US Politics

The former US senator and CNN political commentator Rick Santorum has sparked outrage among Native Americans, and prompted calls for his dismissal, by telling a rightwing students’ conference that European colonists who came to America “birthed a nation from nothing”.“There was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture,” Santorum told the ultra-conservative Young America’s Foundation’s summit, entitled standing up for faith and freedom, and shared by the group to YouTube.“We came here and created a blank slate, we birthed a nation from nothing,” he said.Santorum’s comments, effectively dismissing the millennia-long presence of Native Americans and the genocide inflicted on them as the Christian settlers transformed and expanded their colonies into the United States of America, angered many within the Native American community, and beyond.“The erasure of Native people and histories, which existed before and survived in spite of a white supremacist empire, is a foundational sin of a make-believe nation,” the activist Nick Estes, a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe and host of the Red Nation podcast, said on Twitter.“According to Rick Santorum, the US was founded as a ‘Judeo-Christian’ theocratic state. He might be right about that, but the idea that the first colonizers escaped religious persecution is laughable. Invasion was an economic enterprise for god, glory, and gold.”In his remarks, Santorum, a two-term US senator for Pennsylvania and a twice-failed candidate for the Republican party’s presidential nomination, likened the colonization of Native lands to an act of religious freedom.“I don’t know of any other country in the world that was settled predominantly by people who were coming to practice their faith,” Santorum said. “They came here because they were not allowed to practice their particular faith in their own country.”Others were outraged but not surprised by the comments of Santorum, who joined CNN as a senior political commentator in 2017.“Rick Santorum is just saying what the majority of Americans silently believe – the only ‘real history’ is US history,” said Brett Chapman, a Native American attorney and descendant of Chief Standing Bear, the first Native Indian to win civil rights in the US.“Everything centers around it. Many claim to appreciate and respect Native history yet know nothing about it. Let’s not act like he’s some lone wolf out there on this.”The Cherokee writer Rebecca Nagle pointed to CNN’s lack of Native American commentators, while giving a platform to Santorum, who has previously made offensive and false claims about other minority communities.On Monday, the Native American Journalists Association cautioned Native American and Alaska Native reporters from working with, or applying for jobs, at CNN in the wake of continued racist comments and insensitive reporting directed at Indigenous people.Last week, a CNN host incorrectly identified Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, as a white woman. The network has yet to correct its mistake.Politicians also weighed in. “Seriously is anyone surprised to hear this hot garbage coming from Rick Santorum?” Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a tweet. “Nothing was here?! No native American culture in American culture?! America hasn’t changed?!”Mark Pocan, Democratic congressman for Wisconsin, was even more critical. “Native & Indigenous nations lived, governed, and thrived here before their land was stolen and they were murdered in a mass genocide, you ignorant white supremacist,” he wrote.Meanwhile, Nick Knudsen, executive director of DemCast USA, a digital hub of Democratic opinion and online activism, said it was “long past time” for CNN to cut ties with Santorum, whose extreme views have become a lightning rod for controversy in recent years.In 2015, he insisted the US supreme court would not have the final say on same-sex marriage, the same year he said he regretted his comments from a decade earlier comparing homosexuality to bestiality.In 2018, shortly after a former student killed 17 teenagers and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, Santorum taunted survivors who formed themselves into gun reform campaigners.“How about kids, instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that?” he said on CNN’s State of the Union.The politician, who claimed the survivors’ March for Our Lives group was supported by “Hollywood elites and liberal billionaires”, later tried to distance himself from his comments, claiming that he misspoke.In a statement, the National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s largest organization representing American Indian and Alaska Native groups, criticized the former senator.“Rick Santorum is an unhinged and embarrassing racist who disgraces CNN and any other media company that provides him a platform,” Fawn Sharp, the group’s president, said.She said Santorum’s assertion that settlers birthed a nation were wrong. “What European colonizers found in the Americas were thousands of complex, sophisticated and sovereign Tribal Nations, each with millennia of distinct cultural, spiritual and technological development,” she said.“Hopefully, sophisticated and humane Native American philosophy will win out over the caveman mentality of people like Rick Santorum.”CNN did not respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.In a brief statement to the Guardian issued through a spokesperson on Monday afternoon, Santorum said: “I had no intention of minimizing or in any way devaluing Native American culture.” More

Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterSix states will gain additional seats in the US House of Representatives because of population shifts over the last decade, the US Census Bureau announced on Monday. Seven states will lose one congressional seat.The US saw a total population growth of 7.4% over the last decade, the second slowest change in US history (the previous slowest was 7.3% from 1930 to 1940). Overall, the total US population was 331,449,281 people on 1 April 2020, the day the Census Bureau uses as a marker to count.Texas will gain two additional seats in the House, the bureau said on Monday. Colorado, Montana, Oregon, North Carolina and Florida will also gain a congressional seat.The seven states that will lose a seat are: California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.Overall, the fastest growing parts of the US were the southern and western portions of the country.The US constitution requires the federal government to take a census of the population every 10 years. That tally is used to allocate seats in the House and determine how almost $1.5tn in federal dollars are allocated.The changes in seat counts will also reflect changes to each state’s electoral college votes for the next decade. A state’s electoral college votes are equal to the total number of representatives in Congress.The shift of seven seats among 13 states was the smallest since 1941, said Ron Jarmin, the acting director of the Census Bureau.The numbers came as somewhat of a surprise; projections based on population estimates had Texas gaining up to three seats, Florida gaining two and Arizona gaining a seat. Experts projected Alabama Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island could all lose additional seats. Bureau officials acknowledged that difference on Monday, but said repeatedly they were confident in the results and that they were within 1% of the estimated projections in many states.The officials also revealed how much every census response matters. Had New York state counted just 89 additional people, it would not have lost a congressional seat, bureau officials said on Monday.Monday’s announcement was an important milestone in the once-a-decade process of redrawing electoral boundaries, which is also required by the constitution. Census officials are expected to deliver redistricting data to states later this year. The entire process has been delayed several months because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the bureau to push back its work.Monday’s announcement also came after the Census Bureau, states and civic groups spent years convincing people it was safe to respond to the census during Donald Trump’s administration.Trump unsuccessfully sought to undermine the count by adding a question asking about citizenship to the survey. When that move was blocked by the supreme court, Trump instructed census officials to come up with redistricting data that only counted citizens. Joe Biden reversed that effort on his first day in office. More

The US will share up to 60m doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine with other countries, the White House has announced, amid intensifying pressure for it to lead the global fight against the pandemic.The pledge came as Joe Biden spoke with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, which is reportedly running out of Covid-19 vaccines just as a deadly second wave continues to devastate the country.Hospitals across the capital, Delhi, continued to issue SOS calls over acute oxygen shortages, with eight patients dying in private hospitals on Sunday when oxygen supplies ran dry. Many of the biggest hospitals in the capital said they had stopped admitting new patients as all beds were full and oxygen was running out, while Delhi’s Ganga Ram hospital said it was in “beg and borrow mode” for oxygen cylinders used in its ambulances.The US has committed to send India oxygen systems, ventilators, testing kits, therapeutic drugs and personal protective equipment.Biden “pledged America’s full support to provide emergency assistance and resources in the fight against Covid-19”, the US president tweeted. “India was there for us, and we will be there for them.”America has vaccinated more than 53% of its adult population with at least one dose of its three authorised vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and it expects to have enough supply for its entire population by early summer. This has fuelled demands for it to step up and help the rest of the world, especially as China and Russia’s aggressive international donations led to concerns that they are beating Washington at “vaccine diplomacy”.The White House announced on Monday it would distribute the AstraZeneca vaccine overseas as production allows. Andy Slavitt, the White House senior Covid-19 adviser, posted on Twitter: “US to release 60 million AstraZeneca doses to other countries as they become available.”Much of the US effort over the past year has been focused inwards, but the crisis in India has concentrated minds. The virus is ripping through a population of nearly 1.4bn, with the healthcare system on the brink of collapse.On Monday, India set another record for new coronavirus infections: a fifth day in a row at more than 350,000. It reported running out of Covid-19 vaccines, and numerous hospitals in the country are desperately low on supplies of oxygen. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, described the recent surge as “beyond heartbreaking”.From Saturday, everyone in India over 18 will be eligible for a vaccine, a decision made by the government as the virus has brought India’s healthcare system to its knees, with more than 352,000 new cases on Monday and more than 2,800 more deaths.High hopes have been placed on an expanded vaccine rollout to help halt the spread of the virus. However, in several of the worst-affected states, including Rajasthan, Punjab, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, state governments have said there is already a shortage or complete lack of jabs, and they had been unable to order more, throwing doubt on to any expansion of vaccine rollout by 1 May, when about 900 million more people will become eligible.Almost 10% of India’s population of 1.3 billion have received one jab. Just over 1% have received both vaccines.In the week to 25 April, India recorded a cumulative 89% increase in Covid deaths compared with the week before, and a total of 2.2m new cases – the highest seven-day increase experienced anywhere in the world. Total confirmed infections have now passed 17m.Most of the onus to deliver the vaccines has fallen on India’s Serum Institute, the country’s largest vaccine producer, which produces the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, known in India as Covishield. However, it has been struggling to meet demand, with capacity currently to make only 70m doses a month. Last week the government approved a $400m grant to the company to boost production to 100m doses a month by the end of May.The grim picture is thrown into sharp relief by the speedy vaccination progress of richer countries such as the US, the UK and Israel.The AstraZeneca vaccine is widely in use around the world but has not yet been authorised by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US. The US decision to distribute the AstraZeneca vaccine abroad was made easier because it does not need the doses domestically.A senior White House official told reporters on a conference call: “Given the strong portfolio of vaccines that the US already has and that have been authorised by the FDA, and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized for use in the US, we do not need to use the AstraZeneca vaccine here during the next few months.“Therefore the US is looking at options to share the AstraZeneca doses with other countries as they become available.”Before any AstraZeneca doses can be shipped, however, they must meet the FDA’s “expectations for product quality”, the official said.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said at a briefing: “We are continuing to look for a range of ways to help India so we’re talking about what we can redirect, what is available now. A lot of what they need at this moment is oxygen; that is what they will tell you. We are quite focused on that, as well as PPE, testing and other immediate needs they have now.”Sending vaccines to India, Psaki explained, will take longer.She said: “Right now we have zero doses available at AstraZeneca. We’re talking about what the FDA needs to go through, a review to ensure the safety and it’s meeting our own guidelines.”Psaki said approximately 10m doses could be released when the FDA grants approval, but warned that this would not be immediate.Asked about criticism that the US response is coming late, Psaki added: “The US has been one of the largest providers of assistance to address the Covid pandemic around the world including to India.” More

In a new book, the Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri attacks what he calls “woke capitalism” and claims to be a victim of cancel culture over his actions around the Capitol attack of 6 January.Hawley, 41, is a leading figure on the far right of the Republican party, jostling to inherit Donald Trump’s populist crown and with it the presidential nomination in 2024.The Tyranny of Big Tech will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.In his introduction, Hawley seeks to defend his actions surrounding what he calls the “grisly riot” at the US Capitol which was stormed by a pro-Trump mob in scenes of violence that shocked the world and cost five lives.But he does not mention his most controversial act: raising a fist in solidarity with Trump supporters told by the then president to march on the building and “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.Hawley’s gesture became a worldwide symbol of a riot in which the mob roamed the halls Congress, in