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      Rosalynn Carter memorial service: Jimmy Carter joins mourners at Atlanta church – as it happened

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      Former president Jimmy Carter was in attendance at the tribute service for his wife, Rosalynn Carter:Carter turned 99 in October, and has been in hospice in his home town of Plains, Georgia, since February.Here’s the moment he arrived at the church for the ceremony:Mourners including Joe and Jill Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Melania Trump and Georgia’s two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock paid tribute to former first lady Rosalynn Carter at a ceremony in Atlanta. Back in Washington DC, House Democrats called up a resolution to expel fraudster George Santos from the chamber that must be voted on within two days, while the chamber’s Republican leaders are reportedly considering holding a vote on a separate resolution Thursday.Here’s what else has been happening today:
      Jimmy Carter was in attendance at the memorial service in Atlanta. The 99-year-old former president has been receiving hospice care since February.
      Amy Carter spoke about her parents’ love for each other, and read from a letter her father wrote to Rosalynn while he was serving in the navy.
      Nikki Haley received the endorsement of Koch-affiliated Super Pac Americans for Prosperity Action, in a potential boost for her quest to overtake Donald Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
      Santos insists he will not resign, while the House resolution to expel him needs two-thirds majority support to pass.
      Trump and Santos aren’t so different, a biographer of the New York congressman says.
      Back in Congress, Punchbowl News reports that the House’s Republican leadership is considering taking up GOP lawmaker Michael Guest’s resolution to expel George Santos on Thursday:Passing Guest’s resolution would make the separate motion proposed by Democrat Robert Garcia moot. It remains to be seen if either proposal has the two-thirds majority support necessary to pass.Here are a few photos as the tribute to Rosalynn Carter wrapped up in Atlanta:Pallbearers have loaded Rosalynn Carter’s casket into a hearse, which is now departing the tribute ceremony.Her funeral is scheduled for tomorrow in Plains, Georgia, the Carters’s hometown. That ceremony and her burial at the family residence are restricted to family and friends, according to the Carter Center.The tribute to Rosalynn Carter is nearing its conclusion in Atlanta.The closing benediction was given by Tony Lowden, a pastor at the church the Carters attended in Plains, Georgia, who made a point to acknowledge the work of the Secret Service agents who guarded the former president and his family during his time in office, and in the decades since:
      Oftentimes, Mr. President, we don’t acknowledge those who keep us safe. Rosalynn Carter is in heaven, and she did the work of the Lord and the kingdom all around the world. And Don and all the directors for 46 years got her and her family home safe. And I say thank each and every one of you, those that are standing post and those that are listening on the radios right now. Thank you and she loves you and a nothing you can do about it.
      Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter’s grandson Jason, a former Georgia state senator, spoke about his grandmother’s work fighting Guinea worm disease, as well as advocating for better mental health care.“Her advocacy for mental health was a 50-year climb that is as remarkable as any other and has been mentioned already. But if you imagine just how far our society has come in the last five years on issues of mental health, and you think that she decided in 1970 to tackle the anxious and stigma associated with mental illness, it is remarkable how far she could see and how far she was willing to walk,” Carter said. “And that effort changed lives and it saved lives, including in my own family. She was made for these long journeys.”Jason Carter continued:
      John Lewis once said that in all of his marches, he only really learned one thing: Don’t let them turn you around. That was my grandmother to a tee. One of my last memories of her was in a hospital. We were there for my grandfather, but she had her own physical limitations that made it hard for her to walk. She had to practice. She was ready to go for one of these walks and she picked up this cane and I looked at the cane. She looked at me and she said, ‘you know it’s not a cane … it’s a trekking pole’ She said, ‘the exact same kind that those women use when they go to the South Pole.’
      I watched her walk down that hall with that trekking pole. I followed her and I just pray that we never lose sight of that path.
      Back in Georgia, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter’s daughter Amy Carter spoke about the importance of love in their relationship:“My mom spent most of her life in love with my dad,” she said. “Their partnership and love story was a defining feature of her life. Because he is unable to speak to you today, I’m going to share some of his words about loving and missing. This is from a letter he wrote 75 years ago while he was serving in the navy”:
      My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I had been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are. While I’m away I tried to convince myself that you really are not could not be as sweet and beautiful as I remember. But when I see you I fall in love with you all over again. Does that seem strange to you? It doesn’t to me. Goodbye darling. Until tomorrow, Jimmy.
      Two House Democratic lawmakers have moved to force a vote within 48 hours on a resolution to expel Republican congressman and admitted fabulist George Santos from the chamber.California’s Robert Garcia introduced the resolution earlier this year, and together with New York’s Dan Goldman have called it up as a privileged resolution, meaning it must be voted on within the next two days. While it will need a two-thirds majority vote of the chamber to pass, momentum to oust Santos has increased in the past weeks following the release of an ethics committee report that found “grave and pervasive campaign finance violations and fraudulent activity” by the New York Republican.“The time has finally come to remove George Santos from Congress. If we’re going to restore faith in government, we must start with restoring integrity in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Garcia said in a statement.Added Goldman: “George Santos is an admitted liar, fraud, and cheat, and the recent Ethics Committee report confirms what we’ve long known: George Santos is wholly unfit for public office.”Former president Jimmy Carter was in attendance at the tribute service for his wife, Rosalynn Carter:Carter turned 99 in October, and has been in hospice in his home town of Plains, Georgia, since February.Here’s the moment he arrived at the church for the ceremony:Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s son, James “Chip” Carter is speaking now at his mother’s memorial service.He called Rosalynn the glue that held the family together “through the ups and downs and thicks and thins” of family life and politics.Chip Carter, 73, recalled that when he was 14 he used to get beaten up for wearing a sticker supporting Lyndon Johnson for president.But he said his mother would mend his shirt torn in the fight and replace the sticker for him, as he supported the Democratic Party cause.He also said that Rosalynn Carter “was influential in getting me into rehab for drug and alcohol addiction. She saved my life.”He called Jimmy Carter’s loss in the 1980 election to the Republican ticket of Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush “devastating to us all.”Chip Carter just mentioned that his mother was “racked with dementia” prior to her death last month.The memorial service for first lady Rosalynn Carter is now under way, with the call to worship and invocation.The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus just gave the patient congregation a stirring rendition of America the Beautiful, as Carter’s casket entered the church.The setting is the Glenn Memorial United Methodist church on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.The sunlight is streaming through the windows and illuminating many on the left-hand side of the congregation.The front row in the church is now occupied with the leadership names of the day.Jimmy Carter, 99, has just entered, semi-recumbent on a sort of wheeled chair-bed. He is at one end of the row. Joe Biden is close by with, to the president’s right, Jill Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump.The choir is now singing America the Beautiful, as Rosalynn Carter’s casket has been brought in and placed at the front of the church.The hearse has pulled up to the steps of the church and the military guard is marching forward to lift the coffin and take it in to the service.Rosalynn Carter’s flower-decorated coffin is now being carried. The political leaders past and present are now in the church. More details shortly.Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, a Republican, has just entered the church and taken a pew.Georgia’s Democratic US Senators, Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff have also entered and found a seat.We await the biggest names of the day. It’s a brilliantly sunny day with a cloudless, bright blue sky above the church on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta.Things are clearly running a little behind schedule before the start of the memorial service for Rosalynn Carter.It’s due to start at 1pm ET but there are still at least five rows at the front of the church in Atlanta empty and clearly waiting for their VIP occupants.The congregation that’s there so far was just treated to some Elgar from the orchestra and now something of a hush has descended upon the church, apart from a bit of hold music. We await the arrival of the courtege.Guests are filing in to the Glenn Memorial church in Atlanta for the tribute service to former first lady Rosalynn Carter. Her husband Jimmy Carter will attend, as will Joe and Jill Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Melania Trump and Georgia’s two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. None of the group is scheduled to speak at the event, which will instead feature eulogies from Carter family members and people who knew the former first lady. Back in Washington DC, House Democrats are expected to propose a resolution to expel fraudster George Santos from the chamber that must be brought up for consideration within two days. We’ll be watching for signs of if the resolution has the support to pass.Here’s what else has been happening today:
      Nikki Haley received the endorsement of Koch-affiliated Super Pac Americans for Prosperity Action, in a potential boost for her quest to overtake Donald Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
      Santos insists he will not resign, while the House resolution to expel him needs two-thirds majority support to pass.
      Trump and Santos aren’t so different, a biographer of the New York congressman says.
      Reporters traveling with Joe Biden say the president and first lady have arrived at Glenn Memorial church in Atlanta ahead of the tribute service for Rosalynn Carter.Traveling with them are a number of current and former elected officials, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Georgia’s two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Jimmy Carter is also expected to attend, though is not reported to be traveling with the president, as is former first lady Melania Trump.As guests are filing in, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is running through some of Rosalynn Carter’s favorite songs, including compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.In Atlanta, guests are arriving for this afternoon’s tribute service to former first lady Rosalynn Carter. Here are some photos ahead of the event, which begins at 1pm: More

