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      Republicans aren’t going to tell Americans the real cause of our $31tn debt | Robert Reich

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      Republicans aren’t going to tell Americans the real cause of our $31.4tn debtRobert ReichThe rich used to pay taxes. Now they loan money to the US government – at a profit that everyone else pays for The dire warnings of fiscal hawks are once again darkening the skies of official Washington.They’re demanding that the $31.4tn federal debt be reduced and government spending curtailed – thereby giving cover to Republican efforts to hold America hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.It’s always the same when Republicans take over a chamber of Congress or the presidency. Horrors! The debt is out of control! Federal spending must be cut!When they’re in power, they rack up giant deficits, mainly by cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy (which amount to the same thing, since wealthy investors are the major beneficiaries of corporate tax cuts).Then when Democrats take the reins, Republicans blame them for being spendthrifts.Not only is the Republican story false, but it leaves out the bigger and more important story behind today’s federal debt: the switch by America’s wealthy over the last half century from paying taxes to the government to lending the government money.This backstory needs to be told if Americans are to understand what’s really happened and what needs to be done about it. Republicans won’t tell it, so Democrats (starting with Joe Biden) must.A half century ago, American’s wealthy helped finance the federal government mainly through their tax payments.Tax rates on the wealthy were high. Under Republican president Dwight Eisenhower, they were over 90%. Even after all tax deductions, the wealthy typically paid half of their incomes in taxes.Since then – courtesy of tax cuts under Ronald Reagan, George W Bush and Donald Trump – the effective tax rate on wealthy Americans has plummeted.Not only has their income tax rate dropped but other taxes that hit them hardest, such as the corporate tax, have also declined.Even as the rich have accumulated unprecedented wealth, they are now paying a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans.Trump’s 2017 tax cut – largely a handout to the rich – helped push the tax rate on the 400 wealthiest households below the rates for almost everyone else.By 2018, the 400 wealthiest American households paid a lower total tax rate – including federal, state and local taxes – than any other income group. Their overall tax rate was only 23%. It had been 70% in 1950.Middle-class and poor families didn’t benefit from the drop in income and corporate taxes. They now pay more in payroll taxes (which finance Medicare and social security) than previously, so their overall taxes have remained fairly flat.One of the biggest reasons the federal debt has exploded is that tax cuts on corporations and wealthier Americans have reduced government revenue.In the first full year of the Trump tax cut, the federal budget deficit increased by $113bn while corporate tax receipts fell by about $90bn, which would account for nearly 80% of the deficit increase.Meanwhile, America’s wealthy have been financing America’s exploding debt by lending the federal government money, for which the government pays them interest.As the federal debt continues to mount, these interest payments are ballooning – hitting a record $475bn in the last fiscal next year (which ran through September). The Congressional Budget Office predicts that interest payments on the federal debt will reach 3.3% of the GDP by 2032 and 7.2% by 2052.The biggest recipients of these interest payments? Not foreigners but wealthy Americans who park their savings in treasury bonds held by mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, banks, insurance companies, personal trusts and estates.Hence the giant half-century switch: the wealthy used to pay higher taxes to the government. Now the government pays the wealthy interest on their loans to finance a swelling debt that’s been caused largely by lower taxes on the wealthy.This means that a growing portion of everyone else’s taxes are going to wealthy Americans in the form of interest payments, rather than paying for government services that everyone needs.So, the real problem isn’t America’s growing federal budget deficit. It’s the decline in tax revenue from America’s wealthy combined with growing interest payments to them.Both are worsening America’s already staggering inequalities of income and wealth.What should be done? Isn’t it obvious? Raise taxes on the wealthy.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Arizona’s top election official seeks investigation into Republican Kari Lake

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      Arizona’s top election official seeks investigation into Republican Kari LakeLosing gubernatorial candidate may have violated a state law that protects voter’s signatures, Democrat Adrian Fontes says The Arizona secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, asked the state attorney general Monday to investigate and potentially charge the losing Republican candidate for governor with a felony for sharing images of voters’ signatures online.Fontes, a Democrat, said GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake may have violated a state law that protects a voter’s signature from being accessed or shared by anyone other than the voter or an “authorized government official in the scope of the official’s duties”. Violations of this law carry a class six felony charge, the lowest-level felony in Arizona.Revealed: Trump secretly donated $1m to discredited Arizona election ‘audit’ Read moreLake posted the voters’ signatures on Twitter on 23 January, claiming they were part of a “bombshell” that showed mismatching signatures that shouldn’t have been counted, a frequently repeated claim after Republican losses in 2020 and 2022. The signatures she posted were from 2020 ballots.In his letter to the Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, Fontes asked that Mayes “investigate and take appropriate enforcement action against Kari Lake”. Mayes’ office confirmed receipt of the referral but said it wouldn’t have further comment on the matter at this time.Despite her loss, Lake has continued to fundraise based on the false premise that she actually won the governor’s race and that the election results will be overturned. Lake’s run for governor focused heavily on the false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. She held a rally in Scottsdale on Sunday when Donald Trump appeared by phone and said Lake will be “victorious” in her effort to overturn the 2022 election.Since Fontes’ referral became public, Lake has retweeted several accounts who called Fontes’ election into question and who have said the referral was proof that Lake was correct in her claims of a stolen election.Lake wasn’t the first to share voters’ signatures to make claims about their validity. The signatures have been shared by state lawmakers and election-denial groups in presentations at the state legislature, Votebeat’s Jen Fifield pointed out on Twitter, though it’s not clear how the confidentiality of the signatures was originally breached.TopicsArizonaThe fight for democracyUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Manhattan district attorney to present Trump hush money case to grand jury – as it happened

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      Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg will soon start presenting testimony to a grand jury about Donald Trump’s effort to pay off the adult film actor and producer Stormy Daniels shortly before he won the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times reports.The case is yet another legal threat to the former president, who could face charges in Georgia over his campaign to overturn the state’s vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. An Atlanta-area district attorney is considering a grand jury’s report into the effort by Trump and his allies.According to the times, Bragg recently empaneled the grand jury and will soon begin presenting evidence. The paper said it spotted one witness, David Pecker, and his attorney entering the building where the grand jury sits. Pecker is the former publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, which was involved in arranging the payment to Daniels.However the case is far from a slam dunk, the Times reports, and relies on a legal strategy that may not pan out. Here’s more from their report:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The prosecutors have also begun contacting officials from Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, one of the people said. And in a sign that they want to corroborate these witness accounts, the prosecutors recently subpoenaed phone records and other documents that might shed light on the episode.
