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      ‘Affirmative action for the privileged’: why Democrats are fighting legacy admissions

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      In the aftermath of the supreme court’s decision to strike down race-conscious admissions at universities in June, progressive Democrats have turned their outrage into motivation. They are now using their fury to power an impassioned campaign against a different admissions practice that they consider unjust and outdated: legacy admissions.The century-old practice gives an advantage to the family members of universities’ alumni, a group that tends to be whiter and wealthier than the general pool of college applicants. Critics argue that legacy applicants already enjoy an unfair leg up in the admissions process and that university’s preference toward those students exacerbates existing inequalities in higher education.As the country adapts to a post-affirmative action world, progressives are ramping up the political and legal pressure on universities to scrap their use of legacy admissions. A Democratic bill, introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York, and a civil rights inquiry at the Department of Education could represent a serious threat to legacy admissions.“Though the supreme court gutted race-conscious college admissions, make no mistake, affirmative action is still alive and well for children of alumni and major donors, and taxpayers shouldn’t be funding it,” Merkley told the Guardian.The origins of legacy admissions policies date back to the 1920s, when Jewish and immigrant students began attending America’s elite universities in larger numbers. Concerned over this growing trend, college leaders implemented a range of admissions preferences, such as legacy status, designed to benefit the white Protestant applicants who had populated university classrooms for centuries.Despite the ignominious roots of legacy admissions, the practice persists at many of the country’s most prestigious universities, including every member of the Ivy League. Colleges defend the practice as beneficial for building strong alumni communities across generations and encouraging financial contributions, even though one analysis found “no statistically significant evidence that legacy preferences impact total alumni giving”.Progressives have mocked legacy admissions as “affirmative action for the privileged”, and the supreme court’s decision against race-conscious admissions has reinvigorated their efforts to end the widely unpopular practice altogether. According to one Pew Research Center survey conducted last year found, 75% of Americans believe alumni relations should not be considered in the admissions process.“Many of the legacy kids simply would not have gotten in had they not had legacy [preference],” said Rashad Robinson, president of the racial justice group Color of Change. “This is the result of a system that was designed to operate exactly the way it’s operating.”Last month, Merkley and Bowman reintroduced their bill, the Fair College Admissions for Students Act, to prohibit universities participating in federal student aid programs from giving an admissions advantage to the relatives of alumni or donors. Noting the financial advantages legacy students often enjoy in the college admissions process, Merkley suggested those applicants do not require additional assistance to gain entry to elite universities.“As the first in my family to go to college, I know the struggles facing students whose parents have never been through the process,” Merkley said.According to an analysis conducted by the Harvard research group Opportunity Insights, legacy students were only slightly more qualified than the average applicant to elite private colleges, but were nearly four times more likely to be admitted than those with the same test scores. The boost appears to disproportionately harm students of color, as one study found that white students account for 40% of Harvard’s total applicant pool but nearly 70% of the university’s legacy applicants. Opportunity Insights’ research also concluded that legacy applicants are more likely to come from wealthy families, giving them more access to resources like private education and preparation courses for standardized tests.“Children of donors and alumni may be excellent students, but they are the last people who should get reserved seats, enabling them to gain admission over more qualified students from more challenging backgrounds,” Merkley said.The battle over legacy admissions has now also attracted the attention of the Department of Education. Last month, the department opened a civil rights investigation into Harvard’s use of legacy admissions following a complaint filed by the group Lawyers for Civil Rights on behalf of three racial justice organizations. The complaint accused Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by giving an admissions edge to the children of donors and wealthy alumni.“We know that schools like [Harvard] set students up for success – and for great success – and introduce them to new innovative ideas and a great network,” said Michael Kippins, a litigation fellow with Lawyers for Civil Rights. “They should reflect the type of diversity that we see in our communities the same way that we would want fair access for anything else.”Olatunde Johnson, a professor at Columbia Law School, viewed lawsuits against colleges’ legacy admissions policies as somewhat inevitable after the supreme court’s decision on affirmative action.“The supreme court opened the door to that challenge by leaving legacy and donor preferences untouched while it got rid of race-conscious affirmative action, so it made it kind of an easy target,” Johnson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShe predicted other universities would be closely watching the outcome of the civil rights inquiry into Harvard as they reconsider their own legacy admissions policies.“People might wait to see how this challenge is resolved because some of the broad contours of this complaint are going to mirror what people would do in future cases,” Johnson said. “Whatever kind of ruling there is, it’s going to have implications more broadly for other institutions, even without separate complaints or lawsuits.”Some colleges aren’t waiting on the federal government to make the change. The liberal arts college Wesleyan University announced last month that it would scrap its legacy admissions policy, joining other private institutions like Amherst College and Johns Hopkins University. The practice is already prohibited at a number of public colleges, including all schools in the University of California and the California State University systems.The trend of abandoning legacy admissions policies may accelerate in the face of mounting criticism from political leaders, including some Republicans. After the supreme court’s decision in June, South Carolina senator and Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott praised the ruling and simultaneously suggested universities needed to revisit their legacy preferences.“I think the question is, how do you continue to create a culture where education is the goal for every single part of our community?” Scott told Fox News. “One of the things that Harvard could do to make that even better is to eliminate any legacy programs.”Robinson is somewhat skeptical that a bipartisan coalition will materialize to meaningfully challenge legacy admissions, and the Republicans in control of the House have so far shown little appetite to take up Merkley and Bowman’s bill.But even if legacy preferences do come to an end, Robinson believes much more will need to be done to build a truly just college admissions process. After all, he said, the practice of legacy admissions is only one piece of a much broader system that disadvantages students of color.“Racism is like water pouring over a floor with holes in it. It will always find the cracks. So, yes, we should deal with legacy admissions. But I want to make sure that we don’t think that this is some sort of silver bullet,” Robinson said.“We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that those who are working every day to shut the doors of opportunity and access to those who have been excluded are not going to find other ways to to hold the side door open for people who look like them.” More

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      Green investment boom and electric car sales: six key things about Biden’s climate bill