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      Joe Biden and first lady ‘horrified’ by Vermont shooting of three Palestinian students – as it happened

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      Joe and Jill Biden as well as Vermont’s congressional delegation condemned the weekend shooting of three Palestinian students in the northeastern state’s most-populous city Burlington, while police announced an arrest was made in the case yesterday. It was an otherwise quiet day in Washington DC, but it won’t stay that way for long. The House will perhaps as soon as Wednesday vote on kicking admitted fabulist George Santos out of the chamber after a damning report from its ethics panel, while the Senate is gearing up to consider Biden’s request for more than $100b to fund border security and military assistance to Ukraine and Israel.Here’s what else happened today:
      Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, reportedly said he discussed “options” with Santos ahead of the expected expulsion vote.
      A rift is emerging among Democrats over Biden’s request for military assistance to Israel in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October terrorist attack.
      Merrick Garland said federal authorities are looking into whether the Vermont shooting was a hate crime.
      Donald Trump is making it very clear that a priority of his second presidential term will be retaliating against his enemies.
      The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said they believe the three students were targeted in Vermont because of their ethnicity.
      In a new statement, Joe Biden condemned the shooting of three Palestinian students, two of whom were US citizens, in Vermont this weekend, saying the White House would support the investigation into the attack:
      Jill and I were horrified to learn that three college students of Palestinian descent, two of whom are American citizens, were shot Saturday in Burlington, Vermont. They were simply spending Thanksgiving gathered with family and loved ones.
      We join Americans across the country in praying for their full recovery, and we send our deepest condolences to their families. While we are waiting for more facts, we know this: there is absolutely no place for violence or hate in America. Period. No person should worry about being shot at while going about their daily lives. And far too many Americans know a family member injured or killed as a result of gun violence. We cannot and we will not accept that.
      Earlier today, I spoke to Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger to offer my support. We are grateful to the Burlington Police Department – as well as the FBI, ATF, and other law enforcement partners – for their swift work identifying and arresting a suspect. Our Administration will provide any additional federal resources needed to assist in the investigation.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said that members of both political parties discussed government funding over the Thanksgiving break ahead of a January deadline to avoid a shutdown.From Politico’s Burgess Everett:Here’s more background on Biden’s use of the the Defense Production Act, from the Guardian’s Edward Helmore.
      …The Defense Production Act of 1950, which was passed to streamline production during the Korean war, was last used in early 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic to accelerate and expand the availability of ventilators and personal protective equipment.
      The supply chain council is set to address issues ranging from improved data sharing between government agencies, supplying renewable energy resources and freight logistics…
      Monday’s announcement arrived as the US economy appears to be doing well on paper. But the White House has acknowledged that improving economic picture is not shared by consumers, and the administration has explicitly tied the economy to the president by calling it Bidenomics.
      A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 39% of voters approve of Biden’s handling of jobs and the economy. And a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll puts the economy as the most important issue to Americans for the past two years.
      Even as the pace of inflation has slowed, consumers are shouldering an economic burden they had not experienced in years. Prices have risen as much in the past three years as they had in the previous decade, according to a report by Bloomberg, and it now costs almost $120 to buy the same goods and services a family could afford with $100 before the pandemic.
      Read the full article here.Biden is currently speaking in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building about strengthening US supply chains and his Bidenomics policy, as the burden of high inflation costs remain a priority for many US voters.During today’s event, Biden announced that he would be evoking the Defense Production Act to boost production of “essential medicine”.The 1950s law will allow Biden to strength the domestic manufacturing of medicines that is seen as crucial for national security, improving US supply chains that the Biden administration believes will address the higher price of goods and services.Biden also flagged falling inflation rates and that wages for families were increasing as wins for the US economy under his Bidenomics plan.Biden added that “costs went down” in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.“As a share of earnings, dinner was the fourth cheapest ever on record. I want you all to know that,” Biden said, referring to the cost to produce the Thanksgiving feast.From the Guardian’s David Smith:In an appearance in Florida, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said he had talked to George Santos about “his options” as the chamber gears up to vote on an effort to expel the New York congressman for his lies and ethics breaches, Politico reports:The vote on the expulsion resolution proposed by ethics committee chair Michael Guest is expected to come as soon as Wednesday, but Johnson’s comment is an sign that he may be looking for another solution to Santos’s ethical lapses that does not involve voting him out of the chamber.Joe Biden is due to right about now hold an event at the White House on his administration’s actions to strengthen supply chains.That event is late in starting, perhaps due to the fact that he was on the phone with Miro Weinberger, the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, where three Palestinian students were shot over the weekend. Here’s what Weinberger had to say about the call:The police have not yet said if they consider the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont as a hate crime, but advocacy group the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said they believe it was:Joe and Jill Biden as well as Vermont’s congressional delegation have condemned the weekend shooting of three Palestinian students in the northeastern state’s most-populous city Burlington, while police announced an arrest was made in the case yesterday. It’s an otherwise quiet day in Washington DC, but it won’t stay that way for long. The House will perhaps as soon as Wednesday vote on kicking admitted fabulist George Santos out of the chamber after a damning report from its ethics panel, while the Senate is gearing up to consider Biden’s request for more than $100b to fund border security and military assistance to Ukraine and Israel.Here’s what else has happened today:
      A rift is emerging among Democrats over Biden’s request for military assistance to Israel in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October terrorist attack.
      Merrick Garland said federal authorities are looking into whether the Vermont shooting was a hate crime.
      Donald Trump is making it very clear that a priority of his second presidential term will be retaliating against his enemies.
      Also attending today’s White House press briefing was John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council.He offered details of the agreement reached for Hamas to release more of the hostages taken in the 7 October terrorist attack:Follow our live blog for the latest on the conflict between Israel and Hamas:At her briefing today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Joe and Jill Biden were “horrified” by the shootings of three Palestinian students in Vermont:Here’s footage of the arraignment of Jason Eaton, the suspect in the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont: More

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      ‘People who are just like me will not be able to vote. That’s nuts’: Virginia to see first Black speaker of the house