      A conviction is not a sure thing, in part because a case could hinge on showing that Mr. Trump and his company falsified records to hide the payout from voters days before the 2016 election, a low-level felony charge that would be based on a largely untested legal theory. The case would also rely on the testimony of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who made the payment and who himself pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money in 2018.Donald Trump’s legal trouble have grown even more voluminous, after Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg convened a grand jury to look into the hush money payment made to the adult film actor and producer Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. It’s the latest threat to the former president as he pursues another campaign for the White House, joining the ongoing inquiry in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the state’s vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Meanwhile in Washington, top Republican investigator James Comer outlined his plans to hold the Biden administration to account, while the White House and its allies looked for ways to frustrate him.Here’s what else happened today:
      What does Daniels think of all this? Read her recent interview with the Guardian to get an idea.
      Memphis has relieved a sixth police officer of duty following the death of Tyre Nichols and the indictment of five former officers on murder charges.
      Trump spent the weekend campaigning and bashing his rivals, chief among them Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis.
      A Christian nationalist movement involved in Covid-19 and 2020 election conspiracy theories is expanding nationwide.
      As Democrats sought his tax returns, Trump’s attorneys filed unusual records requests with the Internal Revenue Service. Democrats say they were an attempt to delay the documents’ release.
      It’s not just the properties of ex-presidents and -vice-presidents where classified documents are turning up.The Daily Beast reports that a retired air force lieutenant colonel pleaded guilty last August to charges related to keeping hundreds of classified documents at his Florida home.According to prosecutors, Robert Birchum kept material related to the National Security Agency (NSA) that “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States” if it had been made public. The air force works closely with the NSA, and the documents “concerned Department of Defense locations throughout the world, detailed explanations of the Air Force’s capabilities and vulnerabilities, and, among other things, the methods by which the Air Force gathers, transmits, and uses information observed by various Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms,” prosecutors said.Here’s more about the case, from the Daily Beast:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Birchum pleaded guilty to one count of willful retention of national defense information, a felony carrying up to 10 years in federal prison. It is unclear what, if anything, he was planning to do with the documents he had on hand …
      Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force Colonel, was attached to the NSA and also spent time assigned to the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), of which JSOC—where Birchum worked toward the end of his career—is a subordinate command. Those assigned to JSOC handle “a great deal of extremely sensitive information,” with much of it at the Top Secret/SCI level, Leighton told The Daily Beast.
      “Additionally, much of the intelligence and operational information of these commands is within SAP (Special Access Program) channels, which means the handling requirements for this information are much stricter than they are for TS/SCI,” he said on Monday, noting that these materials are “exceptionally sensitive, from both an operational and an intelligence collection perspective.”
      “I noted with concern that he had briefing slides in his possession that detailed NSA’s special collection capabilities,” Leighton said. “I used to work with those. Revealing them could potentially cause grave damage to our capability to execute military operations and collect information vital to our national security.”During the years Democrats spent trying to access Donald Trump’s tax returns, his lawyers filed public record requests with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that appeared aimed at delaying the documents’ release, Bloomberg News reports.The technique was unusual, because federal law already gives the president access to some tax information, and also because Trump’s attorneys stated they would be willing to pay $30,000 in processing fees to get the documents, when the IRS usually charges $25.According to Bloomberg, the records requests were filed under the Freedom of Information Act around the time Democrats took control of the House in 2019 and set out to make public the tax returns Trump had refused to release ever since first running for office in 2016. Late last year and days before they ceded control of the chamber to the new Republican majority, Democrats made the returns public, while noting in an accompanying report that they believed the records requests were part of an effort to delay their release. Here more on what Trump’s lawyers were looking for:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In response to a FOIA request from Bloomberg News to see Trump’s FOIA requests, the IRS turned over copies of two requests sent in June 2019, drafted for Trump by attorney William F. Nelson, a partner at Morgan Lewis and a former chief counsel at the IRS during the Reagan administration.
      The IRS withheld copies of additional FOIA requests Trump may have filed and declined to share the documents it produced for Trump, if any, on privacy grounds because it involved his tax information.
      Nelson didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
      In the first request, Lewis asked the IRS for a wide range of communications from IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, a Trump nominee, and other top IRS officials “in connection with the disclosure or potential disclosure of any taxpayer materials” related to the Democrats’ request.
      Trump’s lawyer also asked for any records the IRS gave to Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, about a confidential draft memo the IRS prepared in anticipation of Congress’s requests for Trump’s tax returns. Wyden had earlier sent a letter to the IRS asking if the memo contradicted the Treasury’s Department’s position on disclosure requirements.
