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      This summer may be one of the most consequential in US democracy | Thomas Zimmer

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      This summer may be one of the most consequential in US democracyThomas ZimmerThe Long Summer of 2022 began in May, when the abortion opinion draft leaked, and continued through a series of brutal rulings and congressional hearings American politics is about to take a summer break. The supreme court’s next term won’t start until October. Congress will be in recess in August. And the January 6 hearings will be on hiatus until September. Things will calm down for a little while. Or so it will seem on the surface, at least.This supposed respite follows what historians might come to call the Long Summer of 2022. It began in early May, when Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v Women’s Health Organization leaked – the decision that in June overturned Roe v Wade and abolished the right to abortion. This was not the start, but itself a manifestation and apotheosis of a reactionary assault on the post-1960s civil rights era that originated in Republican-led states and has been consistently enabled and actively advanced by the supreme court. The Dobbs leak, which dominated the political discourse for weeks, clearly indicated an escalation of rightwing attempts to turn the clock back by many decades.In early June, the House select committee on the January 6 attack tried to capture the nation’s attention with the first in a series of televised hearings that, for better or worse, have formed the center of the institutional defense of democracy. It all came to a head in the final days of June, when the central political conflict crystallized in the span of just a little over a week. On Thursday, 23 June, the January 6 committee’s fifth hearing focused on Donald Trump’s outrageous attempts to corrupt the justice department. It is generally not a good sign that such an explosive revelation about how the former president tried to nullify a democratic election was able to dominate the news cycle for only about 12 hours.The very next day, the supreme court published its decision to abolish the right to abortion. It came in the context of a remarkably aggressive assault not just on democracy and civil rights, but also on the state’s ability to handle the challenges of a modern, pluralistic society. Within a week, the court undermined the separation of church and state, weakened the ability of liberal states to regulate guns, basically made it clear that it would tolerate even the most brazen racial gerrymandering, and undercut the administrative state’s attempts to tackle environmental problems.Amid all these decisions that left no doubt about the court majority’s intention to help conservatives impose their will on the entire country, Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified in the committee’s sixth hearing, on 28 June. She painted a clear picture of the former president’s deliberate efforts to summon a violent, armed mob. To care about American democracy, in those last days of June, was to exist in a state of constant emergency, whiplash, and exhaustion.Yet even in those hectic days of late June, and certainly throughout the Long Summer of 2022, the experience of most Americans, even those who followed the proceedings in Washington closely, were shaped not just by the political upheavals, but by the normal challenges of everyday life. Stores remained open, people had to go to work, they suffered or celebrated with their favorite sports teams.It would be unfair to denounce these as just illusions of normalcy. In a lot of ways, things really are “normal”, in the sense that most of us continue the routines that dominate our daily lives, even in the midst of a political crisis around us. We have to function, we compartmentalize, we experience a strange mixture of normalcy and emergency that can sometimes feel almost disorienting. Franz Kafka famously noted in his diary on Sunday, 2 August 1914: “Germany has declared war on Russia. Swimming lessons in the afternoon.” Kafka had just witnessed the beginning of what quickly escalated into the first world war. His remark captures the tension between the global and the personal, the extraordinary and the routine, history and everyday life, the outrageous and the mundane.There is always a temptation to resolve that tension by ignoring the emergency and focusing on the ordinariness of it all – because how bad could things possibly be, the sky isn’t ever falling. This, however, is a privilege not available to the women who are dealing with the cruel consequences of their bodily autonomy being denied or the traditionally marginalized, vulnerable groups who are the targets of the reactionary offensive. Such a focus on the markers of normalcy is deceptive and politically dangerous. It is difficult for contemporaries to discern the exact nature and extent of the crisis through which they are living. We can’t necessarily see the democratic backsliding by simply looking out the window – certainly not until it may be too late – but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a continuing crisis underneath.