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      Five years ago, while working on a high-profile case, the trial lawyer Don L Scott Jr received a call from a reporter. “Hey, is it true that you had gone to prison?” Scott remembers them asking. “I said, ‘It is, and if you want the entire story, before you print it, I hope that you will sit down and talk to me.’”On 10 January 2024, Scott will be sworn in as Virginia’s first Black speaker of the house in the commonwealth’s 400-year-plus history. His rise to the position started in 2018, when that reporter called him. Scott said that although he hadn’t hidden his past before, “it’s not something you put on your résumé either”. That call was a pivotal moment for him, empowering him to share his story widely, and helping him realize that he had the potential to be a politician.After the story was published in the Virginian-Pilot, everyone knew his past, and Scott said he was then able to discuss it more freely, even as an attorney. He thinks the impetus behind the piece might have come from a politician who was concerned Scott would run against him, or from the opposing attorneys on the case, but at this point it doesn’t matter.“They were thinking they were going to drop it on me to hurt me, but what they really did was free me up,” he said. “I got such positive feedback from my community and other folks that I knew that I said, ‘Heck, I’m free now. If I decide I want to run, I can run.’”Eventually, Scott, who’s 58, did run for election to the Virginia house of delegates – and won. Then he won again and again. In his new role as speaker of the house, Scott plans to help lead Virginia Democrats in following through on their campaign promises: namely, codifying Roe v Wade, banning assault weapons and increasing teacher pay.‘There are people who are just like me’On 30 July 1619, Virginia’s house of burgesses, the colonial predecessor to the commonwealth’s current general assembly, met for the first time. About one month later, enslaved Africans were brought to the Virginia colony, marking what is considered to be the start of chattel slavery in the colonial US. In several interviews since his election as speaker, Scott has referenced the historic importance of his nomination: “I know I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors who built that capitol.”Scott was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in a small town by a single mother who hid the family’s poverty so well that Scott didn’t realize how much she struggled until he was an adult. He grew up with five siblings, including his elder sister, Jeta Lenoir, who taught him to read.After his graduation from Texas A&M University, Scott enlisted in the US navy and served a few years before he was honorably discharged. He went on to obtain a law degree from Louisiana State University Law School, but in 1994, shortly after graduating, Scott was arrested on federal drug charges. He served seven years in prison. (Scott has said previously that he made a “bad decision”, but denies having ever handled any drugs.)In Virginia, citizens’ voting rights are not immediately restored after their release from prison – that decision depends on the governor. For almost a decade after rejoining society, Scott was unable to vote. Once his rights were restored in 2013, he was able to finally sit for the bar exam and become a trial lawyer.During his time as a partner at the Breit Biniazan law firm, Scott joined various civic organizations, including his state’s chapter of the NAACP. He started paying closer attention to the difference between what people around him were experiencing and what he saw and heard in courtrooms as a lawyer. As a result, his first campaign for the house of delegates in 2019 focused on criminal justice reform and alleviating poverty.“I came in saying that there are some things that are wrong, that are unfair in our criminal justice system and need to be fixed,” Scott said. “I think people have a misconception about Black communities that are sometimes having tough times and issues with crime. They don’t want to talk about poverty. They don’t want to talk about all the causes of crime. They don’t want to talk about mental health. They just want to say ‘crime’ and look at the outcome.”Scott’s lived experiences continue to inform how he sees the world. He intimately knows what it means to serve time and still be penalized after leaving prison. “I had a nonviolent drug offense that I was sentenced to 10 years [in prison] for,” he said. “There are people who are just like me who are not voting and can’t vote and are smarter than I am. [They] can’t vote because they’re waiting on somebody like Governor [Glenn] Youngkin to restore their rights. I will be speaker with a felony, while other people who are just like me … will not be able to vote. That’s nuts.”As speaker, Scott plans to help mitigate voter disenfranchisement by taking away the governor’s right to determine whether formerly incarcerated people can vote again. He wants to change the state’s constitution so that people have an automatic restoration of rights after completing their sentences. Earlier this year, in a separate voter-rights issue, about 3,000 Virginians were purged from voter rolls “in error”, according to Youngkin’s administration.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Personally, this is important to me, that we take the restoration of rights away from the governor,” Scott said. Of the purged voters, he continued: Youngkin “abused that privilege that he has, that privilege that the people have bestowed on him. He used it arbitrarily and capriciously to deny the franchise – that sacred franchise – from people that he deemed unworthy to vote.”‘You have to deliver’Scott understands the historic nature of his impending leadership position. He also knows that his community and Virginians at large are expecting more than him to just be a face in power.Recently, Scott said, he attended a breakfast meeting with a former governor who was energized by his nomination, but who told him that it was time for the real work to begin. “He said, ‘Now you have to go and be great. You have to be competent. You have to deliver.’ And that’s what our community is looking for. They’re not looking for symbolic wins any more,” Scott recalled. “I’m the first Black speaker, but I’m also a speaker who happens to be Black.”Democrats gained control of Virginia’s state legislature this year, as voters opposed Youngkin’s attempt to pass a strict abortion ban. In addition to codifying Roe v Wade, many of the Democrats who ran and won promised to raise the minimum wage, to ban assault weapons, to pass a responsible gun act and to raise teacher pay.“These are the promises that we made … These are not extreme ideas. I think everybody can agree that we need to do these things, and I think we will,” Scott said.But for the moment, he is taking time to soak it all in.“I’m excited,” he said. “It’s the dream of a lifetime. I feel embarrassed of how much I’ve been blessed. I went to jail in ’94; 2004 is 30 years and I’ll be standing taking my oath. That’s a powerful testament to the power of faith, and the power of resilience.” More

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      ‘The odds are against us’: Democrats in once-blue West Virginia survey loss

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      Nibbling appetizers off American-flag printed paper plates in a city hall basement, the group of Democrat voters had been listening to a party official’s appeals to get active in politics when Terri Rodebaugh stood up to air a grievance.“One thing I want to say is I’m tired of being called a baby killer, which I am not,” said Rodebaugh, her shirt pink and her hair, like most others in the room, gray. Yet having such epithets hurled at them is what it has come to for party faithful and pro-choice West Virginians like Rodebaugh in Nicholas county.For much of the 20th century, voters in Nicholas county and much of the rest of West Virginia were reliably Democratic, backing the party even in its worst years. That changed in 2000, when George W Bush won the state’s electoral votes, and by 2020, nearly 78% of Nicholas county voters had cast ballots for Donald Trump. West Virginians overall gave him the second-highest share of support of any state in the nation.A few weeks before that year’s election, the then president’s adherents paraded through the county seat Summersville, and the Democrats held a counterprotest. Trump supporters then turned up outside the party’s offices in their pickup trucks, burning out their tires and kicking up gravel. The landlords called not long after and told the Democrats to leave, and ever since, the party has been itinerant, meeting in churches, restaurants and, most recently, Summersville’s city hall.“I never dreamed Nicholas county would ever go Republican,” said 81-year-old John Jarrell, who has served on the local party committee for decades. “And I never dreamed West Virginia would ever go Republican.”The Democratic party’s power in the state now seems on the brink of reaching its nadir.Even as the GOP was consolidating its hold on the state’s politics, voters kept electing one Democrat: Joe Manchin, a two-term governor who won a Senate seat in 2010 and just over a decade later became one of the most controversial politicians in the country for refusing to support proposals by Joe Biden to fight the climate crisis, poverty and a host of other social ills.Manchin was scheduled to face voters again in 2024, and whether he could win a third full term representing his ruby red state was a subject of fierce debate. Now, West Virginians will never learn the answer – earlier this month, Manchin announced he would not run again for the Senate, and is openly mulling a third-party run for the presidency.Few politics watchers believe any other Democrat can win Manchin’s seat, and by the start of 2025, the party may hold none of West Virginia’s statewide elected offices for the first time since 1931.“We’re going to be underrepresented,” Pam Tucker-Cline, the chair of the Nicholas county Democratic party, said of Manchin’s exit as the 27 supporters who turned up for the meeting filtered out into the Summersville evening. “I don’t think people realize what he’s done for the state.”Party leaders refuse to give up, but acknowledge they’re not quite sure what the path back to power is in a state that lacks so much of what makes Democrats successful elsewhere.“We don’t plan to give up on any seat, and we know that the odds are against us, but we feel that West Virginians are worth fighting for,” said Mike Pushkin, the state Democratic party chair and a lawmaker in the state house of delegates.“It’s been extremely hard for anybody with a D after their name in rural America, as of late, but we feel that things are definitely never static in politics, things are always changing.”In the first two years of Biden’s administration, Manchin became the rare kind of lawmaker who goes from state-level star to national fixation for the way he used his power to manipulate the president’s agenda.While Democrats had an effective majority in the Senate, it was only by a single vote, giving any member the power to derail legislation that did not attract Republican support.Manchin made his objections known after the president proposed Build Back Better, a huge plan to fight the climate crisis and poverty, offer universal paid parental leave and make childcare more affordable. The White House spent months negotiating with Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona senator who was the other holdout to the plan and last year left the Democratic party to become an independent.Kayla Young, a Democratic member of West Virginia’s house of delegates, remembers advocacy organizations from around the country descending on the capital, Charleston, seeking ways to get Manchin to drop his blockade. “I worked with some of those groups. We literally were all Manchin whisperers for a year, because everybody just wanted to come and figure him out,” Young recalls.As 2021 drew to a close, Manchin said he wouldn’t vote for the plan, citing its estimated $2tn cost and rising inflation, and Young remembers the organizations that had been so keen to hear from West Virginians swiftly departed.“Seeing all those groups that I align with still come in and use us was not good. That did not feel good to just be used,” Young said.In the years before Biden took office, the GOP used a similar sense of abandonment among West Virginians to dismantle what had been decades of Democratic dominance.Democrats had controlled the governor’s mansion, the entire congressional delegation and the legislature with supermajorities simultaneously, and West Virginia Democrats see it as a point of pride that John F Kennedy, a Catholic, bagged the party’s presidential nomination in 1960 by triumphing in the mostly Protestant state.That consensus ended in 2000 with Bush’s victory, and after Barack Obama won the White House eight years later, the GOP adopted an argument against his administration that proved especially potent: the Democrat was waging a “war on coal”. The industry has historically undergirded both the Appalachian state’s economy and cultural identity, but employment had been declining for decades as more mines automate extraction and power stations shift to cheaper forms of energy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“West Virginia was ripe for flipping,” said Mike Plante, a Democratic strategist based in Charleston, describing a belief among the state’s residents that outsiders were intent on both harming its economy and disrespecting its culture. “There’s a feeling that we’ve kind of been taken advantage of for years and years and years, and I think that plays into the the Maga message of score-settling.”In 2015, the GOP took control of both houses of the legislature for the first time in decades, and in the presidential election the following year, West Virginia voters gave Trump his largest share of support of any state.Four years later, Biden ousted Trump from office by rallying voters in suburbs and cities nationwide as well as racial minorities – all of which West Virginia lacks. The state is 91% white, and the population of Charleston, its largest city, is just over 47,000, while the rest of its 1.8 million residents are spread out in a handful of small cities, towns and villages dotting its landscape of rolling hills and narrow valleys.Even strategies Democrats have used elsewhere to win elections in red states barely work in West Virginia. The GOP now holds supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, and after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, they quickly moved to ban abortion. Young represents one of the most competitive districts in the state, and says she successfully used her Republican opponent’s support for the ban to win a second term – but only by a razor-thin margin of 58 votes.“In West Virginia, we thought that in 2022 … we would pick up more seats, and we lost them. So, it helped me. I don’t think it helped anybody else,” she said. The party today has three lawmakers in the 34-seat senate, and 11 in the 100-member house of delegates.Last year, the Democrats did not field candidates for several legislative seats across the state, something Young, who serves as minority leader pro tempore in the legislature’s lower chamber, hopes the party will change. She also has her own re-election to worry about in 2024, a task she expects to be even more difficult now that Manchin has exited.“Having him on the top of the ticket on the ballot was really good for all Democrats in the state, whether you agree with him or not, and sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t,” she said.There’s no telling if Manchin would have won another term, but Sam Workman, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs at West Virginia University, said even an unsuccessful run would have forced the GOP to allocate resources to the state that they are now free to spend elsewhere – probably in Ohio and Montana, both red states with Democratic senators whose re-election campaigns will be crucial if the party is to keep control of Congress’s upper chamber.At the state level, the Democrats are on the defensive, their elected positions confined to a handful of mayor’s offices and legislative districts in more populated areas.But Workman said the party had an opportunity to champion West Virginia’s economic transition away from extractive industries like coal and towards tourism and renewable energy – areas where Manchin’s mark will be felt long after he leaves the Capitol.After months of deadlock, the senator last year reached a compromise with Biden to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which lowers prescription drug prices and will subsidize the country’s transition to clean energy. He’s also been a champion of the New River Gorge, a recreation area popular with whitewater rafters, hikers and rock climbers, where he helped establish a national park in 2020.“Whatever the Democratic party is going to be going forward, it has to come to grips with these transitions and have coherent messaging around those transitions, and I just don’t think we’re there yet,” Workman said.The long odds for Democrats have not dampened Tucker-Cline’s enthusiasm to find the party a new office in the center of Summersville in time for next November’s vote. She’s been looking all over town for a storefront to hang campaign signs and welcome volunteers, while trying to coax many of the county’s younger voters into supporting the party openly.“The ones that really want to put signs in their yard are the old Democrats. You have to really work on these young Democrats to make them feel like they’re not going to hurt themselves or hurt their businesses,” Tucker-Cline said.She’s got a lead on one property right in the middle of Summersville, but it’s on the second floor, and their most active volunteers are elderly – she worries they’ll struggle with the stairs, but insists on the party headquarters being right where Nicholas county residents can see it.“If we have to go upstairs in the building in downtown we’ll do that,” Tucker-Cline said. “We want to be in the red country.” More

