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, said: “These people hate the US constitution.”Mark Hertling, a retired general and media commentator, called Flynn, himself a retired general, “an embarrassment to the US army”.“His words are disgusting,” Hertling said.On Sunday, the veteran reporter Carl Bernstein told CNN that Flynn, as one of the “knaves and fools and dangerous authoritarian figures” with whom Trump surrounded himself in and out of office, was “saying out loud things that have never been said by an aide or close associates to the president of the United States”.Bernstein added: “It should be no surprise to know that Michael Flynn is saying the kind of things that he is saying, but what’s most significant here is that much of the Republican party … something like 35% in in exit polls said they favour Trump because Christianity is being taken away from them. “So Michael Flynn is not that far away from huge numbers of people in this country.”Flynn is no stranger to controversy. Fired from a senior intelligence role by Barack Obama, he became a close aide to Trump before resigning as national security adviser after less than a month in the role, for lying to the FBI about contacts with Russians.Flynn pleaded guilty to one criminal charge under Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow, a plea he sought to withdraw before receiving a pardon from Trump.He has since emerged as an influential figure on the far right, linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory and appearing to advocate armed insurrection.In San Antonio, Flynn called the indictment of another Trump ally, Steve Bannon, over the investigation of the Capitol attack, an “abuse of freedom of speech” – another first amendment freedom.The Capitol was attacked on 6 January by Trump supporters seeking to overturn his election defeat. Flynn is himself the subject of a subpoena from the investigating House committee. On Friday, he told Fox News he had nothing to hide.In Texas, Flynn called the House investigation “a crucifixion of our first amendment freedom to speak, freedom to peacefully assemble”.Bannon may not be only Trump ally indicted over Capitol attack – SchiffRead moreHis remarks about religion attracted support from a prominent contender in a vicious party fight for a Republican Senate nomination in Ohio.Josh Mandel, a former Ohio state treasurer, tweeted: “We stand with General Flynn.”Mandel’s own religion has been the subject of debate and controversy. In September, the Forward published an op-ed which asked if he was “obscuring his Jewishness” in order to appeal to far-right Christian voters.In response, Mandel described himself as a “Proud American. Proud Jew. Proud Marine. Proud Zionist. Everything Democrats hate.”Mandel’s religion was the subject of a controversial attack ad from another Republican hopeful, Mark Pukita, who denied charges of antisemitism.Amid criticism of his support for Flynn, Mandel said “freedom of religion [is not equal to] freedom FROM religion”. He also said: “America was not founded as a secular nation.”TopicsMichael FlynnDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansReligionnewsReuse this content More

Florida lawmakers’ special session aims to thwart Covid vaccine mandates
Governor Ron DeSantis promises to ‘strike a blow for freedom’
Republican seen as contender for 2024 presidential nomination
LA has one of the strictest vaccine mandates: will it work?
Florida lawmakers will meet on Monday for a week-long special legislative session called by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, with the goal of thwarting coronavirus vaccine mandates imposed by businesses or government agencies.Conservative judges block Biden’s vaccine requirement for businessesRead moreDeSantis recently announced he is running for re-election in 2022 but is seen by many as a potential presidential candidate in 2024 – particularly if Donald Trump decides not to run again.The special legislative session will be about “a combination of policy and politics”, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, adding that DeSantis is following Trump’s lead in being staunchly against mask and vaccine mandates.According to an agenda released by the governor’s office, a body of legislators dominated by Republicans will consider four bills to impose penalties on businesses and local governments that require workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19.“No cop, no firefighter, no nurse, nobody should be losing their job because of these jabs,” DeSantis said in a media release, echoing a previous plea for first responders from other states to relocate to Florida if they do not wish to be vaccinated by mandate.“We’re going to be striking a blow for freedom,” DeSantis said.Resistance to vaccine mandates and other public health measures to combat Covid-19 has spread in Republican states and among Republican politicians using it to buttress their pro-Trump bona fides and attack the Biden administration.By Sunday, the US had recorded nearly 763,000 deaths from Covid-19, out of more than 47m cases. Florida has recorded the third-highest state death toll, with more than 62,600, behind only California and Texas. Around 58% of the population is fully vaccinated. On Friday, a conservative federal court in New Orleans refused to lift a stay it imposed on a Biden administration rule which says businesses with 100 or more employees must insist on vaccinations or masks and regular testing from 4 January.The administration has said it is confident the rule is legal and will ultimately prevail.DeSantis has railed against vaccine mandates but is vaccinated himself, according to media reports. The governor “knows that Trump supporters don’t like masks or this vaccine”, Jewett told Reuters. “There’s no denying it’s politics with an eye not only on the governor’s race, but an eye toward the White House.“If passed into law, the new Florida bills considered in the special legislative session will impose fines on private businesses that do not allow employee exemptions to Covid-19 vaccine requirements.“This is something that his base will love,” Jewett said. “[DeSantis] is establishing himself as a freedom fighter.”TopicsCoronavirusFloridaUS politicsRepublicansUS elections 2024Donald TrumpUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