“Crisis”, of course, might be the most overused term in the public discourse. And in its colloquial meaning, in which it vaguely refers to any kind of difficult situation, it certainly doesn’t have much analytical or explanatory value. But if taken seriously, the notion of “crisis” delineates a highly unstable situation in which established strategies, tactics and patterns of behavior don’t work any more, a constellation in which accepted modes of making sense of the world around us prove inadequate and unable to generate viable solutions.The summer of 2022 should have hammered home the fact that all of us who prefer democracy are experiencing such a profound crisis. The supreme court, one of the critical institutions of constitutional government, is not only complicit in the full-on assault on democracy, civil rights and the state’s ability to adequately tackle urgent public policy issues, it is its spearhead. In this situation, simply clinging to the established idea that the public trust in institutions must not be undermined will not be good enough.And it’s true that, in a vacuum, it is highly problematic for authorities to prosecute the leading political opponent of a sitting president. But we are not in a vacuum. We are in a situation in which the former president was the central figure in a multi-layered, multi-month scheme that amounted to an actual coup attempt. Not holding him accountable would gravely endanger the future of constitutional government.In medical terms, the word “crisis” refers to the turning point of a disease: the patient will either recover – or die. In this sense, a crisis is the opposite of a stable equilibrium. And that’s precisely where we find ourselves.After the overturning of Roe, the overwhelming message from all corners of the right has been: We are not done yet – or, as First Things, the pre-eminent intellectual platform of the religious right, put it: Dobbs was just “the end of the beginning” and a “resounding first step”. Nothing more. There’s no appeasing those who are behind the reactionary crusade, no bargain or truce to be had. The refusal to compromise with the vision of multiracial pluralism, with anyone who deviates from their idea of the natural and/or divinely ordained order, is at the heart of their political project. They are not looking for a consolation prize, partial victories, or an exit ramp. They will keep going – until and unless they are stopped.The current situation necessarily marks a turning point. It is a veritable crisis because it will have to be resolved, one way or the other. America will either overcome this reactionary counter-mobilization and make the leap to multiracial, pluralistic democracy – or the country will regress, and let democracy perish before it’s ever been fully achieved in this land.
      Thomas Zimmer is a visiting professor at Georgetown University, focused on the history of democracy and its discontents in the United States, and a Guardian US contributing opinion writer
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      Sorry, Andrew Yang – a new third party won’t fix America’s political problems | Andrew Gawthorpe

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      Sorry, Andrew Yang – a new third party won’t fix America’s political problemsAndrew GawthorpeThose who care about democracy should advance the Democratic party. Anything else is a vanity project Does the US need a third party, and can one succeed? According to the founders of the new Forward party, the answer to both questions is yes. By targeting disaffected Americans on all parts of the political spectrum, the founders – who include the former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and the former Republican governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman – hope to create a new force that will lead Americans into a future in which they can “cut out the extreme partisanship, reintroduce a competition of ideas, and work together in good faith”.Sounds great. But unfortunately, the Forward party is ill conceived, based on a faulty idea of how to fix America’s descent into political madness, and likely to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.At the core of the party’s justification for its own existence is the suggestion that both of America’s two major parties are to blame for the country’s dysfunction, and that the only way to move forward is to replace them with something new. This is a misleading and self-serving diagnosis. Whatever gripes one might have with its policies, the Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties committed to basic democratic and liberal norms. The problem that ails America is that Republicans are not.The absurdity of this attempt to create a false equivalence becomes even clearer when the new party’s founders talk details. They argue that “most Americans” agree neither with “the far right’s insistence on eliminating gun laws” nor with “calls from the far left to confiscate all guns and repeal the Second Amendment”. But these two things are not the same: the first is what is actually happening in America right now, whereas the second is a view that was attributed to Kamala Harris as part of a fabricated smear on Facebook and enjoys approximately