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      Kamala Harris: abortion bans passed by ‘extremist’ people causing ‘chaos, confusion and fear’ – as it happened

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      Vice-president Kamala Harris has released a statement condemning abortion bans, saying that they are passed by “extremist so-called leaders” who continue to “cause chaos, confusion and fear”.She added:
      The women of America deserve better. Congress must pass a bill that restores the protections of Roe v Wade – and when they do, President Joe Biden will sign it into federal law.
      We’ve launched a standalone blog following the latest developments after a vehicle explosion at the US-Canada border.Join us here to follow the latest news and reaction:The politics blog will pause for now.Dramatic images and clips are coming through on the vehicle explosion at the international bridge near the Niagara Falls, but it’s a very fluid situation in terms of official information emerging at this point.The FBI is investigating and, according to CNN, also the US Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) federal agency.Reports so far suggest that a car that was entering the US from Canada, where there are toll booths and officials, exploded. There are no reports yet of any victims but this is all unfolding.A border crossing between the US and Canada has been closed after a vehicle exploded at a checkpoint on a bridge near Niagara Falls, the Associated Press reports.The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s field office in Buffalo, in upstate New York, said in a statement that it was investigating the explosion on the so-called Rainbow Bridge, which connects the two countries across the Niagara River.Photos and video taken by news organizations and posted on social media showed a security booth that had been singed by flames.Further information wasn’t immediately available.New York governor, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said she had been briefed on the incident and was “closely monitoring the situation”.Images and clips are emerging on social media.The FBI and other law enforcement are investigating a vehicle explosion at the international bridge that connects the US and Canada at the Niagara Falls.The cause of the explosion is not yet clear but there are some dramatic images and reports by the Associated Press citing the FBI that the border has been closed.There is talk of a vehicle bomb or an electric vehicle battery combusting, we will bring you details as they unfold.Here is Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer explaining the Reproductive Health Act which sends a “poweful message – [that] Michigan is a place that fights for people’s right to make decisions about their own bodies”: Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed a package of bills known as the Reproductive Health Act into law on Tuesday.In a series of tweets announcing the signing, Whitmer said that the RHA repeals the state’s TRAP laws which are “medically unnecessary restrictions on hallway width, ceiling heights, HVAC systems, and janitor’s closets” that have “nothing to do with providing healthcare.”The RHA also repeals another “extreme law on the books from 1931 that would have criminalized nurses and doctors for prescribing medication abortion including mifepristone”, said Whitmer.The RHA also ensures that students at the state’s public universities have access to information about their reproductive health options.The American Civil Liberties Union has issued several guides on how to talk about abortion access over the holidays.In a guide by ACLU Alabama, the organization wrote:
      “Alabama has one of the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality in the nation. Restricting abortion access only worsens this issue.”
      Meanwhile, a guide issued by ACLU Indiana said:
      “Having deeper, nonjudgmental conversations in which you share personal, values-based stories has been shown to move the needle – even for people who start with opposite views. It isn’t magic, and it doesn’t work every time or even immediately, but these conversations can change the way Hoosiers think and talk about abortion.”
      Washington’s Democratic senator Patty Murray has also voiced her support for abortion rights, urging the restoration of Roe v Wade, which the US supreme court overturned last year.Murray tweeted:
      “RT if you agree: we need to restore Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion for all women, no matter where they live.”
      Last September, Murray led 29 senators in urging the Joe Biden administration to strengthen privacy protections for women seeking reproductive healthcare under the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.Catholics for Choice, a Catholic abortion rights advocacy group, has tweeted support for advocates of abortion access who may have different political views from to those around them ahead of Thanksgiving, saying:
      “We know the Thanksgiving table might feel isolating if you have different political views. Catholics who support abortion access are in the pews, teaching Sunday school, & even around your dinner table.
      You are not alone.”
      In an interview earlier this year with the Guardian about pro-choice Catholics fighting to seize the abortion narrative from the religious right, CFC’s president, Jamie Manson said:
      “Catholics overwhelmingly support abortion is because their faith taught them the values of social justice, of the power of individual conscience and of religious freedom.”
      Alabama’s Republican senator Tommy Tuberville has falsely claimed that Democrats support reproductive policies that would allow abortions “after” a baby is born.In an interview last week with Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of former president Donald Trump’s son Donald Jr, Tuberville, who is blocking a handful of military promotions due to his opposition of the defense department reimbursing service members for abortion-related travels, said:
      “We’re going to pay for that by taxpayers’ money. They can’t tell us about the policy in terms of the abortion itself. You know, it’s been rape, incest or health of the mom but we asked in one of our hearings what month are you going to go by for the abortion. They couldn’t tell us if it was abortion after birth.”
      In response to Tuberville’s misleading claims about Democrats’ support for abortion after birth, Minnesota’s Democratic senator Tina Smith said:
      Did Kimberly attempt to acquaint Senator Tuberville with the criminal code? Because this is utter nonsense. But harmful nonsense. Senator Tuberville blocking these promotions is hurting our military.
      Vice-president Kamala Harris has released a statement condemning abortion bans, saying that they are passed by “extremist so-called leaders” who continue to “cause chaos, confusion and fear”.She added:
      The women of America deserve better. Congress must pass a bill that restores the protections of Roe v Wade – and when they do, President Joe Biden will sign it into federal law.
      Democrats in Virginia this week proposed amending the state constitution to enshrine abortion rights.The proposal follows Democrats’ win in the state earlier this month in which they gained control of the state legislature, signifying a blow to Republicans’ plans that included curtailing abortion access.The amendment seeks to establish that “every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution.In a statement on Monday, the majority leader, Charniele Herring, said:
      Throughout the campaign cycle we told Virginians that a Democratic majority meant that abortion access would be protected in the commonwealth.
      Today, that reigns true. Our resolution will begin the process of amending our constitution to protect reproductive rights in Virginia, building on the work that I and congresswoman Jennifer McClellan started many years ago.
      It has become all too clear that without constitutional protection, access to reproductive healthcare is at risk for the commonwealth.”
      Lawyers from the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, as well as Cooper & Kirk have asked the US supreme court on behalf of Idaho’s attorney general to strip prosecution protections for ER doctors who perform abortions in the state. Bloomberg Law reports:Idaho requested the US supreme court let it enforce a near-total abortion ban, pending appeal of a decision that found the ban makes it impossible for hospitals in the state to comply with a federal emergency care law.Attorney general Raúl Labrador Monday filed an emergency application to stay an injunction that prevents the state from imposing penalties on physicians who perform abortions in emergency situations, except when necessary to save the pregnant person’s life.The US didn’t show that it’s likely to succeed on a claim that the abortion law conflicts with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, Labrador said. It’s not impossible to comply with both laws because the emergency care law doesn’t require anything that Idaho law prohibits, he said.In a 2022 audio clip aired by CNN on Tuesday, the House’s newest speaker, Mike Johnson, said that allowing people to get abortions is “truly an American holocaust”.During a radio interview in 2022, Johnson also said:
      “I mean, the reality is that Planned Parenthood and all these – big abortion – they set up their clinics in inner cities. They regard these people as easy prey … That is what’s happening across the country now.”
      Johnson also criticized what he called “activist courts”, saying:
      “There’s been some really bad law made. They’ve made a mess of our jurisprudence in this country for the last several decades. And maybe some of that needs to be cleaned up.”
      The Missouri supreme court has refused an appeal surrounding the wording of a ballot question on abortion rights in the state.On Monday, the state supreme court declined to hear an argument from Republican secretary of state Jay Ashcroft who proposed asking voters whether they are in favor of allowing “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth”.In October, a state appeals court ruled against Ashcroft, calling his ballot summaries “replete with politically partisan language”.Ashcroft, who is running for governor in 2024, appealed the court’s decision but was turned away on Monday by the state’s supreme court.In response to the state’s supreme court rejection, a spokesperson from ACLU Missouri told Springfield News-Leader:
      “The courts’ repeated rejection of the secretary of state’s arguments verify that his case has no legal bearing but, instead, shows he will sacrifice Missourians’ constitutional rights to gain the support and funding of special interest organizations to advance his political career.”
      Good morning,Activists across the country are racing to get abortion rights on the ballot in 2024.The multi-state efforts follow a series of Democratic wins earlier this month in several states including Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky where voters rejected Republican attempts to limit or ban the procedure.Abortion rights groups in Missouri – where abortion is completely banned with very limited exceptions – have proposed 11 different amendments that seek to expand abortion rights in the state, NBC reports.In Nebraska, abortion rights groups launched a ballot measure last week that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. The measure proposes a constitutional amendment that would protect legal abortion care until “fetal viability”.Meanwhile, Democrats in Minnesota and abortion rights groups are divided on how exactly to put forth the question of abortion rights to voters. According to Axios, the state’s house speaker Melissa Hortman said that the idea is “in the mix when we talk about 2024”, but said that they “haven’t heard clearly from voters or from the caucuses here at the state capitol that [an amendment] is the next thing that we should do”.Meanwhile, in an aired audio clip on Tuesday from 2022, Mike Johnson, the House’s newest speaker, said that allowing people to receive abortions is causing “an American Holocaust”.Here are other developments in US politics:
      Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo is considering a potential run for New York City mayor, Politico reports.
      Jill Stein has launched her 2024 White House bid as a Green party candidate. More