some cases looking for lawmakers to kidnap or kill. More than 400 people have been charged.Later on 6 January, in a process delayed by the riot and with the world in shock, Republicans in the House and Senate went through with formal objections to results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, states which Biden won.Hawley objected to the Pennsylvania result. In Arizona, Republicans are proceeding with a hugely controversial audit which Trump has backed. Had the two states been overturned, Biden would still be president.Publisher Simon & Schuster dropped Hawley’s book, only for it to be swiftly picked up by Regnery, a conservative imprint for which Simon & Schuster handles distribution.That notwithstanding, Hawley writes: “This is the book the corporate monopolies did not want you to read.”He also claims “not [to have] encourag[ed] the riot, as the publisher certainly knew” and says he “fiercely condemned the violence and the thugs who perpetrated it”.He says his “sin” was to formally object to election results in one state, “precisely as permitted by law” and as Democrats had done before.Hawley writes that he was “branded a ‘seditionist’ and worse. But like many others attacked by the corporations and the left, my real crime was to have challenged the reign of the woke capitalists.”On Monday, the senator responded to this story on Twitter.“Oh dear,” he wrote. “I’ve offended the delicate sensibilities of The Guardian! I didn’t get their approval before I wrote my book. Order a copy today and own the libs.”On the page, Google and Facebook are among Hawley’s main targets, in part for their exploitation of user data. He does not discuss his own links with donor Peter Thiel, founder of the tech firm Palantir, which became embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.Hawley has introduced the “Bust Up Big Tech Act” and found some common ground with Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat seeking antitrust reform. But the Republican remains a leading troll for liberal discontent. Last week, his was the sole vote against an anti-Asian hate crimes bill which 94 senators backed.On Monday, meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that more than 200 staff members at Simon & Schuster had signed and delivered a petition demanding the company cease all dealings with people connected to the Trump administration.The petition, reportedly supported by “several thousand outside supporters, including well-known Black writers”, followed the company’s rejection last week of a staff demand it not publish two books by former vice-president Mike Pence. More

The US supreme court stepped back into the gun control debate on Monday, saying it would take up a case focused on whether people can carry concealed guns outside the home in New York.The case could lead to the most consequential ruling on the scope of the second amendment in more than a decade.The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Corlett, is backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA). It seeks an unfettered right to carry concealed handguns in public. A state firearms licensing officer granted the two plaintiffs “concealed carry” permits but restricted them to hunting and target practice, prompting the legal challenge.It will come before a conservative-leaning court. The court’s 6-3 rightwing majority, entrenched by three appointments under Donald Trump, is seen as sympathetic to an expansive view of second amendment rights.The debate over gun control in the US has intensified amid a spate of mass shootings, including one at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis on 15 April in which a gunman killed eight people and then himself and two in less than a week in March, one in Georgia and the other in Colorado, that left 18 dead.In 2008, the supreme court recognized an individual’s right to keep guns at home for self-defense. In 2010 the court applied that right to the states. The plaintiffs in the New York case want that right to be extended beyond the home.Lower courts threw out out their case, rejecting the argument that the New York restrictions violated the second amendment right to keep and bear arms.A ruling invalidating the New York law could imperil laws in other states with criteria for concealed-carry licenses. Seven other states and the District of Columbia give authorities more discretion to deny concealed firearm permits.A ruling against New York could also force lower courts to cast a skeptical eye on new or existing gun control laws.Gun control advocates are concerned the conservative supreme court justices could create a standard for gun control that will threaten measures already implemented, such as expanded criminal background checks for gun buyers and “red flag” laws targeting the firearms of people deemed dangerous by the courts.Republicans and gun rights advocates have pressed the justices to take up a new case and further extend gun rights. Last year, the court sidestepped a ruling in an NRA-supported challenge to a New York City restriction on transporting firearms outside the home, because the city had rolled back the regulation. More