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      The US’ first serious legislative attempt to tackle the climate crisis, the Inflation Reduction Act, is hitting its first anniversary both lauded for turbocharging a seismic shift to clean energy while also weathering serious attack from Republicans.Joe Biden hailed the bill, which despite its name is at heart a major shove towards a future dominated by renewable energy and electric vehicles, as “one of the most significant laws in our history” when signing it on 16 August last year.And the White House is trying to use the first year marker to extol it as a pivotal moment in tackling the climate emergency.“It’s the largest investment in clean energy in American history, and I would argue in world history, to tackle the climate crisis,” John Podesta, Biden’s chief clean energy advisor, told the Guardian. “With any legislation it takes time to get traction, but this is performing above expectations.”Podesta said there has been an “enormous response” in take-up for the tax credits that festoon the $369bn bill, directed at zero-carbon energy projects such as solar, wind and nuclear, grants for bring renewables manufacturing to the US and consumer incentives to purchase electric cars, heat pumps and electric stoves.Here are the key points to know about the impact of the act so far as it approaches its anniversary on August 16:1A boom in clean energy investmentThere has been around $278bn in new clean energy investments, creating more than 170,000 jobs, across the US in the first year of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to an estimate by the advocacy group Climate Power. The White House claims that there will be twice as much wind, solar and battery storage deployment over the next seven years than if the bill was never enacted, with companies already spending twice as much on new manufacturing facilities as they were pre-IRA.“It’s been more impactful than I or other observers would’ve thought,” said James Stock, a climate economist at Harvard University.Stock said that while the Inflation Reduction Act won’t by itself eliminate planet-heating emissions in the US, it is the “first substantive step” towards doing so and should help propagate the next generation of hoped-for clean fuels, such as hydrogen, in its 10-year lifespan. “As the tax credits are uncapped, too, we will see a lot more invested than we expected,” he said. “We could easily see $800bn to $1.2tn.”2More people are buying electric vehiclesThe Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle, and this incentive appears to be paying off – EV sales are set to top 1m in the US for the first time this year. Moreover, over half of US drivers are considering an EV for their next purchase, polling has shown.This transition isn’t without its hurdles, however – there has been a shortage of key parts in the EV supply chain, many models still remain prohibitively expensive and unions have been unhappy at the lack of worker protections for many of the new plants that are popping up. Climate advocates, meanwhile, have questioned why similarly strong support hasn’t been given to public transit or e-bikes to help get people out of cars altogether.3It will slash US emissions, but not by enoughThe US is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Inflation Reduction Act is widely forecast to slash these emissions, by as much as 48% by 2035, from 2005 levels, according to one analysis.These forecasts have a relatively wide range of estimates due to uncertainties such as economic growth but even in the most optimistic scenario the US will require further measures if it is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, as scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.“Even though we passed the IRA you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, in promising a fresh climate bill recently. But given the riven nature of US politics, the prospects of such legislation is remote in the near term.A more likely way to bridge the emissions gap will be a raft of regulatory actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, such as new standards to cut pollution from cars, trucks and power plants, as well as progress by individual states. “We basically need everything to go right,” said John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium group, an energy analysis organization4The IRA has so far escaped Republican cuts – but Biden is fighting to get creditThe legislation was a breakthrough moment following decades of obfuscation and delay by Congress despite increasingly frantic warnings by climate scientists over global heating, with the bill itself borne from months of torturous, comprise-laden negotiations with Joe Manchin, the coal baron senator from West Virginia who held a swing vote for its passage.But the legislation has already faced the threat of repeal from Republicans, who universally voted against it, with the GOP’s first bill after gaining control of the House of Representatives this year gutting key elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. This is despite the majority of clean energy investments flowing to Republican-led districts.Biden has also faced the ire of climate progressives for somewhat undercutting his landmark moment with an aggressive giveaway of oil and gas drilling leases on public land, including the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska, and for incentivizing the use of technologies such as carbon capture that have been criticized as an unproven distraction at a time when the world is baking under record heatwaves.“Biden has an atrocious track record on fossil fuels, and that needs to change,” said Jean Su, an attorney and climate campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity who called on Biden to declare a climate emergency. There needs to be a “sea-change in this administration’s approach” on the climate crisis, according to Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator. “No more green lighting fossil gas projects. No more stalling on a climate emergency. Now is the time for us to live up to the full promise of the Inflation Reduction Act.”Polling shows the majority of American voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the climate crisis and only three in 10 have heard that much about the Inflation Reduction Act at all. Such perceptions will need to be turned around if the US president is to help secure the legacy of the bill in next year’s election.“We are going at a record clip to try to address this climate crisis,” said White House adviser Podesta. “I know people want us to hurry up and I wish we could produce a net zero economy immediately but this is a global transition that’s never occurred in human history. We need to get this job done.”The IRA act has not pleased leaders in the EU who have attacked it for being “protectionist” though some have argued they should instead be investing along similar lines.Clean energy investment has gone to red statesNo Republican voted for the Inflation Reduction Act but most of the investment that has been triggered by the bill has been funneled into projects in GOP-held Congressional districts. An emerging ‘battery belt’ is forming in the US south, with battery and electric vehicle plants popping up in states such as Georgia, Tennessee and Texas.“The IRA has been absolutely critical for us in terms of giving market certainties to go bold and big in our investment,” said a spokeswoman for QCells, a solar manufacturer that has embarked upon a major expansion in Georgia.5Renewables are booming – but there’s a transmission bottleneckIf the future wasn’t renewables before the IRA, it certainly is now – more than 80% of new electricity capacity this year will come from wind, solar and battery storage, according to federal government forecasts. The framers of the legislation hoped it will create a sort of virtuous circle whereby more renewable capacity will push down the cost of already cheap clean energy sources, seeding yet further renewable deployment.Solar panels may be dotting California and wind turbines sprouting off the east coast, but without the unglamorous build-out of transmission lines much of the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act may be lost.Not only is there a lack of physical poles and wires to shift clean energy from one part of the country to another, many clean energy projects are facing interminable waits, lasting several years, to be connected to the grid at all. There is more than 1,250 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity actively seeking grid connection, which is about equal to the entire existing US power plant fleet.“Something’s going to have to change to get this deployment online,” said Larsen. “Beyond that it will be about building stuff at scale, very, very quickly.” More

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      Prosecutors ask for 2 January start date for Trump 2020 election interference case – as it happened

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      From 3h agoFederal prosecutors asked a judge to set a 2 January trial date for former president Donald Trump in the case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.In court documents, prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s team said they want the case before US district judge Tanya Chutkan to move to trial swiftly in Washington’s federal court. Prosecutors estimate that it will take four to six weeks to present their case.