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      Jill Stein formally launches 2024 White House bid as Green party candidate

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      A new front opened in the growing threats to Joe Biden’s presidency on Tuesday when the left-wing environmentalist Jill Stein formally launched her third presidential bid in an online conversation with two fellow progressive activists.Stein, 73, who is bidding to become the US Green party’s nominee, is the latest in a series of mostly leftist figures to announce candidacies with the potential to erode Biden’s core support in an expected re-match against Donald Trump in next year’s poll.Having previously announced her candidacy with a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, she gave added substance to her campaign in a live Zoom conversation with Chris Smalls, a US trade union organiser for Amazon workers, and Miko Peled, an Israeli-born pro-Palestinian activist.“This is all about our community rising up for our higher values,” Stein said. “This is a totally unprecedented political moment.”The choice of protagonists appeared designed to signal key themes in Stein’s candidacy – workers’ rights, high living costs, and US support for Israel, all issues where Biden is showing vulnerability among his voter base.“On all these issues, we’re in the target hairs,” Stein said. “We need to start building an America that works for all of us and that includes a living working wage … a Green New Deal … an economic bill of rights. We can end endless wars which don’t solve anything.”Stein’s entry into the race has special resonance because of her supposedly decisive role in tipping battleground states to Trump in his 2016 presidential election victory over Hillary Clinton.While winning just 1.4m votes nationwide, Stein won more votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan than Trump’s narrow victory margins, prompting many analysts to conclude that her presence on the ballot was decisive in drawing progressive voters away from Clinton.Stein also stood as the Green’s candidate in the 2012 election, when she won just over 400,000 votes nationally and was not thought to have played a decisive role in President Barack Obama’s victory over the Republican, Mitt Romney.Her attempt to earn the Green’s nomination in 2024 follows the decision last month by the party’s original likely nominee, Cornel West, to leave the party and run as an independent.Both figures join a growing field of purported third party or independent candidates amid growing signs of voter dissatisfaction at the prospect of a repeat of the 2020 presidential race between Biden and Trump.With the exception of Robert F Kennedy Jr – son of the late attorney general, whose anti-vaccine stance is thought to be attractive to voters on the right – most non-mainstream candidates are thought to pose a greater threat to Biden than Trump, who is far ahead of other candidates to win the Republican nomination.Biden, who turned 81 this week, faces growing concerns over his age – even though he is just four years older than Trump – and rumbling economic discontent. A recent poll showed Biden trailing his predecessor in five out of six battleground states that he won in 2020.The president’s path to re-election could become more complicated still if Joe Manchin, a Democratic senator for West Virginia, decides to run as an independent centrist candidate after announcing last week that he would not seek re-election to the Senate.Manchin has fueled speculation about a presidential run after announcing plans to travel the country to explore the possibility of “creating a movement to mobilise the middle”.Biden also faces a primary challenge from within his own party in the shape of the Democratic congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who has announced that he will run against the president.Stein, who is Jewish, has attacked Biden’s unstinting support for Israel in its response to the 7 October attacks by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people. She has called for a ceasefire to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, a stance that could potentially gain her support in Michigan, a battleground state containing many ethnic Arab voters who have become disenchanted with Biden’s pro-Israel posture.In an interview with Newsweek, she warned that Biden’s support for Israel risked nuclear war. She also called Israel an “apartheid state” and said it was committing “genocide” in Gaza, where more than 13,000 Palestinians have been killed since the country launched its military assault in retaliation for Hamas’s attack.In her campaign video, launched on 9 November, Stein, a medical doctor, called both the Democratic and Republican parties “a threat to our democracy”.“People are tired of being thrown under the bus by wealthy elites and their bought politicians,” she said. “The political system is broken. We need a party that serves the people. I’m running for president to offer that choice for the people.” More

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      Trump return to White House would be perilous for democracy, conservative lawyers say – as it happened