Kaiser Permanente strike off after deal between unions and healthcare giant32,000 employees, most in California, threatened walkoutDeal ‘protects patients, safe staffing and fair wages’ An alliance of unions representing 50,000 Kaiser Permanente workers in California, Oregon and six other states called off strike set for Monday, after reaching a tentative labor deal with the healthcare network.The Alliance of Health Care Unions and Kaiser Permanente jointly announced the agreement, staving off a potentially crippling strike in which 32,000 employees, most of them in southern California, threatened to walk off the job to protest understaffing and wage cuts for new hires.Additional members of the alliance, comprised of 21 local unions, authorized a one-day “sympathy strike” on 18 November.Agreement on the four-year contract includes annual wage increases, while maintaining health benefits for employees, and new staffing language to continue to protect employees and patients, the statement said.“This agreement will mean patients will continue to receive the best care and Alliance members will have the best jobs,” said Hal Ruddick, executive director of the alliance.“This contract protects our patients, provides safe staffing, and guarantees fair wages and benefits for every Alliance member.”Christian Meisner, chief human resources officer at Kaiser Permanente, said the agreement “underscores our unwavering commitment to our employees by maintaining industry-leading wages and benefits”.Bargaining continues with the local units representing Kaiser pharmacists in Northern California and the Pacific north west, as well as a group of engineers.“We hope to reach agreements very soon,” Kaiser spokesman Steve Shivinsky said.The alliance said it has more than 35,000 member employees in California; 6,300 in Oregon and Washington; 2,100 in Colorado; 2,300 in Maryland, Washington, DC and northern Virginia; 3,000 in Georgia; and 1,900 in Hawaii.TopicsUS unionsUS healthcareUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Elon Musk targets Bernie Sanders over tax: ‘I keep forgetting you’re still alive’
Tesla founder responds to senator’s ‘fair share’ tweet
Musk sold nearly $7bn of stock after controversial Twitter poll
Biden approval ratings plunge amid crisis over inflation
Elon Musk waded into yet another Twitter controversy on Sunday, the Tesla owner and world’s richest person responding to a tweet about tax from Senator Bernie Sanders by writing: “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”If the super-rich want to live for ever our planet is truly doomed | John HarrisRead moreSanders, 80, wrote: “We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share. Period.”Musk, 50, is also the owner of SpaceX and has a personal worth estimated at around $271bn, making him by some counts the richest person ever.He also tweeted: “Want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the word …”Sanders did not immediately respond. Melissa Byrne, a progressive activist and former Sanders staffer, tweeted: “Folks, quit buying Tesla. Don’t reward abusive men.”This week, Musk sold nearly $7bn of shares in Tesla, more than $5bn after asking Twitter followers to vote on whether he should do so and more than $1bn on Friday.Jason Benowitz, senior portfolio manager at Roosevelt Investment Group in New York, told Reuters: “We expect the share sales will continue, as Musk holds millions of options worth billions of dollars that would otherwise expire worthless, and he has also prearranged share sales.”Tesla’s share price fell after Musk’s Twitter followers said he should sell stock. But the shares remain hugely valuable.Musk staged the Twitter poll to make a point about a “billionaires tax” proposed by Democrats in Congress, saying: “Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”Proponents of the billionaires tax say they want to target “unrealised capital gains”, meaning rises in the value of stocks owned by ultra-rich Americans who currently pay very little in tax.Sanders is a democratic socialist independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate. He rose to global prominence with strong runs for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, losing out to Hillary Clinton and then Joe Biden.As chair of the Senate budget committee and a champion of fairness in taxation, Sanders is pushing for Biden’s Build Back Better package of spending on health and social care and climate crisis mitigation to make it out of Congress and into law.Build Back Better would be funded by tax increases on corporations and the very wealthy. The billionaires tax is not part of the package but its chief proponent, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, condemned Musk’s Twitter stunt last week.Saying he wanted to “ensure billionaires pay tax every year, just like working Americans”, Wyden added: “Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll.”Musk has a history of controversial – and sometimes costly – behaviour on social media. In October, he responded to Wyden’s tax proposals with a tweet.“Eventually they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.”TopicsElon MuskUS taxationBernie SandersUS politicsUS domestic policyTeslanewsReuse this content More

Bannon may not be only Trump ally indicted over Capitol attack – Schiff
6 January panel member: DoJ move may ‘shake loose’ others
Former chief of staff Mark Meadows has ignored subpoena
Is Trump planning a 2024 coup?