      This trial date, and the proposed schedule outlined below, would give the defendant time to review the discovery in this case and prepare a defense, and would allow the Court and parties to fully litigate any pre-trial legal issues.
      The team added:
      Most importantly, a January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial—an interest guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law in all cases, but of particular significance here, where the defendant, a former president, is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, obstruct the certification of the election results, and discount citizens’ legitimate votes.
      Hello again, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a lively day in political news, which we do our best to bring you as it happens. There will be more live coverage on Friday but, for now, this blog is closing.Here’s where things stand:
      Donald Trump has lodged an appeal against the dismissal of his defamation lawsuit against the New York writer E Jean Carroll.
      The US supreme court has agreed to hear a challenge by Joe Biden’s administration to the legality of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement that would shield its owners, the Sackler family, from lawsuits.
      The Biden administration asked Congress for $13bn in emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8bn for humanitarian support, plus money to replenish the US federal disaster funds and fortify the US-Mexico border, in a package worth $40bn.
      The House oversight committee intends to subpoena Joe Biden and Hunter Biden amid its ongoing investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.
      Federal prosecutors asked a judge to set a 2 January trial date for former president Donald Trump in the case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
      Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s Democratic US Senator, said he’s “thinking seriously” about becoming an independent.
      Donald Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, pleaded not guilty in Florida court to conspiring with the former president to obstruct the investigation into his possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
      Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas received ‘unprecedented’ number of gifts from billionaire friends, according to a new report detailing even more largesse than previously revealed that has been showered upon the bench’s most conservative member.
      Donald Trump has lodged an appeal against the dismissal of his defamation lawsuit against the New York writer E Jean Carroll, Reuters reports.The development comes just three days after the former US president lost his counterclaim for defamation against E Jean Carroll, the writer against whom he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and fined $5m.Carroll also continues to pursue a separate defamation case against him.The US supreme court has agreed to hear a challenge by Joe Biden’s administration to the legality of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement that would shield its owners from the Sackler family from lawsuits over their role in the country’s opioid epidemic, Reuters reports.The court also paused bankruptcy proceedings concerning Purdue and its affiliates and said in a brief order that it would hold oral arguments in December in the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling upholding the settlement. The court’s new term begins in October.Purdue’s owners under the settlement would receive immunity in exchange for paying up to $6bn to settle thousands of lawsuits filed by states, hospitals, people who had become addicted and others who have sued the Stamford, Connecticut-based company over its misleading marketing of OxyContin.At issue is whether US bankruptcy law allows Purdue’s restructuring to include legal protections for the Sackler family, who have not filed for personal bankruptcy.Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors in 2019 to address its debts, nearly all of which stemmed from thousands of lawsuits alleging that OxyContin helped kickstart an opioid epidemic that has caused more than 500,000 US overdose deaths over two decades.The Biden administration on Thursday asked Congress to provide more than $13bn in emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8bn for humanitarian support through the end of the year, another massive infusion of cash as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s deeply entrenched forces, the Associated Press writes.The package includes $12bn to replenish the US federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms and funds to bolster the enforcement at the southern border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. All told, it’s a $40bn package.While the last such request from the White House for Ukraine funding was easily approved in 2022, there’s a different dynamic this time.A political divide on the issue has grown, with the Republican-led House facing enormous pressure to demonstrate support for the party’s leader, Donald Trump, who has been very skeptical of the war. Meanwhile, American support for the effort has been slowly softening.White House budget director Shalanda Young, in a letter to House speaker Kevin McCarthy, urged swift action to follow through on the US “commitment to the Ukrainian peoples’ defense of their homeland and to democracy around the world” as well as other needs.The request was crafted with an eye to picking up support from Republicans, as well as Democrats, particularly with increased domestic funding around border issues – a top priority for the GOP, which has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to halting the flow of migrants crossing from Mexico.Still, the price tag of $40bn may be too much for Republicans who are fighting to slash, not raise, federal outlays.Senate majority leader and New York Senator Chuck Schumer said:
      The latest request from the Biden administration shows America’s continued commitment to helping Americans here at home and our friends abroad. We hope to join with our Republican colleagues this fall to avert an unnecessary government shutdown and fund this critical emergency supplemental request.”