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      We’re closing the US politics blog now, thanks for joining us today. Here’s what we covered:
      The Wisconsin supreme court appeared poised to strike down gerrymandered Republican-drawn state legislative maps that have maintained the party’s domination for decades. In a hearing Tuesday, the panel’s new liberal majority appeared sympathetic to arguments from lawyers for Democratic governor Tony Evers and others that the majority of districts breached strict rules.
      Two senior aides to Ron DeSantis’s cratering campaign for the Republican presidential nomination almost got into a fist fight during a heated argument, it was reported. The altercation came last week as the Florida governor’s Never Back Down political action committee discussed how to counter a rise in popularity of rival Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor.
      Donald Trump appealed a ruling in which a Colorado judge said he could not be disqualified from the presidential ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, even though he engaged in insurrection by inciting the deadly January 6 attack.
      Joe Biden called on Congress to pass his $106bn supplementary budget request that he said includes funding to “step up” the fight against a flow of deadly fentanyl entering the US. The president, speaking at the White House before leaving for a Thanksgiving break in Massachusetts, said the fentanyl crisis was hurting families in every state and curbing it was “something every American needs to get behind”.
      A trio of prominent conservative lawyers said in a scathing New York Times oped that a second term in office for former president Donald Trump would imperil democracy. George Conway, J Michael Luttig and Barbara Comstock, who have formed a new group to “speak out against Trump’s falsehoods”, say Trump has surrounded himself with “grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution” and that “our country is in a constitutional emergency, if not a constitutional crisis”.
      A reminder that you can follow the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war, including the reported imminent deal for the release of some of the hostages held in Gaza, in the Guardian’s liveblog here.Two senior team members of Ron DeSantis’s flailing presidential campaign almost came to blows during a meeting last week to discuss how to counter Nikki Haley’s rise in the polls, NBC News is reporting.According to the network, Jeff Roe, chief consultant for DeSantis’s Never Back Down political action committee, got into “a heated argument” with longtime DeSantis associate and PAC board member Scott Wagner, the two being stopped just short of a physical altercation.“You have a stick up your ass, Scott,” Roe allegedly fumed at Wagner during the meeting in Tallahassee last Tuesday.“Why don’t you come over here and get it?” Wagner responded, rising from his chair, according to NBC. Wagner was “quickly restrained by two fellow board members”, the network’s report said, adding its information came from sources in the room.Florida governor DeSantis, once seen as a viable rival to runaway leader Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has been tanking in numerous opinion polls, even in his own state.He appears to be an an opposite trajectory to former South Carolina governor Haley, whose “surging poll numbers and newfound affection from megadonors pose an existential threat to the Florida governor’s campaign,” NBC said.DeSantis campaign insiders have indicated that the candidate and his wife Casey DeSantis, a former television news presenter who has assumed an increasingly prominent role in his political career, are growing unhappy at the performance of the Never Back Down PAC leadership.Both DeSantis and Haley, however, still trail Trump by a substantial margin.The unseemly scenes in DeSantis’s campaign meeting mirror those of last week’s Senate labor committee meeting when Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin rose from his seat and challenged a Teamsters union official to a fight.We’ve been bringing you updates for much of the day from Wisconsin’s supreme court, where arguments have tilted back and forth over the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps.According to the Guardian’s Sam Levine, and Alice Herman in the courtroom in Madison, the panel’s liberal majority appears poised to strike down the existing Republican-drawn maps and end the party’s stranglehold on both legislative chambers of government.But it’s unclear what that would mean for a redraw of the maps, or if special elections would be needed to fill legislative seats next year.Here’s our latest report on today’s developments, and a look at what might come next:A newly-elected Florida Republican state congressman has filed legislation that would effectively ban any LGBTQ group in the state from receiving taxpayer funding.A House bill by Ryan Chamberlin would bar any non-profit from using “sexual orientation or gender identity” as a factor in any application for state contracts or grants, Florida Politics reports.The proposal was immediately criticized by Democrats, who see the bill as an extension of the Republican-dominated legislature’s well-documented assault on LGBTQ+ rights, including the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill and other restrictions championed by hard right governor Ron DeSantis.The bill is “bigoted, unnecessary and highly unconstitutional”, Democratic state representative Anna Eskamani said on X, adding that groups such as Equality Florida would essentially be banned from existing.Chamberlin captured his central Florida seat in May with 79% of a special election vote, promising at the time: “There’s work to be done. I’m excited to help with that.”Missouri’s supreme court won’t hear an appeal by Republican secretary of state Jay Ashcroft over the wording of ballot question on access to abortion, a win for advocates attempting to enshrine protections for the procedure.A state appeals court ruled last month that wording asking voters if they were in favor of “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth” was politically partisan.On Tuesday, the state supreme court declined to hear Ashcroft’s appeal of that ruling. Missouri’s Republican controlled legislature banned abortion except in cases of medical emergency after the US supreme court last year overturned the Roe v Wade ruling and ended 50 years of federal protections.In all seven states where abortion has been on the ballot since, voters have either supported protecting abortion rights or rejected attempts to erode them.Here’s our state-by-state guide to where abortion laws stand:A judge in Atlanta is hearing arguments on a request to revoke the bond of Harrison Floyd, one of former president Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia case related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis filed a motion last week telling superior court judge Scott McAfee that Floyd attempted to intimidate and contact likely witnesses and his co-defendants in violation of the terms of his release, the Associated Press reports.Floyd’s attorneys wrote in a court filing that Willis’ allegations are without merit and that the motion is a “retaliatory measure” against their client. Floyd “neither threatened or intimidated anyone and certainly did not communicate with a witness or co-defendant directly or indirectly,” they wrote.Willis was in court Tuesday to present the prosecution’s case. She planned to call three witnesses, including Gabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia who strenuously defended the legitimacy of the state’s 2020 vote count against Trump’s false claims that the election was fraudulent.The charges against Floyd relate to allegations of harassment toward Ruby Freeman, a Fulton county election worker who had been falsely accused of election fraud by Trump and his supporters. Floyd took part in a 4 January 2021 conversation in which Freeman was told she “needed protection” and was pressured to lie and say she had participated in election fraud, the indictment says.Four of the original 19 defendants agreed plea deals that include a promise to testify in any trials in the case. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.No trial date has been set, but Willis last week asked McAfee to set it for August next year, and warned the case could stretch into 2025.Donald Trump appealed a ruling in which a Colorado judge said he could not be disqualified from the presidential ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, even though he engaged in insurrection by inciting the deadly January 6 attack.The former president took issue with the finding that he participated in insurrection in connection with the attack on the Capitol staged by his supporters.“The district court ruled that section three [of the 14th amendment] did not apply to the presidency, because that position is not an ‘officer of the United States’,” lawyers for Trump said in a court filing, responding to the ruling last week.“The district court nonetheless applied section three to President Trump, finding that he ‘engaged’ in an ‘insurrection’. Should these findings be vacated because the district court self-admittedly lacked jurisdiction to apply section three to President Trump?”The group that filed the suit on behalf of six state petitioners, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), also lodged an appeal.It argued: “Section three of the 14th amendment, passed after the civil war, excludes from federal or state office those who engaged in insurrection against the constitution after previously taking an oath to support it.“Because the district court found that Trump engaged in insurrection after taking the presidential oath of office, it should have concluded that he is disqualified from office and ordered the secretary of state to exclude him from the Colorado presidential primary ballot.”Read Martin Pengelly’s full story here:John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, is scathing about Donald Trump’s efforts to persuade an appeals court that he should not have a gag order in his federal election interference case because he is running for president.Dean has weighed in on what appears to be a court leaning towards, narrowing the gag order that bans Trump from making inflammatory statements and social media posts attacking prosecutors, potential witnesses and court staff.Dean posted on X/Twitter, saying: “Donald Trump has turned the rule of law in the United States upside down, and it is stunning that federal circuit court judges are buying into his remarkable con!” He said the hearing yesterday in Washington, DC, “bordered on pure farce.”Dean, who ultimately helped bring down Nixon despite being involved in the-then president’s cover-up of corrupt and illegal presidential conduct known as Watergate, must be experiencing deja vu right now. He told the Guardian’s David Smith in June 2022, of now-GOP frontrunner Trump: “I was never worried about the country and the government during Watergate but from the day Trump was nominated, I had a knot in my stomach…he just discovered late in his presidency the enormous powers he does have as president…he knows he can hurt his enemies and help his friends.”On X last night his new post on Trump concluded: “For heaven sakes, hold this man responsible for his aberrant and bullying behavior before he further destroys our country. Enough is enough is enough!”Joe Biden says negotiators are “very close” to securing the release of potentially dozens of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.The US president was speaking at the White House and said: “We’re now very close, very close – we can bring some of these hostages home very soon, but don’t want to get into the details of things.”He added: “Nothing is done until it’s done and when we have more to say we will, but things are looking good at the moment.”We are closely covering all the news in the Israel-Gaza crisis via our global live blog and you can find the details here.It’s lunchtime on a quiet day so far in US politics, and time for a recap of what we’ve looked at so far:
      Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass his $106bn supplementary budget request that he said includes funding to “step up” the fight against a flow of deadly fentanyl entering the US. The president, speaking at the White House before leaving for a Thanksgiving break in Massachusetts, said the fentanyl crisis was hurting families in every state and curbing it was “something every American needs to get behind”.
      Wisconsin’s supreme court justices have been grilling attorneys for both the respondents and plaintiffs in a much-watched gerrymandering case that could end in a complete redraw of the state’s legislative districts. Lawyers for Democratic governor Tony Evers say the current maps favoring Republicans breach a law that says they must be “contiguous”; a conservative justice says the plaintiffs want to upend 50 years of precedent.
