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      US House speaker expresses confidence his proposal will avert shutdown

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      The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, expressed confidence on Tuesday that his unconventional proposal to avert a federal government shutdown at the end of the week would pass with bipartisan support despite strong objections from the far-right flank of his caucus.The House was prepared to vote on the stopgap funding package on Tuesday afternoon, after Johnson moved to bring the bill to the floor under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage. The “laddered” approach would extend funding for federal agencies into the new year, with two different deadlines that give lawmakers more time to finish drafting their appropriations bills. If approved by the House, the Senate would need to act swiftly before Friday’s midnight deadline to avoid a closure.The plan is Johnson’s attempt to circumvent a bitter showdown over government spending that led hardline Republicans to depose his predecessor, the former speaker Kevin McCarthy.Johnson, a self-described “arch-conservative” who was the Republicans’ third choice to replace McCarthy, argued that his “innovation” put conservatives in the “best position to fight” for deep spending cuts next year without the specter of a shutdown.“What we need to do is avoid the government shutdown,” Johnson said, arguing that not doing so would “unduly harm the American people” and leave troops without paychecks. “We have to avoid that and we have a responsibility to do it.”Under his plan, Johnson would extend funding for federal agencies in two parts, with some agencies slated to function through 19 January and others through 2 February while lawmakers draft longer-term spending bills. Despite its rebrand as a “laddered” resolution, the plan would temporarily maintain spending at levels set at the end of last year, when Democrats controlled the chamber, with none of the deep cuts conservatives want. It also does not address the White House’s request for wartime aid to Ukraine and Israel.In a sign leaders expect to draw support from a coalition of Democrats and relatively mainstream Republicans, Johnson will bring the bill to the floor under a shortcut known as a suspension of rules, which requires a supermajority, or 290 votes, to pass.Several of the conservatives who revolted against the last Republican-led stopgap measure, triggering McCarthy’s ouster, again disapproved of the plan as it did not include any spending cuts or policy changes.“It contains no spending reductions, no border security and not a single meaningful win for the American people,” the House Freedom Caucus, a hard-right coalition of conservatives, said in a statement announcing their opposition. “Republicans must stop negotiating against ourselves over fears of what the Senate may do with the promise ‘roll over today and we’ll fight tomorrow’.”Despite their objections, the group signaled that its members were unlikely to push to depose Johnson for working with Democrats to pass spending legislation, as they did with McCarthy: “While we remain committed to working with Speaker Johnson, we need bold change.”Johnson insisted he shared their conservative policy goals but said there was not enough agreement among House Republicans, with their whisker-thin majority, to advance a plan that made deeper spending cuts.“We’re not surrendering,” Johnson said. “We’re fighting, but you have to be wise about choosing the fights. You got to fight fights that you can win.”Just three weeks after Republicans finally elected a new speaker after weeks of chaos and dysfunction that halted business in the House, there is little appetite for risking a federal government shutdown – or another speakership fight.Asked if he was concerned that bringing this proposal would mean the end of his nascent speakership, Johnson said he was not.“This is a very different situation,” he said. “We’re taking this into the new year to finish the process.”Top Democrats were not happy with what the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, called the “goofy laddered” approach, but saw it as the only path to prevent a shutdown in the fast-closing window before Friday’s midnight deadline.Leaving their caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said Democrats were still evaluating the proposal but appeared open to voting for it. The proposal did not contain the sort of “poisonous, political partisan policy provisions” that Jeffries said would be a nonstarter.The White House was initially critical of the plan when it was unveiled over the weekend. But speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Schumer said he was “heartened” by the progress being made in the House.“It has to be bipartisan and right now that’s the path we seem to be on,” Schumer told reporters. To win the support of Senate Democrats, Schumer said he made two requests of Johnson’s plan: that it omit the “hard-right cuts” conservatives were demanding, and that if there were going to be two deadlines, defense funding would expire in the “second part of the ladder”. Both of his conditions were met.If it passes the House, Schumer said he would work with the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to find the fastest way to pass it in the upper chamber.He also appeared confident the president would sign the legislation if it passed both chambers, noting that the White House agreed that if Johnson’s stopgap spending package could “avoid a shutdown it will be a good thing”. More

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      House to consider Mike Johnson’s unconventional bill to avert shutdown