      Trump also sought all records from the IRS about a May 21, 2019, story in The Washington Post that first disclosed the existence of the draft memo.Congress may be just getting to work, but state legislatures are already well into their sessions nationwide, including Utah, where the Republican-led chamber passed a ban on young people receiving gender-affirming healthcare:Utah’s Republican governor on Saturday signed a bill that bans young people who are transgender from receiving gender-affirming healthcare as other states consider similar legislation.The governor, Spencer Cox, who had not taken a public position on the transgender care measure, signed it a day after the state legislature sent it to his desk. Utah’s measure prohibits transgender surgery for young people and disallows hormone treatments for minors who have not yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.Republicans controlling Utah’s legislature made the ban a priority and weighed a first draft of the measure less than two days after the state’s lawmakers opened this year’s legislative session on 17 January.Cox’s signing of the bill comes as lawmakers in at least 18 states consider similar legislation taking aim at young transgender people’s healthcare.In a statement, Cox said that he based his decision to sign the bill on a belief that the safest thing to do was halt “these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences”.Utah bans gender-affirming surgery for young trans peopleRead more“It was the most terrifying experience of my life, and that’s saying something because I’ve seen Trump naked.”Readers, #ICYMI, Stormy Daniels did an interview with the Guardian the other day. Now she’s back in the hard news headlines as the scandal around hush money paid to her on behalf of Donald Trump during the 2016 election campaign goes to the next step. Daniels has long claimed she had sexual relations with that man, in the pre-Potus-past, which Trump denies.Daniels, who has said herself that she prefers her stage name to her government name of Stephanie Clifford, is the media gift that keeps on giving.Thank you for the awesome interview! I love pissing off my haters first thing in the morning! https://t.co/aJ3AgHJ4tR— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) January 27, 2023
      Remember the days of the Daniels-Avenatti double act? Look how that turned out for Michael.Michael Avenatti sentenced to four years for cheating Stormy DanielsRead moreDonald Trump’s legal trouble have grown even more voluminous, after Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg convened a grand jury to look into the hush money payment made to the adult film actor and producer Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. It’s the latest threat to the former president as he pursues another campaign for the White House, joining the ongoing inquiry in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the state’s vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Meanwhile in Washington, top Republican investigator James Comer outlined his plans to hold the Biden administration to account, while the White House and its allies looked for ways to frustrate him.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Memphis has relieved a sixth police officer of duty following the death of Tyre Nichols and the indictment of five former officers on murder charges.
      Trump spent the weekend campaigning and bashing his rivals, chief among them Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis.
      A Christian nationalist movement involved in Covid-19 and 2020 election conspiracy theories is expanding nationwide.
      A few thoughts on the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Donald Trump, from former US attorney and current MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance:4/ Neither a prosecution nor a conviction is a sure thing. Michael Cohen’s testimony will be essential but likely not sufficient to prove Trump’s guilt. Prosecutors would like cooperation from Trump’s CFO Alan Weisselberg, who has refused to implicate Trump personally so far.— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) January 30, 2023
      Allen Weisselberg was earlier this month given five months in jail for committing tax fraud, a short sentence that came about after he provided testimony that helped prosecutors secure a conviction of the Trump Organization itself on similar charges.Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg will soon start presenting testimony to a grand jury about Donald Trump’s effort to pay off the adult film actor and producer Stormy Daniels shortly before he won the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times reports.The case is yet another legal threat to the former president, who could face charges in Georgia over his campaign to overturn the state’s vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. An Atlanta-area district attorney is considering a grand jury’s report into the effort by Trump and his allies.According to the times, Bragg recently empaneled the grand jury and will soon begin presenting evidence. The paper said it spotted one witness, David Pecker, and his attorney entering the building where the grand jury sits. Pecker is the former publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, which was involved in arranging the payment to Daniels.However the case is far from a slam dunk, the Times reports, and relies on a legal strategy that may not pan out. Here’s more from their report:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The prosecutors have also begun contacting officials from Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, one of the people said. And in a sign that they want to corroborate these witness accounts, the prosecutors recently subpoenaed phone records and other documents that might shed light on the episode.
      A conviction is not a sure thing, in part because a case could hinge on showing that Mr. Trump and his company falsified records to hide the payout from voters days before the 2016 election, a low-level felony charge that would be based on a largely untested legal theory. The case would also rely on the testimony of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who made the payment and who himself pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money in 2018.The justice department has again expressed its unwillingness to share details of ongoing investigations with the House GOP.Here’s the department’s letter, obtained by ABC News, in response to the demand for information from judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan and member Mike Johnson:DOJ responds to Chairman Jordan’s request for info on the Biden special counsel probe: “Disclosures to Congress about active investigations risk jeopardizing those investigations and creating the appearance that Congress may be exerting improper political pressure…” 1/2 pic.twitter.com/w5DAtTUuKG— Ben Siegel (@bensiegel) January 30, 2023