      A trio of prominent conservative lawyers said in a scathing New York Times oped that a second term in office for former president Donald Trump would imperil democracy. George Conway, J Michael Luttig and Barbara Comstock say Trump has surrounded himself with “grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution” and that “our country is in a constitutional emergency, if not a constitutional crisis”.
      Back in Wisconsin’s supreme court, lawyers for Republicans defending gerrymandered state legislative maps are getting a grilling from the judges, as the Guardian’s Alice Herman reports from the courtroom:An attorney representing the Republican-controlled state legislature, the respondent in the redistricting case, argued that petitioners asking for legislative districts to be redrawn before the 2024 elections have not allotted sufficient time to redraw the maps, and disputed their definition of “contiguous districts”.Taylor Meehan argued that the existence of districts with literal water-bound islands invalidate the plaintiffs’ argument that the legislative maps should avoid non-contiguous districts and said that the court should adopt a looser definition of “contiguous”.“You’re telling us to use one definition because it will help your argument and I’m pretty sure the rule is we’re supposed to look at the definition to figure out what the law is,” said justice Jill Karofsky, who, along with bench colleague Ann Bradley, repeatedly questioned Dallet’s definition of “contiguity.”Meehan questioned the right of plaintiffs in non-contiguous districts across the state to bring forward the case, comparing their complaint to an Illinois voter challenging Wisconsin maps.“I don’t see how a petitioner who lives in Beloit” can ask for a statewide redraw, Meehan said.Joe Biden has called on Congress to join him to “step up the fight” against the flow of fentanyl coming into the US.The president was speaking at the White House in his final official engagement before he and first lady Jill Biden head to Nantucket later for their Thanksgiving break.Before a cabinet meeting that’s now gone into private session, Biden said he was heartbroken for families who will have an empty seat at their Thanksgiving table because they had lost a loved one to the drug:
      Fentanyl is likely the number one killer of Americans at this point. It’s an issue that’s hurting families in every state across the nation. Curbing this crisis is something that every American needs to get behind, Democrat and Republican.
      How can we accelerate our efforts and make sure that we’re delivering real results? Congress also has to step up in this fight. It can start by passing my supplemental budget request for national security, including significant resources to help stop the flow of fentanyl in our country, as well as funds to strengthen and support services for people struggling with fentanyl impacts.
      I also urge Congress to permanently make fentanyl and related substances Schedule One drugs. Too many people are dying.
      Biden prefaced his remarks with an update on progress towards a deal to free hostages held in Gaza by Hamas since the 7 October attacks on Israel. He said an agreement was “very close”.You can follow that and other developments in the Israel-Hamas war in our dedicated blog here:Here’s more from Alice Herman covering the gerrymandering case in Wisconsin’s supreme court:Anthony Russomanno, an attorney representing Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers, argued that the state’s legislative maps, and the process for drawing them, violates the separation of powers – privileging the legislature, which is responsible for drafting the maps, over the executive branch.Tamara Packard, representing five Democratic lawmakers, also argued the mapmaking process violated the separation of powers.Conservative justices hammered Russomanno and Packard with questions of propriety regarding the timing of the litigation, and justice Rebecca Bradley accused attorneys of attempting to illegally overhaul the makeup of the state legislature.“You are ultimately asking that this court unseat every assemblyman that was elected last year,” said Bradley, comparing the plaintiffs’ request to implement a new map before the 2024 elections, and hold early special elections for representatives not up for election in 2024, to Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Packard said her clients, Democratic lawmakers who would face special elections if the court were to side with the plaintiffs, were “ready, willing, and able” to face re-election and that other legislators should be willing as wellA conservative judge on Wisconsin’s supreme court questioned the timing of a lawsuit challenging the state’s legislative districts as oral arguments got under way Tuesday in a much-watched case over gerrymandering.The Guardian’s Alice Herman, who is in the courtroom, reports that Mark Gaber, an attorney representing Campaign Legal Center, laid out one of the plaintiff’s central arguments: that non-contiguous districts in the state are unconstitutional.Almost immediately, conservative judge Rebecca Bradley interrupted Gaber to question the plaintiffs’ timing in bringing the case forward.“Where were your clients two years ago?” she asked, pointing to the fact that the ideological sway of the court flipped when Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal judge, was elected this year. “You’re seeking to overturn 50 years of precedent.”Gaber disputedthe case was brought in a partisan manner, arguing that the state constitution requires contiguous districts – a non-partisan requirement. The argument that 75 of the state’s 132 districts are non-contiguous is at the heart of the plaintiffs’ case against the gerrymandered maps.House speaker Mike Johnson took a trip to visit Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday night, CNN is reporting, a pilgrimage similar to the one that exposed predecessor Kevin McCarthy to criticism.“Maga Mike”, as some have branded the Louisiana Republican for his unswerving loyalty to the former president, has endorsed Trump’s campaign for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, so a “kiss the ring” visit to Mar-a-Lago was not entirely unexpected.It is not known what the pair discussed, CNN says. But the trip has echoes of former speaker and then minority leader McCarthy’s “groveling” visit to see Trump in January 2021, days after condemning him for sparking the deadly 6 January Capitol riot.With his endorsement of Trump, Johnson, who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, has gone even further than McCarthy did in backing the twice-impeached ex-president, who is currently facing dozens of charges in multiple cases against him around the country.“I’m all in for President Trump,” Johnson told CNBC, adding he was “one of the closest allies that President Trump had in Congress”.The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Alice Herman are following oral arguments this morning at the Wisconsin supreme court, where the seven justices will adjudicate one of the most closely-watched gerrymandering cases this year.The case is a challenge to the maps for Wisconsin’s state legislature, which are so heavily distorted in favor of Republicans that it is all but impossible for Democrats to win a majority.Republicans took over the legislature in 2010, and drew maps that have cemented their majority ever since. Democrats won statewide elections in the state in 2018, 2020, and 2022, but Republicans have never had fewer than 60 seats in the state assembly. State senate districts must be comprised of three assembly districts in Wisconsin, so any gerrymandering in the assembly carries over to the senate.The challengers want the court to strike down the maps and order new elections in all 132 of the state’s legislative districts in 2024.They note that 75 of Wisconsin’s 132 legislative districts are non-contiguous, a clear violation of a state constitutional requirement that says all districts need to be contiguous. The districts, Republicans argue, are contiguous because even with “islands” they still keep municipalities whole.The challengers also argue that the process by which the supreme court picked the current maps violated the separation of powers because the panel chose one the Democratic governor had vetoed.Oral arguments have just begun. We’ll bring you updates as we get them.Read more here:“Grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution and long-established constitutional principles for the whims of political expediency.”That’s how a group of prominent conservative lawyers sees the legal team Donald Trump has surrounded himself with as the former president plots a return to the White House next year.Warning of an unprecedented threat to democracy from a Trump second term, and the worsening of a “legal emergency” set in motion by his unprecedented efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, they have founded a group called the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, which they say is needed “to bring sanity back to conservative lawyering and jurisprudence”.A trio of lawyers form the new group’s board. They are George Conway, ex-husband to Trump’s former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway; J Michael Luttig, formerly a US appeals court judge; and Republican former Virginia congresswoman Barbara Comstock.They set out their case Tuesday in a hard-hitting editorial in the New York Times:
      American democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law are the righteous causes of our times, and the nation’s legal profession is obligated to support them. But with the acquiescence of the larger conservative legal movement, these pillars of our system of governance are increasingly in peril. The dangers will only grow should Donald Trump be returned to the White House next November.
      Recent reporting about plans for a second Trump presidency are frightening. He would stock his administration with partisan loyalists committed to fast-tracking his agenda and sidestepping – if not circumventing altogether – existing laws and long-established legal norms.
      They cite Trump’s already publicized plans to appoint public officials investigate and exact retribution against his political opponents; remove federal public servants at will; and invoke special powers to seize control of First Amendment-protected activities, criminal justice, elections, immigration and more.The “guest essay” continues with praise for the few lawyers in the first Trump administration who stood up to his excesses, and a warning that legal checks and balances would be largely absent from his second:
      Alarming is the growing crowd of grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution and long-established constitutional principles for the whims of political expediency.
      The actions of these conservative Republican lawyers are increasingly becoming the new normal. Any legal movement that could foment such a constitutional abdication and attract a sufficient number of lawyers willing to advocate its unlawful causes is ripe for a major reckoning.
      Our country is in a constitutional emergency, if not a constitutional crisis.
      Good morning US politics blog readers! A group of prominent conservative lawyers is warning that democracy would be placed in unprecedented peril if Donald Trump returns to the White House next year, and that legal checks and balances on his conduct would be largely absent if he wins a second term.The dire predictions come in a hard-hitting opinion piece Tuesday in the New York Times.Trump, the former president and runaway leader for the Republican 2024 nomination, has surrounded himself with “growing crowd of grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution and long-established constitutional principles for the whims of political expediency,” they say, creating an unprecedented “legal emergency” worsened by their support of his unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.The authors, who include George Conway, ex-husband to Trump’s former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, have formed an attorneys’ group called the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, which they say is needed “to bring sanity back to conservative lawyering and jurisprudence”.We’ll have a closer look at that coming up.Here’s what else we’re watching today on a quiet pre-Thanksgiving Tuesday in Washington DC:
      Joe Biden will host a White House meeting over efforts to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US this morning, before he and first lady Jill Biden head for their Thanksgiving break in Nantucket.
      There’s no action in Congress, but an election in Utah’s 2nd congressional district Tuesday will restore the House to its full complement of 435 members since Democrat David Cicilline of Rhode Island resigned in May. Republican Celeste Maloy is expected to handily beat Democratic state senator Kathleen Riebe.
      Wisconsin’s supreme court will hear oral argument in a high-stakes lawsuit seeking to strike down the maps for the state’s legislature. The result could bring an end to what may be the most gerrymandered districts in the US. Read more about that here. More