Criminal charges are possible for more associates of Donald Trump refusing to cooperate with the House committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack, a senior Democrat warned on Sunday, two days after the indictment of former White House adviser Steve Bannon.Republican senator won’t condemn Trump for defending chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’Read moreAdam Schiff, chair of the House intelligence committee and a member of the panel investigating the deadly Capitol riot, also said some witnesses could be offered immunity in exchange for testimony in order to advance the inquiry.He told NBC’s Meet the Press he believed “without a doubt” that the justice department decision to charge Bannon with contempt of Congress would “shake loose” defiant Trump associates.That could include the former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who did not show up for a deposition before the select committee on Friday, shortly before Bannon’s indictment was announced.“Now that witnesses see that if they don’t cooperate, if they don’t fulfill their lawful duty when subpoenaed, that they too may be prosecuted, it will have a very strong focusing effect on their decision making,” Schiff said.“Even before the justice department acted, it influenced other witnesses who were not going to be Steve Bannon. “When ultimately witnesses decide, as Meadows has, that they’re not even going to bother showing up, that they have that much contempt for the law, then it pretty much forces our hand and we’ll move quickly.”Schiff would not be drawn on whether that meant the committee would issue a criminal contempt referral for Meadows, who, unlike Bannon, was a government employee on 6 January. But he said the panel would decide quickly, and that it wanted to make sure “we have the strongest possible case to present to the justice department, and for the justice department to present to a grand jury”.Meadows’ lawyer has said his client will not appear before the committee unless compelled to do so by a judge.Schiff conceded that certain witnesses, whom he did not identify, could receive limited immunity instead of criminal referral in exchange for their cooperation, the decisions to be made on a case by case basis.“With certain specific witnesses, we ought to consider it,” he said. “But as that kind of immunity makes it very difficult to prosecute not just them, but sometimes others, we need to think about it very carefully.”Schiff said he saw the developments “as an early test of whether our democracy was recovering” from the turmoil of the Trump administration.“Basically … the Republican party, at the top levels, that is Donald Trump and those around him, seem to feel that they’re above the law and free to thwart it. And there’s something admirable about thumbing your nose at the institutions of our government.“Bannon did what he did because for four years that’s what worked. They could hold Republican party conventions on the White House grounds. They could fire inspectors general, they could retaliate against whistleblowers. It was essentially a lawless presidency and they were proud of it. That ought to concern every American. We need a reestablishment of the rule of law in this country and I’m glad to see that that’s happening.”Bannon’s indictment, and the threat of charges for Meadows, marked a significant escalation in the House committee’s efforts to get to the bottom of the 6 January riot and Trump’s attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden.Trump himself is locked in legal battle with the committee over the release of White House documents related to the day of the insurrection, when his supporters ransacked the Capitol. ‘Pence was disloyal at exactly the right time’: author Jonathan Karl on the Capitol attackRead moreOn Thursday, a federal appeals court in Washington DC handed Trump a temporary victory by blocking the release by the National Archives of hundreds of pages of communication logs, memos and other materials ordered by a lower court days before. The appeals court will listen to arguments later this month on Trump’s claim the documents are protected by executive privilege before making a final decision.Schiff said he believed efforts to delay the inquiry in the courts would not succeed.“The courts themselves have recognised that Donald Trump essentially played our institutions for four years and played rope-a-dope in the courts,” he said.“[They] moved with such expedition to reject Trump’s claims in the district court a week or so ago, now the court of appeals is saying they’re going to have a hearing by the end of the month. Courts don’t generally move that fast and I think it’s a recognition that Donald Trump has relied on justice delayed meaning justice denied. So we and the courts are moving quickly.”TopicsUS Capitol attackSteve BannonUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationRepublicansUS crimenewsReuse this content More