The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has joined a flood of social media users gleefully trolling Larry Kudlow after the former economic adviser to Donald Trump complained that Joe Biden wanted Americans to drink “plant-based beer”.Kudlow made the indignant claim on his Fox Business show on Friday, saying Biden’s climate policies and attempt to slash emissions would force Americans to “stop eating meat, stop eating poultry and fish, seafood, eggs, dairy and animal-based fats”.“OK, got that? No burgers on 4 July. No steaks on the barbecue … So get ready. You can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled Brussels sprouts and wave your American flag.”Beer is typically made from grains, hops and yeast – not steak, sausages or chops.Amid a blizzard of lacerating social media send-ups, the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman offered a sober analysis of what Kudlow was up to.“So this seems to be the latest rightwing attempt to smear Bidenomics,” he wrote on Saturday. “There is, of course, nothing about eliminating meat in Biden’s plans; so this is like the imaginary mobs that burned our cities to the ground.“If you read what Kudlow actually said, he’s cagey – doesn’t say that Biden proposed this, only that some people say this is what would happen. But Fox viewers won’t notice, which is the intention.“This is what rightwing politics is down to. It’s all false claims about evil liberals, which the base is expected to believe because it’s primed to believe in liberal villainy. They’re not even trying to engage on actual issues.”But on Sunday night Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader in the Senate, chose a more sarcastic path.“Excited to be watching the Oscars with an ice cold plant-based beer,” he tweeted. “Thanks Joe Biden.” More

Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterOn the surface, the Republican effort to roll back voting rights in Michigan looks similar to what’s happening in states around the country: after Donald Trump narrowly lost a key battleground state where there was record turnout, Republicans are moving swiftly to implement sweeping restrictions to curtail access to the ballot box.But the effort is raising unique concerns. Even though the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, is likely to veto a package of dozens of pending bills to curb voter access, Republicans are already hinting they will use a loophole to implement the measures anyway. They can take advantage of a quirk in Michigan’s law allowing voters to send a bill to the legislature if just over 340,000 voters sign a petition asking them to take it up. These kinds of bills cannot be vetoed by the governor.“This effort is particularly anti-democratic, not just in substance, but in procedure,” said the Michigan secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who serves as the state’s top election official.The proposals include measures that are breathtakingly restrictive, even when held up in comparison to other measures states are considering. One bill bans Michigan’s secretary of state not only from mailing out absentee ballot applications to all voters, but also blocks her from even providing a link on a state website to a mail-in ballot application. Another proposal does not allow voters to use absentee ballot drop boxes after 5pm the day before election day. A different measure would require voters to make a photocopy of their ID and mail it in to vote by mail.The effort is being closely monitored in a state known for razor-thin elections and where Donald Trump and allies tried to overturn the result in 2020. Republicans are moving aggressively to put the new voting restrictions in place ahead of the 2022 elections, when there are races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state. Michigan also has several key swing congressional districts that will help determine who controls the US House of Representatives in Washington.The new restrictions are also urgent for Republicans because they are about to lose one of their most powerful advantages in the state legislature. A decade ago, Republicans manipulated the boundaries of electoral districts in such a way that virtually guaranteed they would hold a majority of seats. That manipulation, called gerrymandering, has allowed Republicans to control the legislature since 2011.But in 2018, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to strip lawmakers of their ability to draw districts, giving the power to an independent commission. With the commission set to draw new districts later this year, the new restrictions may be Republicans’ last-ditch attempt to distort voting rules to give them an edge in elections.“Everything from January 6 forward is about 2022 and ultimately 2024. I believe we should plan for and anticipate that the very forces that emerged in 2020 to try to undermine democracy will be back in full force, potentially stronger, in more positions of authority, to try again in 2024,” Benson said.In 2018, Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to expand voting by mail in the state. Now Republicans, more powerful thanks to their manipulated districts, are seeking to undo those reforms, Benson said.