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      The House of Representatives will on Monday begin considering an unconventional proposal by the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to extend government funding into the new year and ward off a shutdown that would occur this weekend, but it’s unclear if the measure has the support to pass.Johnson’s bill is the latest attempt to resolve a complex standoff over funding the government that has pitted hardline Republicans against their moderate colleagues and the Democratic minority in Congress’s lower chamber, and also contributed to the chain of events that led to Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow as speaker of the House in October.The US government’s authorization to spend money expires at the end of the day on Friday, and Johnson, a rightwing lawmaker who the GOP elected as House speaker last month to replace McCarthy, unveiled over the weekend a proposal to keep some agencies functioning through 19 January and others through 2 February while long-term spending bills are negotiated.Congress has in recent decades enacted dozens of such short-term funding bills – known as continuing resolutions (CR) – but Johnson’s is unique because it proposes two different deadlines for the funding to run out.“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories,” Johnson said in a statement.The White House immediately panned the proposal, which does not include funding for military assistance to Ukraine or Israel that Joe Biden is pushing Congress to approve – issues Johnson says he wants to handle in separate legislation.“This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns – full stop,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said. “With just days left before an extreme Republican shutdown – and after shutting down Congress for three weeks after they ousted their own leader – House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties.”The White House’s statement could also bode ill for the measure’s reception in the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority their leader Chuck Schumer is moving forward tentatively with a bill to continue government funding through 19 January.But before it even lands there, Johnson’s proposal will have to make it through the House. The rules committee will hold a key procedural hearing on the bill on Monday afternoon, and, if they move it forward, a source familiar with the legislation says the full House is expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday.Already, it has run into opposition from some conservative lawmakers, who say Johnson has proposed a “clean” CR that lacks the deep spending cuts they want to see come with any such bill.“It’s a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose,” tweeted Texas Republican Chip Roy.Scott Perry, the chair of rightwing Freedom Caucus, is also against it, saying he would “not support a status quo that fails to acknowledge fiscal irresponsibility, and changes absolutely nothing while emboldening a do-nothing Senate and a fiscally illiterate president”.At their current numbers, Republicans can afford to lose only three of their own members before they will have to rely on Democratic support to get legislation passed. That is a perilous calculus for Johnson, as McCarthy was ousted days after Democrats helped him pass a measure he proposed to prevent a government shutdown through 17 November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlready, powerful Democrats are signaling opposition to the speaker’s bill. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the appropriations committee, objected to the lack of funding for Israel and Ukraine in the measure, and argued the Departments of Defense and State need long-term funding, not a two-month stopgap.“It is irresponsible to kick the can down the road for several months – keeping government services frozen – and hope that our challenges go away. We are nowhere closer to a full-year funding agreement than we were at the end of September,” DeLauro said. “Congress must avoid a shutdown and pass a CR that facilitates enacting full-year spending bills and emergency assistance as soon as possible.”More ominous for the bill were the comments by the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, comments last week, when he called a continuing resolution that extended funding for different periods of time “another extreme rightwing policy joyride”.In an interview on Fox Business Network, the Florida Republican Carlos Giménez acknowledged “the dynamics are the same” for Johnson as they were for McCarthy, but predicted the speaker’s bill would receive support from both parties.“Even though you’ll get some Republicans not to vote for it, just like what happened under Kevin McCarthy where you had a bunch of Republicans not vote for a clean CR, most if not all, Democrats did vote for it, because the last thing we want to see is a government shutdown,” he said. More

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      Newsom 2024: could the California governor be a rival to Joe Biden?

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      One of the strongest candidates for US president in 2024 may be one who’s not yet in the race. There’s growing evidence that Gavin Newsom, the charismatic and energetic Democratic governor of California, is running something of a shadow campaign to Joe Biden and ready to step up if, or when, the incumbent is out of the running.Several developments in recent days suggest Newsom, who romped to re-election a year ago without really campaigning, is ready to bring forward what was already expected to be a strong run for the presidency in 2028.There are mounting concerns inside the Democratic party, matching polling among voters, that Biden is too old for a second term, the start of which in January 2025 would see him two months past his 82nd birthday if re-elected. Some want him to stand down.Newsom, 56, is among a generation of younger, prominent and popular Democrats expected to emerge from the shadow of the old guard, and has stolen a march on his peers with a series of bold moves many analysts see as strategic.Even movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a Republican former two-term governor of California, thinks a Newsom run at the White House is inevitable.“I think it’s a no-brainer. Every governor from a big state wants to take that shot,” Schwarzenegger said earlier this year.But not all Democrats appear thrilled at the prospect. Pennsylvania US senator John Fetterman, at a dinner in Iowa, connected Newsom with Dean Philips, a congressman who said he is challenging Biden.“[There are two] running for president right now,” he said. “One is a congressman from Minnesota, the other is the governor of California, but only one has the guts to announce it.”This week, Newsom made a financial donation to a Democratic mayoral candidate in Charleston, South Carolina, 2,800 miles from his governor’s mansion in Sacramento. Reaching into political elections in other states is, experts say, a sure sign of a potential presidential candidate wishing to raise their profile on the national stage.“South Carolina is an early state in the primary process for Democrats, and doing well in the early states is seen as momentum for later ones,” said Eric Schickler, professor of political science at University of California, Berkeley, and co-director of its institute of governmental studies.“In fact, Biden’s win in South Carolina is really what propelled him to the top 2020, so building connections to important politicians in the state can certainly be seen by potential candidates as an important step.”Newsom has publicly denied that he has sights on Biden’s job.“I’m rooting for our president and I have great confidence in his leadership,” he told Fox News earlier this year.But while Schickler believes Newsom’s own thinking about the timing of any White House run probably hasn’t changed, he says circumstances have.“The Democratic party’s nervousness about Biden has certainly increased, and with him polling behind Donald Trump in many states, his low approval ratings, young voters being especially disenchanted with Biden, all of that has heightened interest among a lot of party supporters in an alternative,” he said.That alternative might not be Kamala Harris, who as vice-president would usually be assumed Biden’s heir apparent. Her public approval is currently as low as the president’s.So a rising, often progressive-leaning politician such as Newsom, with a wealth of executive and legislative experience, and a willingness to counter head-on Republican policies and personalities, makes for an attractive proposition.“It’s not a situation where there’s like 20, or 50, or 100 Democratic leaders who could be viewed as legitimate. If there were such a group, Newsom has positioned himself pretty well and would be on a very short list along with [Michigan governor] Gretchen Whitmer and a couple others,” Schickler said.“The problem is the party. There’s just a lot of different voices, a lot of different constituencies, and not really anybody or any group that could authoritatively say, ‘Oh, it’s Newsom’.“[But] he would certainly be one of the most serious people. The things he’s doing now, it helps him for 2028, which still is the most likely scenario, and certainly doesn’t eliminate him if something crazy or unexpected were to happen in the next six months.”Other not so subtle clues that Newsom has sights on higher office include his $10m (£8.2m) investment earlier this year in a new political action committee designed to spread the Democratic party’s message in Republican-held states he said have “authoritarian leaders directly attacking our freedoms”.Among the targets is Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor and faltering candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The pair will debate each other on 30 November in a highly anticipated nationally televised event once billed as a clash of two leading White House contenders.“The idea of debating DeSantis was probably a lot more appealing when it really did look like he might actually defeat Trump. In that scenario, showing you can debate him and score a lot of points helps Newsom’s visibility with the party and makes his case that he would be an effective candidate,” Shickler said.“With DeSantis not doing so well, the upside for Newson is less, but there are still Democrats who would be happy to see him debate and defeat him. He only stands to benefit, it’s just the benefit will be smaller.” More