      Continuing on the issue of Jack Smith requesting a 2 January 2024 trial date for Donald Trump over the former president’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election while he was still in office:On Thursday in a court filing, the government also noted that Trump’s legal team had known about the facts of the case for at least a year after prosecutors first contacted them in June 2022 and one of the lawyers involved in that initial outreach, presumably Evan Corcoran, was at Trump’s arraignment.It also argued that Trump’s lawyers were wrong to characterize the Speedy Trial Act, which broadly mandates criminal cases to go to trial promptly, as existing for the benefit of the defendant and therefore allowing Trump to seek delays if he chooses.The speedy trial rules in fact exist to protect the rights of the public as well as the defendant, prosecutors wrote, citing an opinion from United States v Gambino that found: “The public is the loser when a criminal trial is not prosecuted expeditiously, as suggested by the aphorism, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.”But the draft schedule proposed by the government, that would see evidence turned over to Trump through discovery completed by the end of August and jury selection at the start of December, is almost certain to be delayed because of complicating factors.The prosecution unexpectedly disclosed in a footnote that they intended to use classified information at trial, which means his case will be tried according to the time-consuming steps laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa.Cipa essentially requires the defense to disclose what classified information they want to use at trial in advance, so the courts can decide whether to add restrictions. If the government feels the restrictions aren’t enough, they can decide whether they still want to continue with the case.While Cipa established a mechanism through which the government can safely charge cases involving classified documents, the series of steps that have to be followed means it takes longer to get to trial compared with regular criminal cases without national security implications.In asking the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election to schedule the trial for the start of January 2024, the written filing from prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith set an aggressive timeline.Trump’s lawyers are expected to seek substantial delay, according to a person close to the former president.“A January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial,” prosecutors wrote. “It is difficult to imagine a public interest stronger than the one in this case in which the defendant – the former President of the United States – is charged with three criminal conspiracies.”The eight-page filing submitted to US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, who will hear arguments from both sides about the scope of the protective order in the case on Friday, argued it gave sufficient time to Trump to prepare a defense.Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty to charges filed in federal district court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructed an official proceeding, and engaged in a conspiracy against rights.Among other things, the government said Trump’s legal team already appeared to know what arguments they intended to make at trial and what pre-trial motions they intended to file and therefore were in a position to quickly go to trial.The prosecutors, for instance, sought to use the television appearances from Trump lawyer John Lauro – where he discussed potential legal defenses and the possibility of filing a motion to change the trial venue to West Virginia – against him.“It appears that defense counsel is already planning which motions the defendant will file,” prosecutors said in one footnote. “On CBS’s Face the Nation on August 6, 2023, Mr Lauro stated, ‘We’re going to be identifying and litigating a number of motions that we’re going to file.’”More of this report in the next post.James Comer, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, said his committee will eventually move to subpoena Joe Biden and Hunter Biden amid its ongoing investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.Comer, speaking on Fox Business on Thursday, said:
      This is always going to end with the Bidens coming in front of the committee. We are going to subpoena the family.
      He added:
      We know that this is going to end up in court when we subpoena the Bidens. So we’re putting together a case and I think we’ve done that very well.
      His comments came a day after the House oversight committee issued a memo laying out their intention to accuse Joe Biden of corruption even without direct evidence that he financially benefited from foreign business dealings by his son. The memo outlined millions of dollars in foreign funds paid to Hunter Biden and his former associates while his father was vice-president, but it did not show a direct payment to Joe Biden.National security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed that the five Americans detained by Iran had been moved to house arrest, and said negotiations for their release were continuing.Watson described the transfer as “an encouraging step” – but adding that they should never have been detained in the first place. She said:
      We will not rest until they are all back home in the United States. Until that time, negotiations for their eventual release remain ongoing and are delicate. We will, therefore, have little in the way of details to provide about the state of their house arrest or about our efforts to secure their freedom.
      The Iranian Americans include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Shargi, 58, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who also has British nationality, said Jared Genser, a lawyer who represents Namazi. The identity of the other two US citizens has not been made public.Freeing the five would remove a major irritant between the US and Iran, though the nations remain at odds on issues from the Iranian nuclear program to Tehran’s support for Shia militias in nations such as Iraq and Lebanon.Namazi, who in 2016 was convicted of espionage-related charges the United States has rejected as baseless, has been detained by Iran for more than seven years. His father, Baquer, was allowed to leave Iran in October for medical treatment after being detained on similar charges also rejected by Washington.Tahbaz was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “assembly and collusion against Iran’s national security” and working for the United States as a spy. Shargi was convicted of espionage in 2020 and also sentenced to 10 years.Iranian Americans, whose US citizenship is not recognized by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations, which are at odds over issues including Iran’s expanding nuclear program.In February, NBC News reported Washington and Tehran were holding indirect talks exploring a prisoner exchange and the transfer of billions of dollars of Iranian funds in South Korean banks currently blocked by US sanctions. If transferred, those funds could only be spent for humanitarian purposes.Any transfer could draw Republican criticism that Joe Biden had effectively paid a ransom for the US citizens and that Iran using that money for humanitarian purposes could free up funds for its nuclear program or to support militias in nations such as Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.Donald Trump is likely to oppose the schedule proposed by special counsel Jack Smith in the latest court filing.The former president’s lawyers have already suggested they will try to slow things down, citing the complexity of the case and Trump’s crowded legal and political schedule.Trump’s legal team is due to respond by next Thursday. US district judge Tanya Chutkan has indicated she will make a decision on the trial date at a 28 August hearing.Federal prosecutors asked a judge to set a 2 January trial date for former president Donald Trump in the case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.In court documents, prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s team said they want the case before US district judge Tanya Chutkan to move to trial swiftly in Washington’s federal court. Prosecutors estimate that it will take four to six weeks to present their case.
      This trial date, and the proposed schedule outlined below, would give the defendant time to review the discovery in this case and prepare a defense, and would allow the Court and parties to fully litigate any pre-trial legal issues.
      The team added:
      Most importantly, a January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial—an interest guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law in all cases, but of particular significance here, where the defendant, a former president, is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, obstruct the certification of the election results, and discount citizens’ legitimate votes.
      West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who has yet to decide whether to run for reelection next year or wage a long-shot third party bid for president, said he’s “thinking seriously” about becoming an independent.“I’m thinking seriously,” Manchin told West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval on Thursday. He added:
      I have to have peace of mind, basically. The brand has become so bad. The D brand and R brand … You’ve heard me say a million times, I am not a Washington Democrat.
      Asked how seriously he was about becoming an independent, Manchin said he has “been thinking about that for quite some time” and that he wanted to “make sure that my voice is truly an independent voice”.Manchin, who earlier this year described himself as an independent Democrat, has been dropping hints for months that he might switch to become an independent. On Thursday, he said he was not yet ready to make an announcement about his future with the Democratic party immediately. “When I get ready to make a decision, I’ll come see you,” he told Kercheval.The US and Iran have reached an agreement to win the freedom of five imprisoned Americans in exchange for several jailed Iranians and about $6bn in Iranian government assets blocked under US sanctions, according to reports.Five Iranian-Americans were transferred from prison to house arrest, according to a lawyer for one of the prisoners. Jared Genser, counsel to Siamak Namazi, told CNN the move was an “important development”, adding:
      While I hope this will be the first step to their ultimate release, this is at best the beginning of the end and nothing more.