      In their letter sent 13 January, Jordan and Johnson requested a range of document from the justice department, including “all documents and communications referring or relating to the appointment of Robert K. Hur as Special Counsel, including but not limited to any memoranda regarding his appointment” – which is exactly the kind of thing the justice department is loath to discuss.The Memphis police department has relieved a sixth officer of duty following the beating death of Tyre Nichols, the Associated Press reports.A police spokeswoman confirmed officer Preston Hemphill was disciplined following Nichols’ 7 January beating, which resulted in his death three days later and the firing and indictment of five officers on murder charges. The city released videos of the attack last week, prompting nationwide protests.It was unclear what role Hemphill played in the assault, but family and community members say they want to know if prosecutors will pursue charges or discipline against other officers who responded when Nichols was beaten following a traffic stop.Christian nationalists who were involved in spreading Covid-19 misinformation and promoting Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election have made a new push to win adherents nationwide, the Guardian’s Peter Stone reports:A far-right project that has helped spread Donald Trump’s false claims about voting fraud in 2020, and misinformation about Covid vaccines, is trying to expand its mission, while facing new criticism from scholars and religious leaders about its incendiary political and Christian nationalist messages.ReAwaken America, a project of the Oklahoma-based entrepreneur Clay Clark, has hosted numerous revival-style political events across the US after receiving tens of thousands of dollars in initial funds in 2021 from millionaire Patrick Byrne, and become a key vehicle for pushing election denialism and falsehoods about Covid vaccines.ReAwaken America also boasts close ties to retired Lt Gen Michael Flynn, who in December 2020 met with Trump, Byrne and others at the White House to plot ways to reverse Trump’s election loss. The meeting happened shortly after Trump pardoned Flynn, who was convicted for lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador before serving briefly as Trump’s national security adviser.Clark’s project also has links to Dr Simone Gold, who served a 60-day jail sentence for illegally entering the Capitol on 6 January and founded America’s Frontline Doctors, an anti-vaccine group that has also touted bogus cures.“Christian nationalism has deep roots in American history and has gained traction at different points,” said Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “The ReAwaken America Tour taps into the unholy well of Christian nationalism to sow doubt about the US election system and the safety of Covid vaccines while equating allegiance to Trumpism with allegiance to God.”Far-right project that pushed election lies expands mission as Trump ramps up 2024 campaignRead more More

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      Biden speaks with Tyre Nichols’s parents ahead of video release – latest updates

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      Joe Biden spoke with the parents of Tyre Nichols, according to the Washington Post.The paper released a brief clip of the conversation, where the president mentions how Nichols’ father is “devastated” by the death of his son, and invokes his own experience of losing a child:🚨President Biden just called Tyre Nichols’ parents. He talked to them for more than 10 minutes.”He actually tattooed my name on his arm,” his mom told Biden.”That’s what you call something special,” Biden replied. We were in the room for the call. Here’s a snippet. pic.twitter.com/0gpfU1wmv6— Emily Davies (@ELaserDavies) January 27, 2023
      Earlier, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Biden had been briefed on the video of Nichols’ beating that will be released later today, but has not seen it:.@PressSec on Tyre Nichols video expected to be released tonight says @POTUS has “been briefed, but he has not seen the video, nor has anyone at the White House seen the video.”— Allie Raffa (@AllieRaffa) January 27, 2023
      Acclaimed author and anti-racism activist Ibram X Kendi has condemned the beating and death of Tyre Nichols while criticizing police brutality on Friday.In a statement on Twitter, Kendi wrote:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Tyre Nichols should be with us skateboarding and looking up and admiring the sunset. But instead the sadistic scourge of police violence claimed its latest innocent victim.
      “The history of the police is the racist history of violence. Cops of all races have been empowered and socialized to brutalize and terrorize and exploit and sexually assault and harass and lynch people, particularly Black people with near total impunity.
      “There’s no reforming an inherently violent institution with a pervasively violent history. How many more Black people have to be brutally killed before we realize the obvious? How many more? How many more?”Several groups are organizing rallies across the country tonight as Memphis police prepares to release footage of Tyre Nichols this evening. According to the Instagram accounts of various chapters of the political party PSL, or Party for Socialism and Liberation, rallies titled “Justice for Tyre Nichols” are scheduled in major cities including New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Asheville and Chicago. Meanwhile, the Youth Communist League is scheduled to host a rally in Philadelphia tonight. Other rallies are set to be held in Dallas and Washington DC. The White House has released more details of Joe Biden’s call with the family of Tyre Nichols.“President Biden spoke with Mrs RowVaughn Wells and Rodney Wells, Tyre Nichols’ mother and stepfather, this afternoon to directly express his and Dr Biden’s condolences for Tyre Nichols’ death. During the conversation, the president commended the family’s courage and strength,” a readout of the call said.The Guardian’s Maya Yang is now taking over this blog to cover the latest developments in this story.Former vice-president Mike Pence said he takes “full responsibility” for the secret materials found at his residence, CNN reports:Former Vice President Mike Pence, speaking to a crowd in Miami, says he was not aware classified documents were at his house. But he adds: “Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence. Mistakes were made. And I take full responsibility.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 27, 2023
      Pence’s disclosure this week that documents dating from his time in the White House under Donald Trump were discovered in his Indiana home came after both Joe Biden and Trump were found to have similar materials in their possession. Attorney general Merrick Garland has appointed two special counsels to handle the investigations of the current and ex-presidents’ documents, but hasn’t done the same for Pence.A network of racial justice activist groups is asking the public not to share footage of Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating at the hands of police, which is scheduled for release at 6 pm eastern time.Here is the message from Movement for Black Lives:Today a video of Tyre Nichols’ murder will be released. Do not share it. Do not traumatize our people further by putting it in front of us. We feel the overwhelming rage and grief without subjecting ourselves to a video of his life being taken.To protect yourself online: ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/EytQUlWvQ0— Movement 4 Black Lives (@Mvmnt4BlkLives) January 27, 2023
      Separately, the Republican National Committee re-elected Ronna McDaniel as its chair, overcoming concerns about her leadership after the party underperformed in last November’s midterm elections.McDaniel’s main challenger was Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer for Donald Trump who handled his challenge to a subpoena from the January 6 committee. Conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and former congressman Lee Zeldin were also on the ballot, which McDaniel won easily:RNC Chair Election First Ballot Results:167 votes cast. 84 needed to win. Ronna McDaniel – 111Harmeet Dhillon – 51 Mike Lindell – 4Lee Zeldin – 1Ronna McDaniel reelected RNC Chair.Watch LIVE on C-SPAN2 https://t.co/uYWdF9rUK2— CSPAN (@cspan) January 27, 2023