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      ‘I will not be silenced’: Rashida Tlaib won’t stop fighting for Palestinian rights

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      As Israeli ground troops battled in Gaza City amid a spiralling civilian death toll on Tuesday, the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American member of the US Congress, rose to answer a censure motion rebuking her for comments she made about the war.Gripping a photograph of her sity, her grandmother who lives in the occupied West Bank, she defended her stance and declared that she “will not be silenced” and “will not let you distort my words”.“I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable,” Tlaib said, her voice breaking. The congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota reached to comfort Tlaib, a show of solidarity between the only Muslim women in the chamber. Tlaib continued: “The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me.”Late that night, 22 Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in censuring Tlaib, a punishment one step below expulsion. As the gavel came down, her closest allies in the Democratic party’s progressive wing, all people of colour, encircled Tlaib as if to form a protective shield.The extraordinary scene crystallised the fierce devotion and respect that Tlaib – one of 14 children of Palestinian immigrants to the US – commands among her political allies, friends, staff members and, according to supporters, many of her constituents in her Michigan congressional district.But in its intensity, it also underlined the fierce passions aroused among critics of the Michigan Democrat, 47, who has become – at least since Hamas’s attack on Israel last month – one of the most polarising figures on Capitol Hill.The censure against Tlaib, proposed by the Republican congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia, accused her of “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel”. Its passage made Tlaib only the 26th member of the House of Representatives to be censured since its formation in 1789.Tuesday’s vote, which came days after she avoided an earlier censure motion, was triggered by the presence of a highly charged slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, in a video Tlaib posted on social media last week that also accused Joe Biden of supporting “genocide” and called for an immediate ceasefire to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.However hurtful personally for Tlaib – a legislator known for her diligence and conscientiousness on behalf of her constituents – she signalled that she has no intention of backing down, reflecting the stubbornness Biden himself praised two years ago, when, following a famous eight-minute heated conversation on Palestinian rights on the runway of Detroit’s airport, he complimented her as “a fighter”.“She will not be deterred by a censure motion passed by the House of Representatives. Not a bone in my body believes that,” said Abbas Alawieh, a senior Democratic strategist who previously worked as Tlaib’s legislative director.“Rashida is a person on a mission. She is fiercely protective of the people she loves. She will stop at nothing. For her, to support or not to support a cause isn’t a theoretical political question. It’s a question of whether or not her family members deserve to stay alive. It’s the life or death of people she’s directly connected to.”This commitment has fortified her against a shocking degree of personal abuse that would have felled other politicians, said Alawieh, who recalled spikes in phone calls to her office and verbal attacks in public, often after Fox News or other rightwing news channels had criticised her views.“When I went to work for her, I couldn’t believe how often the phone rang,” he said. “You couldn’t even imagine how many vile, unacceptable bad words could be strung together in sentences. It will be a sentence jam-packed with sexism, racism, Islamophobia – just all of it.”Tlaib, whose father was born in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, has long been a lightning rod for criticism from Israel’s staunchest supporters, who have alleged that her views and rhetoric are antisemitic.In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, she faced backlash from Republicans and some Democrats over her initial statement, in which she expressed grief for the loss of “Palestinian and Israeli lives” but did not mention Hamas, though she did call for “ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system”.She drew additional fire from her critics after being one of nine Democrats to vote against a House resolution – subsequently adopted by a vote of 412-10 – declaring solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attacks.Explaining her opposition in a floor debate on 25 October, she said the resolution was “not a serious examination of the root causes of the violence we are witnessing and doubles down on decades of failed policy”.Unconditional US military support for Israel had failed to bring “peace and justice” to the region, she said.She added: “Achieving a just and lasting peace where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights and freedoms, and where no person lives in fear for their safety, requires ending the blockade, occupation and dehumanizing system of apartheid.”Her opponents have also pointed to her use of the “river to the sea” slogan. While Tlaib and others justify the phrase as an “aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful co-existence”, critics say it is a pro-Hamas chant calling for the eradication of the Jewish state.The Democratic congressman Brad Schneider of Illinois cited her embrace of the slogan and her refusal to remove a tweet blaming Israel for a devastating explosion at al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City that killed hundreds, despite Israeli denials and US intelligence claims that a misfired Palestinian rocket had caused the damage.“Congresswoman Tlaib has repeatedly insisted on using inflammatory language that dangerously amplifies Hamas propaganda and disinformation,” Schneider said in a statement. “Representative Tlaib most certainly understands the import and impact of her words and yet still chooses to use them anyway. We are at an exceedingly perilous moment, when emotions and intentions are on a razor’s edge.”Even Bernie Sanders, the leftwing senator from Vermont, who has spoken out forcefully against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza while stopping short of a ceasefire call, voiced muted criticism of Tlaib’s use of the slogan.Calling her a “friend” who had been “shaken” by the bloodshed in Gaza, Sanders told CNN: “We need a serious discussion on how the hell we get out of this difficult situation, maintain democracy, bring peace to the world. And it ain’t easy, but slogans are not going to do it on any side.”The congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York, a fellow member of the progressive “Squad” who has also called for a ceasefire, dismissed the focus on the slogan as “a distraction”, calling Tlaib “one of the strongest, most compassionate people I know”.