      In addition to Namazi, Emad Sharghi, Morad Tahbaz, and two others whose names have not been made public, were moved from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, and are anticipated to be held at a hotel under guard by Iranian officials, until they are allowed to board a plane.The Biden administration has been engaged in negotiations to try to secure the release of the Americans from Iran, a country with which it does not have diplomatic relations. More

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      Democratic Senator Joe Manchin ‘thinking seriously’ about leaving party

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      The West Virginia senator Joe Manchin is “thinking seriously” about abandoning the Democratic party to run as an independent for Congress or as a third-party candidate for president.“I’m thinking seriously,” Manchin, 75, told a West Virginia radio host on Thursday. “I have to have peace of mind, basically. The brand has become so bad, the ‘D’ brand and ‘R’ brand. In West Virginia, the ‘D’ brand because it’s [the] national brand. It’s not the Democrats in West Virginia, it’s the Democrats in Washington.“You’ve heard me say a million times I’m not a Washington Democrat.”Over the past two years, Democrats and progressives have perhaps called Manchin a million names – “modern-day villain” among them – mainly because the fossil fuel-aligned senator has wielded tremendous power over domestic legislation including efforts to combat the climate crisis and protect voting rights.Democrats hold the Senate by 51-49. Of those 51 senators, three – Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Angus King of Maine and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – are independents already.Sinema became an independent last year. Her future looks in doubt, with a gathering challenge from the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego. But Democrats fear what might happen if both Sinema and Gallego contest Sinema’s seat: a split vote handing a win to a Republican extremist, potentially Kari Lake.In West Virginia, Manchin is a long way behind the current Republican governor, Jim Justice – himself a former Democrat – in polling regarding the Senate race next year.Manchin was governor of West Virginia between 2005 and 2010, years in which the formerly Democratic state turned sharply right.On Thursday, he told Hoppy Kercheval, host of Talkline on West Virginia Metro News: “I haven’t made any decisions whatsoever on any of my political direction. I want to make sure that my voice is truly an independent voice. When I do speak, I want to be able to speak honestly about basically the extremes of the Democrat and Republican party that’s harming our nation.”Manchin could also run as an independent candidate for president, backed by the campaign group No Labels, an outcome feared and derided by pundits who think such an effort will split the vote and return Donald Trump to the White House.Manchin has long flirted with No Labels. He told Kercheval: “When I get ready to make a decision, I’ll come see you. You just can’t tell how this is going to break. If come January and February of next year these are still the main contenders, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, that’s a whole other scenario.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe president, 80, and his 77-year-old, 78-times charged rival are historically unpopular.“If they are not” the candidates, Manchin said, “that changes the game completely. The bottom line is, ‘Will the middle speak up? Does the middle have a voice?’”Saying “moderate, centrist Republicans” feel they “don’t have a voice anymore”, Manchin said “the Democratic party that I grew up with was … socially compassionate and fiscally responsible … so if we can create a movement that people understand, we could have a voice.“We could make a big, big splash, and maybe bring the traditional parties … [back to] what they used to be.” More

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      Senator Dianne Feinstein hospitalized after falling in her home

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      The California US senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, was hospitalized on Tuesday evening after suffering a fall in her home, a spokesperson said.“Senator Feinstein briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “All of her scans were clear and she returned home.”TMZ first reported the news. The Feinstein spokesperson, Adam Russell, then told the San Francisco Chronicle the senator was only in hospital for “an hour or two”.At 90, Feinstein is the oldest serving US senator. She has said she will retire at the end of her term next year. Three Democratic House colleagues are competing in the race to succeed her. Former Trump impeachment manager Adam Schiff is facing off against the longtime progressive, anti-war congresswoman Barbara Lee and the rising star and consumer protection crusader Katie Porter.But continued health problems have stoked calls for Feinstein to step aside sooner.Earlier this year, Feinstein was absent from Congress for nearly three months while recovering from shingles. During her hospitalization, some progressive House Democrats publicly called on her to resign, saying she had grounded the push to confirm Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Leading Democrats, including Biden and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, publicly stood beside her.Since her return, Feinstein has at times appeared frail and confused. The Chronicle said Feinstein had been due to attend an event celebrating San Francisco’s cable cars on 2 August, but had missed it after developing a cough.The first woman to be mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein was elected to the US Senate in 1992. As a senator, she led the effort to pass a landmark 1994 assault weapons ban. Between 2017 and 2021, she led Democrats on the judiciary committee, where she helmed a landmark investigation into the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.Feinstein’s health challenges have renewed attention on the age and health concerns of some of the US’s most prominent politicians and fueled debates about age limits for members of Congress.The 81-year-old Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has suffered a number of falls and last month froze during remarks to reporters, prompting both expressions of concern and calls for him to step down.At an event in Kentucky on Saturday, McConnell was heckled with calls of “Retire!”The two candidates expected to contest the presidential election next year, the Democratic president, Joe Biden, and the former Republican president Donald Trump, are 80 and 77 respectively.But Feinstein’s age and health problems – side effects of shingles include encephalitis, or swelling of the brain – came into sharp focus when she was absent from Congress, given the need for her vote on judicial nominations.Some observers said calls for her to retire were ageist and sexist, and would not have been aimed at the likes of Chuck Grassley, the 89-year-old Iowa Republican who also sits on the judiciary committee.Rejecting such claims, the Vanity Fair columnist and politics podcaster Molly Jong-Fast said Feinstein was “fundamentally … a public servant, there to serve the public. And this idea that somehow because she’s a woman or because she’s older that she should be immune from [calls to quit] is really ridiculous”.Feinstein has defended her ability to perform her job, though her office said in May that she was still experiencing vision and balance impairments from the shingles virus.If Feinstein resigns before the 2024 election, Gavin Newsom, the California governor, would name her replacement, potentially reordering the race to succeed her. The governor said in 2021 that he would nominate a Black woman to fill the seat if Feinstein were to step aside.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Data says Americans are becoming more conservative. What’s going on? | Jill Filipovic