zero support in the Democratic party.On abortion, the party’s founders similarly contrast “the far right’s quest to make a woman’s choice a criminal offence” with “the far left’s extreme views on late-term abortions”. Once again, the false equivalence is startling. It’s thanks to the mainstream Republican party, not the “far right”, that abortion is now illegal in eight states, with many more expected to follow. “Late-term abortion”, meanwhile, is a medically meaningless term used by conservatives to imply that women who have life-saving surgery late in their pregnancy are in fact having elective abortions, cheered on all the way by baby-killing liberals.When they avoid talking specifics, the founders can sound more convincing. Who could disagree with “welcoming new ideas” and “creating a political home” for people from both parties? But in the America of today such bromides feel – to borrow, in the spirit of bipartisanship, a phrase from Sarah Palin – “hopey-changey”. In reality, there is only one responsible place for anyone to be if they want to protect America’s democratic, liberal norms – and that place is in the Democratic party.Instead of strengthening this one last realistic defense that the US has left, the Forward party will weaken it. The party’s founders draw on old polling data from just after the January 6 insurrection to claim that 50% of Americans now identify as independents. In fact, the figure is now nearer 40%, and political scientists will tell you that there are very few “true” independents in America’s polarized political landscape. Of that small pool, the Forward party – whose most recognizable face is Andrew Yang, a former Democrat – seems much more likely to siphon votes from the left than from the right. Even if it doesn’t, it will have helped spread propaganda about liberals wanting to end the second amendment and legalize third-trimester abortion, benefiting Republicans. Even a small electoral effect could spell disaster – especially with Republican state governments poised to steal close elections in swing states.The final problem with the Forward party is its internal incoherence. The party promises “common sense” solutions, but common sense means very different things to different people. The fact that the party is trying to stitch together supporters from across the political spectrum is probably one reason it is offering so few details about what its actual policies will be. Political tents can only get so big before they collapse under the weight of their own contradictions, and it is hard to see how the Forward party can avoid a similar fate if it wants to move beyond platitudes.The Democratic party may not be perfect. But the two-party system, and the threat to America’s democracy posed by Republicans, has a stark and brutal logic. Those who care about democracy and liberalism should advance the cause of the Democratic party. Republicans who cannot bring themselves to do that should work to change the Republican party from within. Anything else is a vanity project. Such projects might have value to politicians who had their personal ambitions thwarted in the regular party system. But what do they possibly have to offer the American people?
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University and host of the podcast America Explained
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      Lucas Kunce: ‘Populism is about everyday people coming together’

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      InterviewLucas Kunce: ‘Populism is about everyday people coming together’Martin Pengelly Former US Marine with a progressive take on identity and masculinity hopes Missouri Democrats will pick him as their nominee for US Senate Lucas Kunce thinks populism has been given a bad name. “It’s outrageous,” he says, “that people call the Josh Hawleys, the Eric Greitens, the Donald Trumps of the world populist. Populism is about everyday people coming together to have power in a system that’s not working for them. So do that, Josh Hawley. I mean, good Lord, what a charlatan.”Josh Hawley, senator who ran from Capitol mob, mocked by home paperRead moreKunce is running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Missouri, in the fight to take the state’s second seat in Washington, alongside Hawley. The primary is on Tuesday.Kunce’s main challenger is Trudy Busch Valentine, a prominent donor from the Anheuser-Busch brewing dynasty. Kunce’s fundraising has been hugely successful but polling is tight.Kunce has attacked Busch Valentine for representing the donor class, but in conversation he focuses more on attacking Republicans. Hawley, he says, is “always talking about masculinity – this, that, the other – meanwhile, he skitters out of the Capitol from a riot he essentially started. The guy votes for every corporate judge that comes up in front of him. He doesn’t do anything that would actually empower everyday people.“And Donald Trump, I mean, he put the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, in charge of our economy. That’s not populism. What they do is divide people based on race, religion, where you come from, in a way that doesn’t give everyday people power. They make sure folks are divided so that they don’t have power as a whole against the system that’s not working.