“Congresswoman Tlaib has always been an advocate of peace, justice and human rights,” he said. “It is false and misleading to imply that she intended to call for destruction or violence. She is not in support of Hamas. We should all be doing everything in our power to end violence against innocent civilians.”Conservatives have demanded Tlaib take down the Palestinian flag displayed outside her congressional office, saying it was disrespectful in the wake of the Hamas attack. One Republican member advocated a ban on foreign flags in the Capitol, while another, the congressman Brian Mast of Florida, wore a uniform from his time serving in the Israel Defence Forces. On X, he wrote: “Tlaib’s Got Her Flag, I’ve Got My Uniform.”Mast later said there are “very few innocent Palestinian civilians … I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians”, remarks that some House Democrats believe warrant a censure.Tlaib’s previous outspokenness has landed her in hot water with pro-Israel advocates. The liberal Israel advocacy group J Street withdrew its endorsement of her campaign in 2018 after she publicly voiced support for a one-state solution to the Middle East conflict, in open contradiction of the organisation’s policy favouring two states, Israel beside an independent Palestine. As part of her support for a one-state solution – entailing a single democratic state encompassing Israel and the occupied territories – Tlaib has said she is uncomfortable with the idea of uprooting Jewish settlers from their homes in the occupied West Bank.In a floor speech in 2021, Tlaib, arguing against a bill to send $1bn in additional funding to support Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense program, accused Israel’s far-right government of operating a “violent apartheid system”, a characterization that drew a furious response from longstanding Democratic supporters of Israel. Tlaib, who has long sought to condition aid to Israel on Palestinian rights, was one of just nine lawmakers to vote against the measure.Tlaib has Jewish supporters, particularly among leftwing groups that echo her ceasefire calls and have staged demonstrations in Washington accusing Israel of unleashing a “genocidal” war in Gaza.“Congresswoman Tlaib is truly an incredible person and one of the few members of Congress who genuinely cares about people,” said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a leftist group that openly describes itself as anti-Zionist.“She has so much warmth and love, and makes everyone feel welcome and safe around her. This is really important because we see this horrible smear campaign that turns her into the opposite of what she is – which is someone who cares deeply for Israelis who have been killed, as well as Palestinians who have been killed. We are proud to be her ally in this.”Eva Borgwardt, the national spokesperson for If Not Now, another Jewish group that has staged ceasefire rallies in concert with JVP, said Tlaib was a victim of anti-Palestinian racism being espoused by Republican politicians who see her as a “threat to their vision of a white Christian supremacist future of America”.“As a Jewish American, I’m absolutely terrified of the implications of the ongoing targeting of Rashida, because Jewish and Palestinian safety is tied together,” she said. “I cannot imagine what it’s like to face what she has dealt with. I can only hope to have a tiny amount of the integrity and strength that it must take to stand up and lead in Congress every day despite threats from other congressmen down the hall.”As the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress, Tlaib carries “a greater burden” when she challenges US policy toward Israel, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.But he said Tlaib is not acting alone. For many constituents in her district, which includes the city of Dearborn, home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the country, Palestinian rights are deeply personal, he said.“For people in her district, this isn’t some sort of foreign policy issue,” Walid said. “These are people who have family members who are directly impacted by occupation and bombs being dropped on civilians.”Despite her support in the district, Tlaib’s detractors hope that her denunciations of the US response to the Israel-Hamas war will draw a primary challenge from the party’s center, like the ones facing other Israel skeptics within the party.In Detroit, she is now the target of an attack ad by a Democratic pro-Israel group. The ad sharply criticises Tlaib for her vote last month against a House resolution declaring solidarity with Israel following the Hamas assault, as well as her past vote against funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. It also argues that her ceasefire bill “would allow the terrorists to rearm themselves”.“We thought it was important for her constituents and neighbors to know that she is not only wrong on the substance, but radically out of step with the Democratic party,” said Mark Mellman, whose group, the Democratic Majority for Israel, is behind the ad.He continued: “We’re trying to see if she might moderate her positions as a result of her constituents. And if not, perhaps someone will be interested in taking her on.”Tlaib’s supporters have denounced the ad’s rhetoric as “dangerous” and demanded its removal in light of a sharp rise in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment.The irony of all this, say longtime associates, is that Tlaib has never set out to be a pro-Palestinian organiser – preferring to focus on local issues such as poverty, pollution and water rights, particularly in African American communities.She campaigned vigorously to win a $600m lead pipe replacement and challenged socially conservative parts of her district with her advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights.“When people in her district think about Rashida in general, they think ‘water is a human right’,” said Alawieh. “She was obsessed with the idea.”That may once have been true. But nationally, her reputation is set to be defined by more global – and more bitterly contested – concerns.For Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat from Missouri who sponsored ceasefire legislation with Tlaib, it is destined to eclipse the present turmoil and land the Michigan congresswoman a place squarely on the right side of history.“Even though the censure happened, people must understand that that is not her legacy,” Bush said. “Rashida Tlaib’s legacy will be about saving lives. It will be about making sure the Palestinians know that they belong and that they should exist in this world.“She will be known for being the freedom fighter and the justice warrior. She will be known for being the peacekeeper.” More