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      Appeals court strikes significant blow against Voting Rights Act – as it happened

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      A federal appeals court has issued a decision striking down a core element of the Voting Rights Act, further undermining protections for voters of color in the US, saying only the federal government – not private citizens or civil rights groups – is allowed to sue under a crucial section of the landmark civil rights law.The 8th circuit today upheld a lower court’s ruling that says private individuals can’t bring lawsuits under the law, meaning only the federal government can sue under the Voting Rights Act’s section 2 protections for people of color. That also means that civil rights groups wouldn’t be allowed to sue either.There appears to be a strong prospect that even the right-leaning US supreme court will not uphold this when, as is likely, it is appealed to the highest level. But as currently ruled the decision would be a massive blow to voting rights and racial equality.The civil rights law was implemented to increase minority representation in US national leadership.And:That’s a wrap for today’s politics live blog.Here’s what happened today:
      A federal appeals court has issued a decision striking down a core element of the Voting Rights Act, further undermining protections for voters of color in the US. The court ruled that only the federal government – not private citizens or civil rights groups – is allowed to sue under a crucial section of the landmark civil rights law.
      Lawyers representing Donald Trump and federal prosecutors clashed on Monday in federal court about the scope of a gag order placed on the former president. A gag order last month prevents him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, or others associated with the election interference case.
      Judges at the hearing on Trump’s gag order appeared skeptical about complaints regarding the gag order’s prophylactic nature, but were sympathetic to claims made by Trump’s defense team.
      At one point during the hearing, a judge raised the hypothetical point that it wouldn’t be fair if Trump “has to speak Miss Manners while everyone else is throwing targets at him”, Forbes reported.
      Judges on the three-person panel also criticized another hypothetical situation where Trump would not be allowed to call a potential witness a “liar” if they said things that were untrue.
      Thank you for reading; stay tuned for the Guardian’s politics live blog tomorrow.US representative Tony Cárdenas of California will not seek re-election in 2024 after almost three decades of service, the Los Angeles Times first reported.A staffer confirmed to the Times that Cárdenas would not be running for office, the first time in 28 years that he has not appeared on a ballot, the Hill reported.“I’m just at the age where I have enough energy and experience to maybe do something [different] and have another chapter of a career where I don’t have to go to Washington DC, 32 weeks out of the year,” Cárdenas told the Times.Cárdenas has focused much of his political career in the House on lowering drug prices, developing immigration policy, and combatting climate change, his office told the Times.Cárdenas’ seat will likely remain in the Democrat’s control, but it may be a crowded race.Here’s more information on the hearing around the scope of Trump’s gag order, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:
      On Monday, at the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the three-judge panel repeatedly suggested they found untenable Trump’s position that there could be no ‘prophylactic’ provision to ensure Trump was restricted from prejudicing the case until after it had already taken place.
      Trump’s lawyer John Sauer argued that prosecutors had not met their evidentiary obligations – that Trump’s statements directly led to threats to witnesses, for instance – to get a gag order. The legal standard, Sauer said, should be proof of an ‘imminent threat’.
      But the panel interjected that there was a clear pattern with Trump stretching back to the post-2020 election period that when he named and assailed individuals, they invariably received death threats or other harassment from his supporters.
      The pattern has included the trial judge Chutkan, who received a death threat the very next day after Trump’s indictment when he posted ‘If you go after me, I’m coming after you’ on his Truth Social platform, even if Trump had not directly directed his ire at her.
      ‘Why does the district court have to wait and see, and wait for the threats to come, rather than taking reasonable action in advance?’ the circuit judge Brad Garcia pressed Sauer.
      The Trump lawyer responded that posts from three years ago did not meet the standard required for a gag order, as he argued the supreme court has held that a ‘heckler’s veto’ – gagging a defendant merely because of fears about how a third party might act – was not permissible rationale.
      Read more here:Here’s more info on polling that shows a majority of Democrats believe Israel’s actions are “too much”:
      According to polling from Reuters/Ispos, the majority of Americans believe that Israel should call a ceasefire. About 68% of respondents said they agreed that ‘Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate’.
      A majority of Democratic voters also believe that Israel’s overwhelming response to the 7 October Hamas attack, in which the Islamist extremists killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel and took hostages back to Gaza, is ‘too much’, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
      And 56% of Democrats have said that Israel’s military operations in Gaza have been too much, which is 21 points higher than a similar survey last month.
      People of color in the US as well as those under the age of 45 also believe that Israel’s response has been disproportionate, pointing to generational and racial splits around support for Israel.
      Meanwhile, 52% of Republicans viewed Israel’s response as ‘about right’, an increase from last month’s poll when more Republicans then viewed Israel’s reaction as ‘too little’.
      Overall, the majority of respondents say they are more sympathetic to Israelis than Palestinians.
      Read more information here and about US demonstrations in support of Palestine, from the Guardian.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed a question about poll numbers showing that a growing number of American people don’t support Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict in Gaza.“We’re not gonna govern by poll numbers. We’re gonna focus on delivering for the American people … on what the American people expect him to do,” Jean-Pierre said, emphasizing Biden’s gains for the economy.Jean-Pierre added that she would not be going “point by point” on each poll.The White House briefing is happening now, with spokesperson John Kirby discussing the situation in Gaza with reporters.Kirby has said that he does not have an update regarding a potential deal to get hostages from Hamas.Kirby did not elaborate if the potential deal would focus on women and children, but added, “we’re closer now than we’ve been before” when it comes to a deal to guarantee the hostages’ safety.More quotes are coming out of this morning’s hearing on the scope of Donald Trump’s gag order, demonstrating that the judges were not entirely unsympathetic to the arguments of the former president’s defense team.At one point, a judge raised the hypothetical point that it wouldn’t be fair if Trump “has to speak Miss Manners while everyone else is throwing targets at him”, Forbes reported.Judges also criticized another hypothetical situation where Trump would not be allowed to call a potential witness a “liar” if they said things that were untrue.When the supreme court gutted the requirement for states with a history of racial bias to pre-clear changes to their voting laws with the federal government – in its 2013 landmark ruling in Shelby county v Holder that drastically weakened the Voting Rights Act – it expected that the capacity for individuals to sue was the safety net needed.That’s one element drawing expert ire today. Here’s Steve Vladeck:Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center is clearly furious at the appeals court’s ruling today:Some background from the Guardian:The decision from the 8th circuit court of appeal, which is based in St Louis, Missouri, and was ruling on a lower court redistricting case out of Arkansas, is drawing furious reaction from defenders of a fundamental element of the Voting Rights Act.Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is chiefly designed to prohibit voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of a person’s race and is one of the law’s last remaining powerful provision after years of attacks from the right.(The US supreme court, in a 5-4 opinion authored by chief justice John Roberts in 2013, gutted a key provision of the law that required states with a history of voting discrimination to get voting changes pre-cleared by the federal government before they went into effect.)Most challenges under section 2 are brought by private individuals or civil rights or voting rights advocacy and campaign groups, not the US government.A federal appeals court has issued a decision striking down a core element of the Voting Rights Act, further undermining protections for voters of color in the US, saying only the federal government – not private citizens or civil rights groups – is allowed to sue under a crucial section of the landmark civil rights law.The 8th circuit today upheld a lower court’s ruling that says private individuals can’t bring lawsuits under the law, meaning only the federal government can sue under the Voting Rights Act’s section 2 protections for people of color. That also means that civil rights groups wouldn’t be allowed to sue either.There appears to be a strong prospect that even the right-leaning US supreme court will not uphold this when, as is likely, it is appealed to the highest level. But as currently ruled the decision would be a massive blow to voting rights and racial equality.The civil rights law was implemented to increase minority representation in US national leadership.And:Joe Biden joked about his birthday and age while conducting the annual pardon of Thanksgiving turkeys.Biden, who turned 81 today, joked that he was only turning 60 while pardoning the poultry, the Hill reported.“I just want you to know it’s difficult turning 60, difficult,” Biden said.Biden also added that it was the 76th anniversary of the pardoning tradition in the White House, joking that he was “too young” to make the tradition up.Judges at the hearing on Donald Trump’s gag order appeared skeptical about complaints regarding the gag order’s prophylactic nature, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports.The hearing on the scope of the former president’s gag order in the election interference case is now over.After over two hours of arguments, judges are not expected to make a decision on the order today.The three-judge panel seemed unconvinced about legal complaints coming from Trump’s defense team, but also believed that the original gag order was “insufficiently narrow”. More