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      Earlier this summer, Gallup published some surprising numbers: more Americans identified as “socially conservative” than at any time in about a decade. Thirty-eight per cent said they were “conservative” or “very conservative” when it came to social issues, as opposed to 29% who said they were “liberal” or “very liberal”. A year earlier, 33% were on the conservative side, and 30% liberal.What accounts for the rightward shift?While these numbers tell us something interesting about personal identification, they don’t actually tell us all that much about policy. “Social issues” wasn’t defined by the Gallup pollsters, leaving respondents to interpret the term for themselves. But the line between “social issues” and “economic issues” isn’t all that clear. Is income inequality a social issue, an economic issue, or both? What about abortion, which has long been defined as a social issue, but has huge economic impacts for women and their families?What primarily seems to be driving the change is the Biden era.The last time we saw a similar peak in self-described social conservatism was in 2009, the year Barack Obama took office. Social conservatism hit a low in 2021, when Biden was inaugurated after a horrific and deadly pro-Trump insurrection brought national shame to the country and to the Republican party in particular.But it has steadily ticked up since then. And the shift has been driven largely by Republicans, whose conservative/very conservative identification on social issues has grown by 14 points since 2021. Independents have shifted rightward on social issues by five points. Democrats have stayed steady.Republicans, in other words, have doubled down on conservative identity now that their party is out of the White House. And that makes sense: being in the political opposition is often more motivating than being in charge, and feeling like your policy preferences are being sidelined can make you dig in harder than when you feel like you’re winning.There’s also been an age-related shift. While most age groups, aside from those over 65 who stayed more or less even, shifted rightward, the biggest shift – 13 points – was among those aged 30 to 49 (50-to-64-year-olds shifted by 11 points, while adults under 30 moved to the right by six points). This, too, may not be all that surprising: one’s 30s and 40s are the years when many adults find themselves turning inwards, toward nuclear family and home life, which can be a conservatizing force (for women, marriage tends to create a shift to the right; having children, for both sexes, may do the same).There’s actually not much evidence that Americans are growing more conservative when you break it down issue by issue. Support for abortion rights is at record highs, with even many Republicans wanting the government out of women’s uteruses. And Americans aren’t just more pro-choice broadly; they are now more likely to support abortion without restriction.Support for LGBTQ rights is also widespread. Seventy-one per cent of Americans support same-sex marriage rights. Sixty-six per cent favor allowing trans people to serve in the military. And 93% say gay people and lesbians should have the same job opportunities and protections as straight people.When it comes to guns, most Americans want stricter laws. And most Americans also say that more needs to be done to make racial equality a reality.It’s clear that Americans are a more liberal bunch than can be captured by amorphous self-identity questions. One issue, though, is different: crime.According to Gallup data from last year, 56% of Americans said there was more crime in their area than in the previous year – the highest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 1972. And 78% said they believed crime was up nationwide. Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to believe crime was up, but 42% of Democrats believed crime in their area had risen. And most Democrats also believe that crime is up nationwide.Perception, of course, is not reality. “Crime” is also one of those amorphous terms – are we talking about murders or porch pirates or wage theft, or all of the above? The numbers generally show that, while there was a spike in violent crime during Covid, crime remains lower than it was at its peak in the 1990s. But crime statistics are notoriously poorly tracked, which leaves us with limited data. And “things aren’t as bad as they were at the height of violent crime in modern America” isn’t exactly comforting.People also tend to vote on perception, not data. If the general perception is that crime is rising, that can push voters to the right, as the Republican party has pretty firmly entrenched itself as the party of law and order. This is ironic, given that Republicans’ anything-goes stance on gun control fuels America’s endemic violence problem, but Republicans’ rhetoric on crime is much more aggressive than Democrats’. Republicans also tend to promote more policing and punitive measures in response to crime, while Democrats are more likely to push broader social investments, including in education and poverty alleviation.When many Americans think about rising crime, what they’re really considering is the general sense of things being safe and orderly or not. A big part of what’s driving the perception of rapidly rising crime, I suspect, is the reality of increasingly visible social dysfunction: homelessness, addiction and anti-social behavior.Since the pandemic, homelessness has surged, and there seems to be a higher number of visibly homeless people who are struggling with mental health disorders, substance abuse disorders or both. In New York City, there has been an 18% increase in the number of people who are sleeping on the streets and in the subways, and for the first time ever the city’s homeless population passed 100,000. The San Francisco Bay Area has seen a 35% rise in homelessness since 2019. Los Angeles has seen its homeless population increase by more than 40% since 2018. Maricopa county, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, has seen its homeless population increase by 72% since 2017.Large west coast cities are plagued by tent encampments, which are often sites of gang activity, illicit drug use and deadly overdoses, sexual violence and crime more broadly. The folks sleeping rough are not the majority of people who are unhoused on any given night, but they are a group that reads as homeless, erratic, potentially dangerous and reflective of broader social malaise. That read may not be kind or fair and accurate, but perceptions rarely are.Adding to the general sense of insecurity and instability are surging drug overdoses and the more amorphous sense – backed up with some data – that people are just acting erratically and badly in all kinds of new and disturbing ways. All of this may be combined into a general sense of “things are bad and seem to be coming apart at the seams” which can manifest as “crime is getting worse” – which in turn can drive people to the right if they don’t think Democrats and liberals are responsive to their concerns.And unfortunately, while mainstream Democrats do largely recognize that crime and concern for general order and stability is a problem, a lot of liberal pundits and people in media, and even some elected officials, deny and deflect. One way to drive people who share your values away from your party and your ideology is to deny what they can see with their own eyes.Luckily, there are a long list of issues that Democrats win on, and voters may be more inclined to vote for politicians who promise to protect the environment, reproductive rights and democracy itself than those who say they’ll “do something” about homelessness (especially if more voters understand that “something” has to be housing) or “get tough” on crime (especially if voters are exhausted by a system of brutal incarceration that doesn’t actually solve the problem).It is a problem for Democrats, though – and for progressive movement-building – if more Americans consider themselves socially conservative, whether their policy preferences perfectly line up with the Republican party or not. The latest numbers may just be a blip, spurred on by conservatives who feel victimized by a Democratic administration.But liberals are already at a disadvantage in a country where only a small minority – roughly one in five – has said for the last 20 years that they are liberal on economic issues, while 40% to 50% have consistently said they’re economically conservative. Republicans don’t represent a majority on policy, but conservatism seems to have a better brand than liberalism: while 40% of Americans say they’re conservative, just 26% say they’re liberal.That doesn’t necessary mean Democrats will always lose elections. But it is bad news for the majority of us who value liberal democracy and want to build a fairer, healthier, safer society.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness More