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      Pro-Israel groups target US lawmakers critical of Gaza war with attack ads

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      The pro-Israel lobby in the US is airing attack ads and beginning to back primary opponents to challenge Congress members who are not voting for or supporting Israel’s war on Gaza.During the last 10 days, groups that support Israel have launched ads in at least seven districts targeting those who have been particularly vocal in calling attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, opposing Israeli military aid or criticizing Israel’s government.The groups will probably pump tens of millions of dollars into primaries this cycle to back its candidates. While most of the targets are members of the “Squad” of progressive Democrats, one of them is a libertarian Republican who opposes foreign spending. “I don’t think [the pro-Israel] lobby can beat me, and they definitely can’t beat me with this topic,” said the Republican Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, referring to his recent vote against military aid for Israel.A group of Super Pacs and dark-money non-profits – most notably groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) – tied to Israeli interests contributed about $43m to US campaigns during the last cycle, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.Among its targets is the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the House’s only Palestinian American, who co-sponsored a resolution urging Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire. She and other progressive Democrats later opposed a bipartisan resolution expressing support for Israel that failed to mention Palestinian victims, and have not supported US military funding for Israel.In response, the DMFI has launched a six-figure ad campaign in Tlaib’s district that opens with ominous music and an image of a narrator rattling off a list of grievances.“She’s one of only seven Democrats in Congress to vote against missile protection for Israel, one of only nine Democrats against condemning the brutal attack on Israel by Hamas,” the narrator says. “Tell Rashida Tlaib she’s on the wrong side of history and humanity.”Meanwhile, the Mainstream Democrats Pac, backed by the LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire Reid Hoffman, has voiced interest in supporting primary challenges against Tlaib and the progressive congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri.The latest round of ads also mark a shift in strategy. Attacks from these groups have typically focused on domestic issues, but this time they are hitting US lawmakers for not supporting Israel’s war effort, a move political observers say represents a risk given the divide among Democrats over the war. Israel has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas’s 7 October attacks in southern Israel, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis.“I don’t know which polls [the pro-Israel lobby] is reading, but I’m looking at polls and not seeing an issue that there’s a lot of consensus around on the Democratic side,” said James Zogby, a pollster and founder of the Arab American Institute. “There is not a lot of thinking going on about whether this is the hand they want to play or tactic to use.” A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that nearly half of Democrats disapprove of how Joe Biden, who has been fiercely supportive of Israel, is handling the war.The ads are largely focused on progressive members of Congress who have been critical of Israel’s response to the 7 October Hamas attacks, especially those with the Squad, whose members have not shied away from condemning Israel’s ongoing airstrikes in Gaza.Critics accuse the groups of regularly misrepresenting their targets’ positions to paint them as supporters of Hamas.In Tlaib’s case, campaigns against her may not affect her chances of re-election in 2024. The third-term congresswoman has trounced Detroit political opponents by as much as 40 points in recent elections. She represents a sizable Arab American constituency, and in recent years has recorded a 75% approval rating in her district, which she previously told the Guardian stems from running a robust constituent services program in one of the nation’s poorest districts.Her criticism of Israel is unlikely to bother constituents, pollsters say.“She could withstand even a well-funded primary challenge, especially if there is more than one opponent,” the Michigan pollster Bernie Porn told the Guardian.In New York, George Latimer, a Westchester county executive who is planning a “solidarity mission” to Israel, is widely expected to announce his candidacy against the representative Jamaal Bowman, who also signed on to the ceasefire resolution. Bowman won his last challenge by more than 30 points.Much of the Republican party is in virtual lockstep with the pro-Israel lobby, but one member is not: Massie. He said he supports Israel’s right to defend itself and condemned Hamas’s “barbaric” attacks, but he is staunchly anti-foreign aid and voted against resolutions or legislation calling for billions in US military assistance.Aipac’s Super Pac, United Democracy Project, has spent nearly $90,000 on radio and television ads attacking Massie in his district in recent weeks. Aipac has unsuccessfully tried to unseat him in past cycles, Massie said, adding he was “not worried” about a promised primary challenge.“That’s just not something that motivates people in my district to vote, and [Aipac] knows that,” Massie said. He believes the pro-Israel groups may continue to invest in attack ads even if it probably cannot unseat him because it helps the groups raise money from donors and sends messages to others in Congress.Others might be more vulnerable. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar narrowly beat Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis city councilman who is expected to soon announce a rematch, while another challenger, attorney Sarah Gad, is attempting to turn the war into a campaign issue.In Pittsburgh, the United Democracy Project spent $2m in 2022 opposing the congresswoman Summer Lee in the primary, which she won by one point. Israeli interest groups are now backing her opponent, Bhavini Patel, a borough councilwoman in the Pittsburgh area. Patel is making Israel a central issue, and taking aim at Lee’s response to the Hamas attacks.“Our member of Congress waited to speak out, and then offered qualified remarks,” Patel said. “Her belated statement fell short on unequivocally condemning Hamas’s terrorist attack on innocent Israeli citizens, suggesting they not be allowed to defend themselves.”Lee issued a statement on X the day of the attack that read “I strongly condemn the horrifying attack”. She also mentioned Palestinian civilian victims.Earlier this month, she directly addressed efforts to unseat her.“We condemn Hamas. We mourn the killing of innocent Israelis. We continue demanding safe return of hostages,” Lee wrote on X. “Certain Super PACs & their friends wanna threaten my community’s votes for supporting peace … but my community is with me against war, for lasting peace, and against killing innocent people.”
      This article was amended on 11 November 2023 to clarify Thomas Massie’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict. More