“What you have here is legislators, elected through gerrymandered districts, using that power and those seats to reach out to a very small, small portion of Michigan registered voters and use them to justify overturning the will of millions of Michigan citizens who quite clearly want these policies in place and who quite clearly oppose the very policies that the Republicans are promoting,” she said.“It makes it harder for every person and it’s really only supported by 340,000 people,” said Nancy Wang, the executive director of Voters Not Politicians, a civic action group in Michigan that was behind the 2018 anti-gerrymandering effort. “It’s the tyranny of the minority, but in such extreme, it’s shocking.Critics say the proposed laws would put up nearly insurmountable barriers for some residents who are elderly, low-income, disabled or face other challenges. Rachel Rion, 87, lives in Westland, a suburb of Detroit, and has relied on mailing absentee ballots in recent elections.She said the law that would require a photocopy of her identification to be mailed in with her ballot presents a problem because she doesn’t drive, doesn’t understand the rule change and doesn’t know where to get a photocopy made or how to use a copy machine.She also gave the example of a friend who is battling cancer and who is too sick to get out of bed, let alone deal with photocopies.“How would she vote?” Rion asked. “I really hope they don’t push through those laws. It really would be hard for us.”Chris Swope, the city clerk responsible for overseeing elections in Lansing, the state capital, said there was “not much good” in the package of bills Republicans are proposing. Many voters who use drop boxes, he said, return their ballots on election day and the GOP proposal would take away that option entirely.The party has cited a lack of trust in elections as their motivation, but “the lack of confidence was caused by people lying because they lost and couldn’t face that”, he said. “I don’t think you overreact to that by making it harder for everyone to vote when you still had 30% of people who didn’t vote at all.”Republicans have repeatedly used the veto-dodging loophole in recent decades to circumvent opposition from Whitmer and the former GOP governor Rick Snyder. Since 1987, the anti-abortion group Right to Life has used it to push through initiatives to ban public funds from being used to pay for abortions for welfare recipients, require parental consent before a minor can get an abortion, define a legal birth and require women to purchase a health insurance rider for an abortion, dubbed “rape insurance”.Republicans dealt a blow to unions when they used the procedure in 2016 to repeal the state’s prevailing wage law, and in the coming weeks it could be used to strip Whitmer of her emergency order powers used to lock down the state during the pandemic.The Republican party is likely to turn to an activist network developed and still in place from the emergency order initiative, and the state’s loose laws around dark money will allow donors to contribute without fear of blowback.“You need people who are highly motivated, have the ground game, and people who have money, and every indication is, boy, Republicans have those things there in spades,” said Bill Ballenger, a Michigan political analyst.However, the process isn’t foolproof, and Democrats say they plan to use every tool to derail the effort. A 2018 Right to Life campaign would have banned abortions after six weeks, but it failed when the secretary of state found a high number of invalid signatures. Meanwhile, the petition to strip Whitmer’s emergency orders faces a possible legal challenge.If a voting restrictions package moves forward, Democrats would probably first mount a “decline to sign” campaign to drum up opposition during Republicans’ signature-collection process, said Mark Brewer, a state constitutional attorney and former head of the Michigan Democratic party. They would also challenge the signatures turned into the secretary of state, who has already voiced strong opposition to the proposed laws and could slow the process. “There will be a very concerted effort to ensure that any citizen who signs any potential effort like this knows exactly what they’re signing so we eliminate the opportunity for deception, which has been an issue in the past, repeatedly,” Benson said.Democrats could also challenge the laws’ constitutionality in the courts, and a counter ballot initiative is also possible, though the logistics are difficult in terms of timing and language. If both measures are approved, the Michigan supreme court, controlled by a 4-3 Democratic majority, decides which elements of each become law.As lawmakers across the country move hundreds of bills to restrict voter access, stopping the new Michigan restrictions would send a powerful message, Benson said.“If we can overcome this attack on our freedom to vote, and we have many pieces in place to do that, we can be a story of that as opposed to the Georgia story,” where the governor signed a package of restrictions into law in March. “The actions we take now will set the stage for what is attempted in the future.” More