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      Elvis Presley’s cousin is Democratic candidate for Mississippi governor

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      A cousin of Elvis Presley is the Democratic candidate for governor in Mississippi, after winning his primary unopposed on Tuesday.The general election will be held on 7 November. The Democrat, Brandon Presley, said he would advocate for people who struggle to make ends meet.He will face the current Republican governor, Tate Reeves, who defeated two first-time candidates, John Witcher, a physician, and David Hardigree, a military veteran.“The national Democrats think Mississippi is theirs for the taking,” Reeves told supporters in Jackson. “They’ve circled our state, and they’ve hand-picked their candidate … these national Democrats think they can use him to inject their liberal ideology into Mississippi under the guise of being a moderate.”Presley said: “This race is going to come down to … which candidate, and I believe that’s me, has got guts and the backbone to stand up for the people of Mississippi and which candidate has consistently showed us that he will do whatever his lobbyist buddies want him to do and will not stand up for the people of Mississippi.”Mississippi is one of three states holding races for governor this year. Despite Republicans holding all statewide offices for 20 years, the Democratic Governors Association chair, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, has predicted a Democrat could win.In his hometown, Nettleton, Presley took the stage at his victory party to See See Rider, a song Elvis Presley often used as walk-on music. The candidate said he would not sing, though.“We’re trying to get votes,” Presley said. “We’re not trying to lose them.”Reeves, 49, became state treasurer in 2003. He had two terms as treasurer and two terms as lieutenant governor before becoming governor in 2019.“Brandon Presley and his party are happy to see people go on welfare,” Reeves said. “He campaigns on wanting more welfare. He thinks welfare is a destination. I think … a job is a destination for everyone in Mississippi – a job with benefits and healthcare and a chance to move up in the world.”Reeves often touts two laws: one in 2021 that prohibits transgender people from playing on girls’ or women’s sports teams and one this year that bans gender-affirming healthcare to people younger than 18.Reeves signed an income tax reduction into law last year and wants to eliminate state income tax. He says he has fulfilled a 2019 promise to increase teacher pay.“Mississippi has momentum, and this is Mississippi’s time,” Reeves said. “To believe Brandon Presley’s campaign, you’ve got to believe that none of that is true.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPresley, 46, a member of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, has highlighted the challenges of working families in one of the poorest states. Born a few weeks before his famous relative died, he often talks about growing up in a home where his widowed mother had trouble paying bills with a modest paycheck.“Tate Reeves doesn’t care anything about us. He doesn’t care anything about working people,” Presley said. “If you can’t write a campaign check, or you’re not part of his little club of buddies and insiders, you’re shut out of state government.”Presley says he wants to eliminate a 7% state tax on groceries. He also says Mississippi should join 40 states that have expanded Medicaid coverage to people working low-wage jobs that do not provide private insurance.Dr Martha Morrow, an optometrist, said she supported Presley because she sees him as an honest person who wants to improve the quality of life. Morrow said it was crucial to expand Medicaid.“We’re going to have to stop the rural hospitals from closing,” Morrow said. “Tate Reeves can say all he wants to that it’s not a problem. It’s a problem. If you’re sick and you can’t get to a hospital because your hospital’s closed – people are dying already. And it’s going to continue.”Reeves and Presley will also face an independent, Gwendolyn Gray, a 68-year-old newcomer who leads a non-profit, the Southern Foundation for Homeless Children, and says one of her main concerns as governor would be alleviating poverty. More

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      ‘These people are diehard’: Iowa Trump supporters shrug off indictments

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      From his corner of rural Iowa, Neil Shaffer did more than his fair share to put Donald Trump in the White House and to try to keep him there.Shaffer oversaw the biggest swing of any county in the US from Barack Obama to Trump in 2016, and increased the then president’s share of the vote four years later. But the chair of the Howard county Republican party is not enthusiastic at the prospect of yet another Trump presidential campaign, and he blames the Democrats for driving it.“Honestly, the Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot with these prosecutions,” he said. “Why is Trump doing so well? Because people feel like they are piling on him. If this is the Democrats’ effort to make him look bad, it hasn’t. It’s probably going to make him the [Republican] nominee and, honestly, he may win the general election again. And then whose fault would it be?”After pleading not guilty on Thursday to federal charges over his attempts to steal the 2020 presidential election, Trump denounced the indictment as “a persecution of a political opponent”.“If you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him,” he said.There are plenty who buy that line in Iowa and the rest of Trump-sympathetic America.With Trump likely to spend a good part of the next year in one courtroom or another, after being indicted in New York, Florida and Washington on an array of charges and with more expected in Georgia before long, his supporters are more than willing to believe it is a plot to keep their man out of the White House.One of them is Tom Schatz, a Howard county farmer on Iowa’s border with Minnesota.“They’re bringing the charges against Trump so he can’t run against Biden. Biden is so damn crooked. We’ve never had this kind of shit in this United States, ever,” he said. “Democrats are gonna keep riding [Trump’s] ass and bringing shit up against him. They don’t quit. They just don’t like him because he’s draining the swamp, and they don’t like that.”Schatz, like many Trump supporters, sees the prosecutions as part of a pattern of establishment attacks, from Congress twice impeaching the then president to the FBI’s investigation into alleged ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign. The same message is hammered home on rightwing talk radio stations that are often the background to the working day in rural America.On the day of Trump’s arraignment, Buck Sexton, a former CIA analyst on AM 600 WMT in Iowa, was energetically telling his listeners, without irony, that the prosecutions undermined confidence in the electoral system.