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      Party of the People review: Republican strength – and weakness – examined

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      On Tuesday, voters in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia stood up for individual autonomy, saying no to rolling back abortion access. Ohio, a conservative state, enshrined such rights in its constitution. In Virginia, a closely contested battleground, both houses went Democratic, a rebuff to the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin. In Kentucky, Andy Beshear, a Democratic, pro-choice governor, handily won re-election.The personal is the political. The supreme court’s rejection of Roe v Wade and attendant abandonment of privacy as a constitutional mandate stand to haunt the Republican party. Next year’s presidential election is no longer just about the possible return of Donald Trump, with his two impeachments and smorgasbord of civil and criminal charges. A national referendum on values looms.Into this morass jumps Patrick Ruffini, a founder of Echelon Insights, a Republican polling firm. Party of the People is his look at the US’s shifting demographics. Turns out, it’s not all bad for the Republican cause. With good reason, Ruffini’s subtitle is “Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP”.“A historic realignment of working-class voters helped Trump defy the odds and win in 2016, and brought him to within a hair of re-election in 2020,” Ruffini writes. “Joe Biden is faltering among the core Democratic groups that were once the mainstay of ‘the party of the people’ – working-class voters of color.”Cultural re-sorting continues. Since the 2000 election, educational polarization has come to prominence. Before then, Ruffini observes, “class – defined in terms of income – was widely understood to be the main dividing line in our politics”. Now it is educational attainment: where you and your spouse went to school.Once the home of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal coalition, the Democratic party has emerged primarily as a haven for college graduates, identity politics and multiculturalism. In one extreme outcome, in 2020, it helped birth an idiotic and self-defeating slogan: “Defund the police.” On race, white liberals are generally more fervent than communities of color.The Republicans are their mirror image. Over six decades, the GOP has morphed into a magnet for evangelicals, church-goers, southern white voters and white Americans without a four-year degree. It incubated the forces unleashed on January 6 and on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, where neo-Nazis marched in 2017. Significantly, however, the GOP also shows the potential to attract working-class voters across lines of race and ethnicity – a point Ruffini repeatedly and rightly stresses.“Numerous polls have shown Trump reaching nearly 20% of the Black vote and drawing to within 10 points of Biden among Hispanic voters,” he states. If those numbers hold next November, Trump may well be measuring the Oval Office curtains again.Despite what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the progressive “squad” in Congress may say, crime and immigration resonate with voters of color. Open borders and wokeness? Less so. The expression “Latinx” is best kept in faculty lounges.One need look no further than New York. Immigration is no longer simply a Republican talking point. It is bringing the city to a boiling point. The mayor, Eric Adams, and the Biden administration are at loggerheads on the issue. Last Tuesday, residents of the Bronx, a borough made up mostly of people of color, put a Republican on the city council. On eastern Long Island, the GOP gained control of Suffolk county.Ruffini examines New York political history. He reminds us that in 1965, the conservative columnist William F Buckley ran for mayor. He finished at the back of the pack but gained marked support in white working- and middle-class enclaves. His embrace of the police and skepticism of welfare counted.Five years later, in spring 1970, lower Manhattan witnessed the “hard-hat riot”, aimed at anti-war protesters. Later that year, Buckley’s brother, James, won a US Senate seat with a plurality in a three-way race. In the presidential elections of 1972, 1980 and 1984, New York went Republican. Now, though it seems a Democratic sure thing, the state’s population is stagnating, its share of the electoral vote receding.Ruffini is not infallible. Wrongly, he downplays the salience of the Dobbs v Jackson supreme court decision, which gutted the right to abortion, and the subsequent emergence of abortion as a key election issue. He acknowledges that Dobbs provided a boost to Democrats in 2022 but does not spell out how it thwarted an anticipated red wave and hastened Kevin McCarthy’s downfall as Republican speaker.Party of the People contains multiple references to abortion but mentions Dobbs three times only. As for “privacy”, Ruffini never uses the word. “January 6” makes a single appearance – and only in passing. “Insurrection” is not seen. It is almost as if Ruffini is seeking to avoid offending the powers that be.“Trump redefined conservative populism in a secular direction, replacing issues like abortion with immigration and anti-PC rhetoric,” Ruffini tweeted on election night. “Many of his voters voted yes in Ohio.”Yes. But not that many.A little more than one in six Ohio Republicans backed the measure, according to exit polls. On the other hand, 83% of Black voters, 73% of Latinos, more than three-quarters of young voters and five out of eight college graduates identified as pro-choice.Though more conservative than white liberals, voters of color are generally pro-choice. Indeed, in Ohio, their support for abortion access outpaced that found in the general electorate. White voters backed the measure 53%-47%. It passed by 57%-43%.But Democrats should not gloat. The FDR coalition is dead. The party last won by a landslide in 1964. Inflation’s scars remain visible. Kitchen-table issues still count. Trump leads in the polls. Ruffini has a real and meaningful message.
      Party of the People is published in the US by Simon & Schuster More