      Joe Biden spoke with the parents of Tyre Nichols, according to the Washington Post.The paper released a brief clip of the conversation, where the president mentions how Nichols’ father is “devastated” by the death of his son, and invokes his own experience of losing a child:🚨President Biden just called Tyre Nichols’ parents. He talked to them for more than 10 minutes.”He actually tattooed my name on his arm,” his mom told Biden.”That’s what you call something special,” Biden replied. We were in the room for the call. Here’s a snippet. pic.twitter.com/0gpfU1wmv6— Emily Davies (@ELaserDavies) January 27, 2023
      Earlier, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Biden had been briefed on the video of Nichols’ beating that will be released later today, but has not seen it:.@PressSec on Tyre Nichols video expected to be released tonight says @POTUS has “been briefed, but he has not seen the video, nor has anyone at the White House seen the video.”— Allie Raffa (@AllieRaffa) January 27, 2023
      From the Capitol, Punchbowl News reports Nancy Pelosi told journalists she will not be watching the video of the attack on her husband:Nancy Pelosi says “she has absolutely no intention” of watching the attack on Paul Pelosi pic.twitter.com/vG5HMkb3XQ— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) January 27, 2023
      The top Democrat in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, reacted to the release of video showing the attack on Paul Pelosi.Jeffries took over from Nancy Pelosi as the party’s leader in Congress’s lower chamber at the start of this year. Here’s what he had to say:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The violent attack on Paul Pelosi was unconscionable and his assailant must be brought to justice. We live in dangerous times of unprecedented extremism and political violence which have no place in our democracy or in the everyday lives of elected officials and their loved ones. The prayers of the Caucus, the Congress and the Country are with Paul, Speaker Emerita Pelosi and their wonderful family. May God watch over Paul in his continued recovery.Hello US live blog readers, we are continuing to follow developments in the news relating to the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis after a fatal encounter with the police – and political reaction to that and related developments in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. Please stick around as we take you into the afternoon and evening, ahead of the release later tonight of police video of what’s described as a brutal police beating of Nichols.Here’s where things stand:
      Tyre Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said at a press conference in Memphis that ended a little bit ago that she has not been able to bring herself to watch the video of her son’s beating by five police officers earlier this month, following which he died in hospital, but she’s been told it’s “very horrific” and she urged carers not to let children watch it when police release footage tonight.
      FBI director Christopher Wray said he was “appalled” by video of Nichols’s beating at the hands of Memphis police, and that the bureau has opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal incident.
      Footage was released of the brutal hammer attack last year on Paul Pelosi, the husband of California congresswoman and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last October. A right-wing, allegedly politically-motivated intruder broke into their home in San Francisco, with the stated intent of kidnapping Nancy, who was in Washington, DC. Instead he found Paul and attacked him.
      Joe Biden sent condolences to the family of Tyre Nichols in a statement released yesterday, while issuing a vague call for “meaningful reform” of policing, an issue on which he has had mixed success during the first two years of his presidency. The US president appealed for calm at protests that are expected in several cities tonight after the video of Nichols’s beating is released.
      Police body-camera video was released on Friday afternoon of the brutal hammer attack last October on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic congresswomen and then House speaker Nancy Pelosi.The shocking footage shows officers arriving at the front door of the Pelosi residence in San Francisco and knocking loudly on the door.Paul Pelosi opens the door and can be seen with an intruder as the two wrestle over a hammer. Police can be heard asking “What’s going on, man?”, then they tell the suspect to drop the hammer. But he says “Nope”, then manages to grab it and swing it and, just off camera, hits Pelosi in the head.Police charge in to find Pelosi collapsed on the floor, unconscious and struggling to breathe, as they grapple with the suspect, who has fallen on the floor partially on top of Pelosi, then arrest him.Pelosi, 82, suffered a skull fracture and injuries to his hand and arm in the attack, requiring him to undergo surgery. He remained hospitalized for nearly a week as he recovered.The video was released Friday, after a state judge dismissed efforts by the San Francisco district attorney’s office to keep the footage sealed from the public. The suspect in the attack, David Wayne DePape of Canada, faces state and federal criminal charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, among others. DePape has pleaded not guilty to the charges.DePape’s comments to authorities in the wake of the attack indicated that his actions were politically motivated. In court testimony last month, a San Francisco police investigator recounted how DePape claimed there was “evil in Washington” and described his initial plans to kidnap the House speaker.She was in Washington, DC, at the time and swiftly flew back to California to be with her husband.Democrats performed better than expected last November’s midterm elections, but Republicans narrowly won control of the House of Representatives and, after a fraught election earlier this month at the start of the 118th Congress, California congressman Kevin McCarthy took over the speakership.Pelosi had announced after the midterms that she would step down from her leadership role while continuing to represent her district in Washington, and she effectively handed the baton to New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, who became House minority leader in the new congress.Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis explained that the decision to release the video of Tyre Nichols on Friday evening is to reduce the impact it may have on the surrounding communities and schools. “Friday evening will be a good time to try to get people home, try to have our children safe and have a means of being able to manage any type of response,” Davis told NBC. She added that police will be monitoring parts of Memphis and that they have increased their staffing. “We don’t want to overreact. But the reality is, is that there are individuals that may want to exercise their First Amendment right and come out and protest,” she told the outlet. “My son is looking down smiling because, you know, it’s funny, he always said he was going to be famous one day. I didn’t know this was what he meant,” RowVaughn Wells, Tyre Nichols’s mother said.