“We are up against something we have never dealt with before,” he said. “They don’t care how reckless this is, the Democrats. It doesn’t bother them the disruption that they are doing to faith in the judicial system, faith in our elections, something that he’s talked about all the time. How can you have a fair election when one candidate has soon to be four criminal trials against him? Specifically timed to happen during the election.”Shaffer, who works for the state as a river conservationist as well as running a family farm, has watched Trump’s support rise, fall and then bounce back.Some support drained away to the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, after several prominent candidates backed by the former president lost in the midterm elections last November. For a while, polls put DeSantis ahead of Trump in a primary matchup. Shaffer said his county party was split, although at the time he still thought Trump would win because his supporters had more energy and commitment.“Now I think it’s even more so. When I speak up for DeSantis at our Republican monthly meeting, these people wearing their Trump hats don’t want to hear it. It’s such a foregone conclusion. Trump is going to get the nomination easily, whether he’s in a jail cell or in the courtroom. These people are that diehard,” he said.Shaffer sensed the renewed vigor in Trump’s campaign when he met the former president days before the latest indictment, at the Iowa Republican party’s annual fundraising Lincoln Dinner. Trump was among 13 candidates there to argue their case before meeting party activists one on one. So was his former vice-president, Mike Pence.“I feel bad for Pence because there were 500 people in line to see Trump and there were literally five people in the room for Pence,” said Shaffer. “Trump has that connection. Most of our group was there just to meet him.”Shaffer said the line to see DeSantis was longer than for Pence but nothing like the one for Trump, which he took as further evidence that the rightwing Florida governor’s moment had passed and that the the prosecutions helped revive Trump’s candidacy.“I think DeSantis is awesome. I think he’ll make a great president someday. But as long as Trump is running, there’s no way he’s gonna get the nomination,” he said.The polls back Shaffer’s view. But among some Howard county voters, support for Trump is more ambivalent.Tom Schatz’s son, Aaron, was a reluctant Trump voter in 2016. He voted for Obama but didn’t like Hillary Clinton. He was much more enthusiastic about Trump four years later but has cooled on him since.For all that, Schatz believes the former president is the victim of a political conspiracy.The dairy and corn farmer said he was more concerned about inflation, rising interest rates and falling prices for his milk than the details of the 45-page indictment laying out Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. He preferred to see the charges as evidence of a double standard in which the Washington establishment failed to properly investigate Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden for alleged crimes.Asked about Trump’s part in the January 6 storming of the Capitol, Schatz brushed it off as a bad thing but not very different from what he said were Democratic politicians encouraging the protests and riots that followed the killing of George Floyd three years ago.“They burned down Minneapolis. Were they prosecuted for that?“ he asked. “Trump acted poorly when he lost, I’ll give them that. But they’re just out to get anything they can on him. Part of me thinks that all they’re going to do is unite the Trump followers. I think they’re doing more harm than good.”Shaffer, too, is not persuaded by the detail of the indictment.“I still don’t like a lot of what Trump was doing, a lot of what he was saying. People know he didn’t handle himself very well from election day through January 6. But does it rise to the level where he should go to jail because he said something in a phone call? I think we’re more adult than that,” he said.Suspicions about the barrage of indictments even extends to the chair of Howard county’s Democratic party, Laura Hubka, a US navy veteran and ultrasound technologist at the city’s hospital who has no like of Trump.“I think that they’re going after him because he’s running,” she said. “Did he break laws and is he a bad guy? Yeah. But I think if he just went into the sunset, and blathered on Truth Social, maybe they would just have left him alone. But once he ran again, people thought he’s popular enough to win again and we need to do something to stop him. They had to do something, I guess.”The impact of Trump’s coming trials, and the evidence they lay bare, remains to be seen. But it might be expected that while diehard supporters will remain loyal through it all, those who voted for him once but then swung to Biden four years later have little reason to switch back.Trump was defeated by 7m popular votes and 74 electoral college ballots in 2020, and some Democrats are calculating that he will struggle to overcome that deficit with the additional baggage of indictments, trials and possibly even prison time.Yet the polls show the US’s two most recent presidents tied, including in key swing states such as Michigan.“Every time they indict him, he goes up in the polls,” said Shaffer. “I think the Democrats are so arrogant. Some of the liberals believe that, just like they did in 2016, he’ll never be elected, he’ll never get in again. Don’t be too sure about that.”For her part, Hubka cannot believe that the polls are that close even if the election is more than a year away.“I feel like he could be running from prison and it’ll still be a tight race with Joe Biden. That’s what scares me,” she said.Which raises a question about why the Democrats are not doing better in a former stronghold like Howard county.Shaffer says Howard county is doing well in many ways, and thanks to Biden. He said the presidents’s Inflation Reduction Act has pumped money into the county, paying to renew infrastructure, including bridges and roads. Shaffer’s conservation work for the state is well funded thanks to the federal government, and that brings financial benefits to farmers. In addition, the push for green energy has resulted in a proliferation of very profitable windmills.“We’ve got a lot of windmills around here and it’s a huge benefit. Each one of those is valued at a million dollars and we’re able to tax them and it puts money in our budget so we can build bridges and roads and have money for the schools,” said Shaffer.“I’ve got one of my farmers has four windmills and all the roads and lines. He gets $185,000 a year from it. He built a new home. He’s got new tractors. The whole northwest part of the county used to be a more depressed area. The windmills pumped in a lot of money “Shaffer is surprised that, with so many Republicans denouncing renewable energy, the Democratic party isn’t making more of an effort to claim credit for the benefits in Howard county.Hubka blames the Democratic national leadership, which has been accused of overly focusing on parts of the country where a majority of the residents have a college education, unlike rural Iowa.“They need to get some balls, be more bold. I also feel like they just are writing off the rural counties,” she said.But Hubka is still there, campaigning and waiting to see what happens if Trump goes to prison. She bought a gun before the last election because of so many threats from Trump supporters.“I was really very scared that I was going to get shot or hurt. It’s calmed down a bit in that sense. But who knows what happens if he gets thrown in jail,” she said.Around the corner from her hospital, a flag hanging outside a house might be read as a warning: “Trump 2024. The rules have changed.” More