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      Phones and iPad of New York mayor Eric Adams were seized by FBI, report says

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      Electronic devices including at least two mobile phones belonging to New York City mayor Eric Adams were seized by the FBI as the agency escalated a corruption investigation into his victorious 2021 campaign, the New York Times reported Friday.It follows an FBI raid earlier this month on the home of Brianna Suggs, Adams’s leading campaign fundraiser, in which agents reportedly confiscated two laptop computers and three cellphones.Previous reports said Adams and his campaign team repeatedly refused regulators’ request to divulge the source of about $300,000 in donations, although it was not clear whether a violation of campaign finance rules was part of the inquiry.According to the Times, FBI agents earlier this week took “at least two cellphones and an iPad” belonging to Adams, days after the 2 November raid on Suggs’s Brooklyn residence.Sources told the newspaper that agents approached Adams in the street and asked his security detail to step away while they entered his vehicle and seized the devices under the authorization of a court-issued warrant.The paper added all the equipment was returned to him “within a matter of days”, noting that the warrant allowed the FBI to copy data contained on the devices.In a statement issued through a spokesperson on Friday afternoon, Adams, a former New York police department captain, said he had been fully cooperative.“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation, and I will continue to do that,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”His campaign attorney, Boyd Johnson, said in his own statement: “The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation.“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators.”Johnson did not elaborate on who the person was or what they were found to have done.The FBI investigation, the two sources told the Times, is looking into whether Adams’s 2021 campaign “conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers”.The warrant, it said, sought records about donations from Bay Atlantic University, a Washington DC college whose founder is Turkish and is affiliated with a school Adams is said to have visited when he went to Turkey as Brooklyn borough president in 2015.The donations previously reported to be in question came from about 500 different donors, the local New York City news publication the City said.Adams’s campaign counsel, Vito Pitta, said at the time: “The campaign has responded to every notice from [the campaign finance board] as appropriate.”The New York Times said the FBI and the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York declined comment Friday.Immediately after the raid on the home of Suggs, Adams returned to New York from Washington DC, where he had scheduled meetings with White House and congressional leaders to talk about immigration.He said he did so out of compassion for Suggs, a 25-year-old former intern promoted to be his chief fundraiser.“Although I am mayor, I have not stopped being a man and a human,” he said. More

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      Trump legal team expresses hope classified documents trial will not start in May – as it happened