“I‘ve never seen the video. But what I’ve heard is very horrific, very horrific. And any of you who have children, please don’t let them see it,” she added.“To the five police officers that murdered my son, you also disgraced your own families when you did this but … I’m going to pray for you and your families, because at the end of the day, this shouldn’t have happened. This just shouldn’t have happened. We want justice for my son, justice for my son,” she added.“We’re very satisfied with the charges,” said Tyre Nichols’s stepfather, Rodney Wells, referring to the second-degree murder charges against the five officers.“More importantly, we want peace. We do not want any type of uproar, we do not want any type of disturbance. We want peaceful protests. That’s what the family wants, that’s what the community wants,” Wells said ahead of the planned protests across the country later today as the footage of Tyre Nichols gets released.“We want to know, where are the unions? Where does the fraternal order of police unions stand on this? We want to hear…that you condemn the savagery…heinousness…brutality of this attack?” said Antonio Romanucci, one of the attorneys representing the family of Tyre Nichols. Romanucci also called upon Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis to disband the specialized police unit known as the ‘Scorpion’ unit which the five police officers were a part of. “The intent of the Scorpion unit has now been corrupted. It cannot be brought back to center with any sense of morality and dignity, and most importantly, trust in this community. How will the community ever, ever, trust a Scorpion unit?” he said. “Officers have a duty to intervene in crimes being committed, even if it’s intervening with their own officers,” Crump said, calling for legislation to be passed which would require police officers to intervene when they see their colleagues exercising excessive force.“We have never seen swift justice like this,” said Crump, referring to the five officers who have since been charged with murder. “We want to proclaim that this is the blueprint going forward for any time any officers, whether they be Black or white, will be held accountable. No longer can you tell us we got to wait six months to a year,” he added. “It is the culture that allows them to think that they can do this to Tyre,” Crump said, saying that it does not matter if the officers were Black, Hispanic or any other ethnicity. “Call out the culture, call out the culture,” he said, as family members of Nichols chanted back. “It is the institutionalized police culture that is on trial today,” he added. More

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      Florida Republican sends welcome grenades to fellow Congress members

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      Florida Republican sends welcome grenades to fellow Congress membersInert projectiles came with a note that among other things said ‘let’s come together and get to work on behalf of our constituents’ A newly elected Florida Republican sent grenades to fellow members of Congress, prompting one aghast Democrat to say “not even George Santos could make this stuff up”.US voting rights champion Jasmine Crockett: ‘I need everyone to feel a sense of urgency’Read moreSantos is the scandal-plagued New York congressman whose largely made-up résumé and questionable finances have threatened to blow a hole in House Republicans’ narrow majority.The grenades were sent by another freshman, Cory Mills, a member of the armed services and foreign affairs committees.Stamped with a Republican elephant, the inert projectiles came with a letter in which Mills said: “It is my pleasure to give you a 40mm grenade, made for a Mk19 grenade launcher. They are manufactured in the Sunshine State and first developed in the Vietnam war.“Let’s come together and get to work on behalf of our constituents.”As pictures of the grenades spread online, a spokesman for Mills told the Washington Post: “Per the letter, the grenades are inert, and were cleared through all security metrics. I just wish they tagged our official account.”The comparison to Santos was made by congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, a member of the House intelligence committee.Mills, 42 and a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, won the contest to succeed the Democrat Stephanie Murphy in Florida’s seventh district last year.Murphy was a member of the House January 6 committee. Mills is endorsed by the man who incited that deadly insurrection, Donald Trump, and supports Trump’s lie that Joe Biden won the 2020 election thanks to electoral fraud.A defense and security contractor before entering Congress, he has boasted about selling teargas used against protesters for racial justice.Weapons are banned in Congress and subject to strict restrictions in Washington DC. There is, however, an exception for members, under federal law.A spokesman for Mills told Florida media “Capitol police even escorted staff into the building” as they carried the grenades.After January 6, amid fears of congressional violence unmatched since the years before the civil war, metal detectors were installed outside the House chamber.Republicans chafed at the security measure. Andy Harris of Maryland was found to be carrying a gun near the House chamber.In 2020 a Republican from Colorado, Ken Buck, made waves when he said advocates of an assault weapons ban would have to forcibly remove an AR-15-style rifle he kept in his Washington office.Buck’s hardline posturing was undercut, however, when reporters dug up a 2015 interview in which he described the bureaucratic hoops he jumped through to have the gun in his office.“I went to the ethics committee,” he told the Post, “I got permission to accept the gift. I went to Capitol Hill police; I got permission to bring it into my office.“They went to the DC police; they got permission for me to transport it into the District [of Columbia]. I went to [the Transportation Security Administration], and followed all of the regulations in getting it on to the plane and getting it here.”The brightly painted rifle was unloaded and carried a trigger lock, even though it lacked a bolt carrier assembly and thus could not be fired.“Putting a trigger lock on an inoperable gun is like putting a chastity belt on a eunuch,” Buck said. “The only dangerous thing about that gun is if someone took it off the wall and hit somebody else over the head with it.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansFloridaDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US voting rights champion Jasmine Crockett: ‘I need everyone to feel a sense of urgency’