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      The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Donald Trump’s legal team is expressing confidence his trial on charges related to keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort will not start in May, when it is currently scheduled.Earlier today, federal judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by the former president, turned down a request to delay the trial’s start date, but also moved back some deadlines related to the classified evidence that will be used in the trial, increasing the likelihood the trial will eventually be postponed.Here’s what Turmp’s lawyers had to say about that:A spending battle brews once again on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are nervously eyeing 17 November, the day when the federal government’s funding expires. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will reportedly propose over the weekend a bill to keep the government open, with the money running out at differing dates. There are reasons to think both Democrats and at least some Republicans will oppose this idea, and by this time next week, the government may likely be on the brink of another shutdown. Expect this to be a big developing story over the coming days.Here’s what else happened today:
      The FBI seized electronic devices belonging to New York City’s Democratic mayor Eric Adams as part of their investigation into his campaign finances, the New York Times reports.
      Donald Trump mulled in an interview using the FBI and justice department to retaliate against his enemies, if he is elected next year.
      Federal judge Aileen Cannon declined a request from Trump to delay his trial over the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, but his lawyers signaled that they are hopeful she will eventually push its start date back.
      Moderate Republicans reportedly don’t think impeaching Joe Biden is worth it, because the president is already unpopular.
      Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke issued strong criticisms of Biden’s handling of the southern border and immigration policy.
      The New York Times reports that FBI agents seized two phones and an iPad belonging to New York mayor Eric Adams as part of their investigation into the Democrat’s campaign’s finances.Here’s more from the Times:
      F.B.I. agents seized Mayor Eric Adams’s electronic devices early this week in what appeared to be a dramatic escalation of a federal corruption investigation into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
      The agents approached the mayor on the street and asked his security detail to step away, one of the people said. They climbed into his S.U.V. with him and, pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, took his devices, the person said. The devices — at least two cellphones and an iPad — were returned to the mayor within a matter of days, the people said. Law enforcement investigators with a search warrant can make copies of the data on devices after they seize them.
      It was not immediately clear whether the agents referred to the fund-raising investigation when they took the mayor’s devices.
      The surprise seizure of Mr. Adams’s devices was an extraordinary development and appeared to be the first direct instance of the campaign contribution investigation touching the mayor. Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, said on Wednesday that he is so strident in urging his staff to “follow the law” that he can be almost “annoying.” He laughed at the notion that he had any potential criminal exposure.
      In an interview with Spanish-language network Univision yesterday, Donald Trump signaled he would be willing to use the FBI and justice department to go after his political rivals in a second presidential term, without getting into specifics.But behind the scenes, the former president has named the names of those he would like to go after, the Washington Post reported earlier this week:
      In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.
      In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.
      To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.
      “It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia who studies executive power. “It’s hardly something we should aspire to.”
      Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
      The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.
      Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about what federal judge Aileen Cannon’s decision today in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case tells us about when it may ultimately go to trial:The federal judge overseeing the criminal case charging Donald Trump with retaining classified documents pushed back on Friday several major deadlines for the former president to file pre-trial motions, a move that could have the consequential effect of delaying the start of the trial in Florida.The judge put off until March making the fraught decision about whether to actually delay the trial – currently scheduled for next May – but the new timetable she laid out in a nine-page written order gave little scope for the pre-trial process to finish in time.The order from US district judge Aileen Cannon was positive for Trump, who has made no secret that his overarching legal strategy is to delay beyond the 2024 election in the hopes that winning re-election would allow him to pardon himself or direct the justice department to drop the charges.Trump was indicted this summer with violating the espionage act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.But the fact that Trump was charged with retaining national defense information means his case will be tried under the complex rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, which governs how those documents can be used in court.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Donald Trump’s legal team is expressing confidence his trial on charges related to keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort will not start in May, when it is currently scheduled.Earlier today, federal judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by the former president, turned down a request to delay the trial’s start date, but also moved back some deadlines related to the classified evidence that will be used in the trial, increasing the likelihood the trial will eventually be postponed.Here’s what Turmp’s lawyers had to say about that:Florida’s Republican state representative Michelle Salzman is facing increasing censure calls and outrage after she said “All of them” in response to her Democratic colleague saying, “How many [dead Palestinians] will be enough?”The Guardian’s Erum Salam reports:The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-Florida), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said in a statement that Salzman’s remarks were a “chilling call for genocide” and a “direct result of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid and their eager enablers in government and the media”.The news comes on the heels of the censure of the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, after Tlaib echoed a popular rallying cry for Palestine that some have called antisemitic but others say is a call for Palestinian civil rights.The censure resolution, which was supported by 22 Democrats, punishes Tlaib for allegedly “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.In Florida, calls for Salzman to be censured are being made by those opposed to her comments.“Salzman’s words are incredibly dangerous and dehumanizing to Palestinians here at home and under the Israeli occupation,” the Cair-Florida executive director, Imam Abdullah Jaber, said. “She must face her party’s censure and a public repudiation from all Florida legislators.”For further details, click here:Former president George W Bush said to “stay positive” in response to a question on what advice he would give to the world on Veterans Day.
      “Stay positive because if you study world history or US history, we go through cycles of being down and yet Americans ought to realize how blessed we are to live in this country… The images are grim and, yes, there’s violence, but ultimately love overcomes hate,” he told Fox News.
      Following reports of letters containing fentanyl being mailed to multiple state election offices, Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensberger said that he has been informed that there is another suspicious letter in transit.Speaking to CNN, Raffensberger said:
      “We have been informed by the postal officials that there is a letter in transit so that’s a three to five day transit through their system. Obviously they will try to intercept that when it comes through the Atlanta processing facility but it hasn’t arrived to Georgia yet so we don’t know if it will be intercepted. And that’s why we’ve prepared staff at the Fulton county election office if it does actually make it through the system and it arrives.”
      He added that officials are going to make sure that there is Narcan, the overdose reversal drug, available in all election offices that do receive incoming mail and that staff will be trained on how to administer Narcan.Authorities across the country are currently investigation letters sent to several states’ election offices that contained fentanyl.The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:Law enforcement officials in the US are searching for the people responsible for sending letters with suspicious substances sent to election offices in at least five states, acts some election officials described as “terrorism”.Election offices in Georgia, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington state all were sent the letters, four of which contained the deadly drug fentanyl, the Associated Press reported. Some of the letters were intercepted before they arrived. The FBI and United States Postal Service are investigating.In Washington, election offices in four counties – Skagit, Spokane, Pierce and King, which includes Seattle – were evacuated as workers counted ballots from Tuesday’s election. Two of the letters tested positive for fentanyl. Steve Hobbs, Washington’s Democratic secretary of state, said the letters were “acts of terrorism to threaten our elections.”For further details, click here:Anti-abortion members of the Ohio General Assembly have responded to the state’s passage of Issue 1 during Tuesday’s election.Condemning the language of the proposal which enshrines abortion rights into the state’s constitution, several dozen anti-abortion state representatives said:
      “Unlike the language of this proposal, we want to be very clear. The vague, intentionally deceptive language of Issue 1 does not clarify the issues of life, parental consent, informed consent, or viability including Partial Birth Abortion, but rather introduces more confusion.
      This initiative failed to mention a single, specific law. We will do everything in our power to prevent our laws from being removed based upon perception of intent. We were elected to protect the most vulnerable in our state, and we will continue that work.
      A spending battle brews once again on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are nervously eyeing 17 November, the day when the federal government’s funding expires. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will reportedly propose over the weekend a bill to keep the government open, with the money running out at differing dates. There are reasons to think both Democrats and at least some Republicans will oppose this idea, and by this time next week, the government may likely be on the brink of another shutdown. Expect this to be a big developing story in the coming days.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Donald Trump mulled in an interview using the FBI and justice department to retaliate against his enemies, if elected next year.
      Moderate Republicans reportedly don’t think impeaching Joe Biden is worth it, because the president is already unpopular.
      Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke issued strong criticisms of Biden’s handling of the southern border and immigration policy.
      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is expected to release his short-term government funding proposal over the weekend, setting the chamber up for a vote next week, NBC News reports:The bill’s prospects remain highly uncertain. House Democrats have rejected the “laddered” approach Johnson is reportedly mulling, which would see government funding expire at different times, and the proposal is unlikely to get far in the Senate, where they hold a majority. Meanwhile, conservative Republicans in the House want to use any funding measure as an opportunity to force the government to cut spending, but that may alienate more moderate Republicans and cost the bill support it needs to pass.Nonetheless, expect this to be a big developing story over the weekend and next week, as the 17 November deadline to fund the government draws nearer. More