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      InterviewUS voting rights champion Jasmine Crockett: ‘I need everyone to feel a sense of urgency’Kira LernerThe congresswoman reflects on a whirlwind rise from Texas politics to Washington, and her hopes of passing a critical bill In July 2021, Jasmine Crockett entered the US Capitol for the first time. Then a state representative, Crockett was a lead architect of Texas Democrats’ unprecedented plans to board a flight and travel to Washington to break quorum in Texas and block Republicans from enacting the voting restrictions they were steamrolling in the state.Less than two years later, Crockett came back to the Capitol, this time to be sworn in to the House of Representatives – one of 22 women and 13 women of color in the class of 74 new freshmen.Back in her district in Dallas for the first time since officially becoming a member of Congress, Crockett has had to hit the ground running. “I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off,” she told the Guardian in a phone interviewy. “Everybody wants to get their meetings in, and I’m like, ‘Guys, we have a full two years. And it’s not like we’re going to be that legislatively aggressive this season, so we’ve got time.’”Will this Ohio judge’s retirement spell the end of fair elections in the state?Read moreCrockett saw her opening to join Congress in November 2021, when the Dallas Democratic congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson announced her retirement after almost three decades. Four days later, Crockett announced she would run for her seat, with Johnson’s support. She won the primary in May by over 20 points thanks to the name recognition and political prominence she earned by leading the plans to break quorum. Supporting a range of progressive policies from healthcare to workers’ rights, she went on to easily secure the seat in the solidly Democratic district in November.Coming into a chamber with a slim Republican majority, Crockett said she knows it will be important to keep the pressure on voting rights reform.A civil rights attorney and former public defender, Crockett was labeled the most liberal member of the Texas house in her freshman year. In her first year, she introduced more than 60 bills, including measures to create online voter registration and same day voter registration, increase ballot drop boxes, permanently allow drive-thru voting, and allow voters to vote in primaries if they turn 18 in time for the general election.None of her bills passed, but she made a name for herself as a defender of voting rights, which she has called the “modern-day civil rights movement”.Crockett said she came to voting rights accidentally. When she was a student at the University of Houston Law Center, she was late to sign up for a seminar class “so all of the ‘good ones’ were gone”, she said. She ended up in an election law seminar, and remembers thinking: “What am I going to do with this?”“Little did I know,” she said. “I always tell people that God had this amazing, beautiful plan that I was definitely not clued in on.”She wrote her final paper on felony disenfranchisement laws and their Jim Crow-era roots, a topic that got her thinking about the racist history of US voting policy. After law school, she volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign and was inspired to become engaged beyond her work as a public defender. “Obama made me feel like we could all fly,” she said. She became chair of the Democratic party in Texarkana, Texas, and worked to make sure that people waiting for trial in jail knew they were eligible to vote.Her next foray into voting rights came after she was elected to the Texas legislature and assumed office in January 2021. That session, Republicans prioritized pushing through legislation to protect “election integrity”, capitalizing on former president Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud. Crockett quickly found herself on the defensive, given the importance of defending Texans’ voting rights.But she would soon meet the legislative brick wall that was state representative Briscoe Cain, a conservative attorney who helped Trump attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Cain chaired the House’s elections committee in 2021 and blocked Democratic-sponsored bills.When asked what it was like to propose dozens of bills to protect voting but to watch them all fail, Crockett laughed. “Is this your way of asking me what it feels like to be a loser?“No, listen,” she said. “I went in and I told people all the time that I was green and I was excited and I was believing, and the Texas house has a way of showing you the realities of what it is to be in Texas.”After Republicans initially failed in an attempt to pass a sweeping bill they said would protect against widespread voter fraud, Governor Greg Abbott called a special session for July to address voting. Crockett said she knew then that it was time to take extreme action on behalf of her majority non-white constituents.“I always describe the Texas house as a kind of abusive relationship, and there are those that have gotten used to the abuse and conditioned – meaning senior members – and then there’s me, who’s hit over the head for the first time,” she said. She described Republicans’ effort to pass an omnibus restrictive voting bill as “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.Though getting a large enough group of colleagues in agreement to take action took some time and negotiating, Crockett said she was grateful that the conversations happened. According to Texas House rules, at least two-thirds of the chamber’s 150 members must be present to conduct business – Crockett said they reached a point where there was enough interest to officially break quorum.Eventually, Crockett and a group of Democratic lawmakers chartered the plane to take them to Washington, where they held protests and met with members of Congress. Crockett spent weeks in the capital, refusing to return to Austin even as some of her colleagues struck deals to come back home.Now back in Washington, Crockett has no illusions about the possibility of passing an omnibus voting rights bill in this Congress. Despite the Democrats controlling the House for the last two years, their efforts to enact voting rights legislation were blocked in the Senate, where the party didn’t have a filibuster-proof majority.But she does see some room for compromise.“I am going to try to attack this from a very simple, singular, non-omnibus way,” she said. “Something simple like online voter registration is where I’m going to start.”Currently, 42 states and Washington DC allow people to register to vote online, but Texas is one of the small number that still don’t allow it, though lawmakers of both parties have shown support of moving it through the legislature. She said the infrastructure exists nationally to expand online voter registration across the nation. “We wouldn’t be burdening the states,” she said.She also said she plans to introduce legislation to allow young people to vote in primaries if they turn 18 by the time of the general election.While Crockett is in DC now, she’s still worried about what her former colleagues are doing in the legislature. Texas Republicans have introduced dozens of bills that would make voting more difficult, including one proposal that would give the attorney general power to prosecute alleged instances of voter fraud.“There is no reason for the AG’s office to handle these cases,” she said, adding that she knew it was part of a larger plan to “specifically target the large urban centers and those areas that make up the majority of the color in the state of Texas”.“They will pick on them and they will try to make sure that they’ve got an example so that more people of color are intimidated and afraid to go to the polls because even if they make a mistake, they can potentially go to prison,” she said.Crockett often compares the modern-day struggle for voting rights with the civil rights era. A few days after Martin Luther King Day, she lamented that there’s no one figure right now organizing people and pushing them to fight for their rights.“I need everybody in this country to feel a sense of urgency,” she said, especially during elections. “I need you to say, ‘I know I’m standing here for hours, but I have to because John Lewis marched and almost died just so I can have a chance to stand here.”TopicsUS newsThe fight for democracyUS politicsTexasDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesinterviewsReuse this content More

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      Adam Schiff, lead prosecutor of Trump’s first impeachment, declares Senate run

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      Adam Schiff, lead prosecutor of Trump’s first impeachment, declares Senate runCalifornia congressman makes play for Dianne Feinstein’s seat, which is being eyed by at least three other candidates Adam Schiff, the California congressman who became a household name as the lead prosecutor in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, said he will seek the California Senate seat currently held by Dianne Feinstein.“I wish I could say the threat of Maga extremists is over,” said Schiff, 62, in a video announcing his campaign. “We’re in the fight of our lives – a fight I’m ready to lead as California’s next US senator”.Senate musical chairs: California prepares for political battle over Feinstein vacancyRead moreSchiff is joining fellow southern California Democrat Katie Porter in declaring his candidacy for the Senate seat before Feinstein has even announced her retirement. At 89, Feinstein is the oldest member of the Senate, and has told reporters this week that she will make a decision about 2024 in the “next couple of months” amid circling questions about her cognitive health.Schiff, who is close with Feinstein, said he had spoken to her a day earlier to inform her of his intention to run.“I want to make sure that everything I did was respectful of her and that I did so with her knowledge and her blessing,” Schiff told the Associated Press.Many will be clambering for her seat. Bay Area representative Barbara Lee has reportedly told colleagues and donors that she plans to run, and political analysts expect Silicon Valley representative Ro Khanna could also mount a competitive campaign.Schiff has proved to be a formidable fundraiser, with $20.6 m in campaign money at the end of November according to Federal Election Commission reports. His announcement comes after the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, blocked Schiff from serving on the intelligence committee.He has launched his campaign emphasizing his antagonizing of Trump and his allies. “If our democracy isn’t delivering for Americans, they’ll look for alternatives, like a dangerous demagogue who promises that he alone can fix it,” Schiff said.“I think that record of leadership, that record of staunch defense of our democracy, and the way that I’ve championed an economy that works for everyone, I think are a powerful record to run on,” he said.Schiff was first elected to Congress in 2000 and represents parts of Hollywood. Before that, he was a federal prosecutor and served in California’s state senate, where his tough on crime record has been criticized by criminal justice and immigrants rights advocates.His record in Congress veers more centrist than that of Porter, Lee or Khanna.TopicsCaliforniaUS SenateDianne FeinsteinDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s return to Facebook will ‘fan the flames of hatred’, Democrats say

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      Trump’s return to Facebook will ‘fan the flames of hatred’, Democrats sayDemocrats and liberal groups deplored decision to revoke ban on former president who incited insurrection but ACLU defends move Donald Trump’s return to Facebook and Instagram will “fan the flames of hatred and division”, a Democratic congresswoman said, amid liberal outrage after parent company Meta announced its decision to lift a ban on the former US president imposed after the January 6 Capitol attack.Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts bode ill for his return to FacebookRead moreJan Schakowsky, of Illinois, said: “Reinstating former president Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will only fan the flames of hatred and division that led to an insurrection.”Trump was impeached for inciting the January 6 riot, a deadly attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.Trump was also banned from major social media platforms. His ban from Twitter was lifted in November, after the site was purchased by the Tesla owner, Elon Musk. Trump has not tweeted since, although he is active on his own social media platform and would-be Twitter rival Truth Social.Announcing Meta’s decision, its president of global affairs, the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, told NBC “the rough and tumble of democratic debate should play out on Facebook and Instagram as much as anywhere else”.Schakowsky countered: “The reinstatement of Trump’s accounts show that there is no low [Meta chief executive] Mark Zuckerberg will not stoop to in order to reverse Meta’s cratering revenue and stagnant consumer growth, even if it means destroying our democracy.”Among other Democrats, Adam Schiff, a former House intelligence committee chair, said Trump had “shown no remorse [or] contrition” for January 6, and Facebook had “caved, giving him a platform to do more harm”.Eric Swalwell, like Schiff now barred from the intelligence committee by Republican leaders, said: “We know that [Trump’s] words have power and they inspire, and then the leaders in the Republican party, like Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy, they don’t condemn them. And so when they’re not condemned, they’re a green light and open lane for more violence to occur.”Some liberal groups also scorned the decision.Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, said: “Meta is refuelling Trump’s misinformation and extremism engine … one that will put us on a path to increased violence.”Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or Crew, pointed out that Meta was not bound by constitutional free speech protections.“Facebook is not the government,” he wrote. “The first amendment does not require it to give Donald Trump a platform for speech. And the first amendment does not protect speech to incite an insurrection or overturn an election. The justifications for this are nonsense.”But there was support for Meta among civil liberties groups.Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “Like it or not, President Trump is one of the country’s leading political figures and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech.“The biggest social media companies are central actors when it comes to our collective ability to speak – and hear the speech of others – online. They should err on the side of allowing a wide range of political speech, even when it offends.”Trump used his own platform, Truth Social, to celebrate.‘Reckless’: Fury among rights groups as Facebook lifts Trump banRead moreHe wrote: “Facebook, which has lost billions of dollars in value since ‘deplatforming’ your favorite president, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting president, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!”CNN reported that Meta said Trump would be “permitted to attack the results of the 2020 election without facing consequences” but would face action if he “were to cast doubt on an upcoming election – like, the 2024 presidential race”.Crew, the ethics watchdog, was not alone in expressing skepticism. It said: “If anyone thinks Donald Trump will rejoin Facebook, then not do the same exact thing he did before, well, they clearly don’t know anything about Donald Trump.”TopicsDonald TrumpFacebookUS politicsDemocratsMetanewsReuse this content More