“And so I just think it’s a tragedy that we give sort of any sort of populist label to these guys because they don’t want to change the system.”Now 39, Kunce is a Yale law grad who joined the US marines, went to Iraq and Afghanistan and worked in international arms control. He’s a persuasive speaker, even over Google Meet, laptop camera on the fritz.He is for gun control but he is running in gun country. That in part explains an ad in which Kunce holds an AR-15-style assault rifle, makes as if to fire it and then says that unlike potential Republican opponents including Mark McCloskey, the lawyer who infamously pointed such a gun at protesters for racial justice, he doesn’t need to indulge in such macho posturing.Kunce is also for abortion rights, in a state with a post-Roe v Wade trigger law.He grew up in Jefferson City, “in what would be considered a pro-life house and pro-life neighbourhood. That’s what I knew. And then I joined the Marine Corps. I went out and saw what it was like for these countries where they have oppressive Big Brother governments, where women have no rights. I saw what it was like to live in countries where there’s this two-tiered system of rights, where if you have wealth, access and power, the world’s literally your oyster.“And then I see what they did in Missouri here, how these country club Republicans passed the country’s first trigger law, saying abortion is not even available in cases of rape or incest. It’s like they’re willing to do that because they know it’s not going to affect them. Because they’re gonna go out of state, they have the wealth and the means. And so I think that’s messed up. People in my old neighborhood, that’s who’s not gonna have access. We’re gonna have a two-tier system here.The dystopian American reality one month after the Roe v Wade reversalRead more“And I’ve seen people from from my life go through very hard pregnancies I don’t think they should ever have to be forced to go through. People should be able to have that right and opportunity … And so my position is that I will vote to end the [Senate] filibuster and codify Roe v Wade. I think we need to make that happen.”The Republican primary in Missouri is certainly messy, an all-in scrap in which Greitens, a pro-Trump ex-governor who quit in disgrace and is accused of sexual and physical abuse, could yet come out on top.Polling suggests a Missouri US Senate seat remains a stretch for any Democrat. All the same, Kunce has attracted national attention. He says that was a surprise.“I had no expectations going into this. I was a guy nobody knew. I wanted to run a campaign where I rejected corporate Pac money, federal lobbyists’ money, big farm executive money, big fossil fuel executive money. People basically said that wasn’t possible and that was stupid.“And we just decided we’d do it the right way anyway. To actually stand for something and to win and to make sure you only represent people like the ones who took care of me growing up, rather than these folks who are buying off politicians and using them to strip our communities for parts.“I’m thrilled we’ve gotten the attention that we’ve gotten for what we’re doing and how Democrats can win in the midwest again – if they take a real straightforward populist message.”Kunce talks of “big, bold investment” in the midwest, of spending the sort of billions previously spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on building “the next generation of energy technology right here, to build out manufacturing, research and development, we’re talking wind and solar but we’re also talking hydrogen, distributed nuclear or modular nuclear, battery technology [and] good union jobs”.Independence, Missouri: tribalism, the flag and 4 July in the age of TrumpRead moreSuch aims are part of the Green New Deal and Build Back Better, progressive and Democratic plans fiercely opposed by big business and the right. Kunce’s description of a “Marshall plan for the midwest”, a reference to US aid for postwar Europe under a Missourian Democratic president, Harry Truman, seems in part a repackaging. He isn’t big on progressive labels. Asked about identity politics, he prefers to talk about class.“My focus is on top-bottom, as far as identity politics go. There are a lot of people who are being used as targets, usually the most vulnerable people in our society, by the shareholder class, these massive corporations who are funding campaigns against trans youth, against gay people, against minority communities. They do whatever they can to fund divisive campaigns in order to make it so we don’t have a top-bottom race.“This is what I was talking about earlier with these charlatans who pretend to be populist but they’re actually dividing people as much as they can. I’m absolutely for protecting communities that are vulnerable. I just don’t want to lose sight of this top-bottom dynamic that’s really killing us and making it so everybody is fighting for crumbs underneath the table rather than actually having to sit at it.”Kunce has been presented as a representative of progressive masculinity, a type of Democrat who might appeal away from the coasts. He connects the issue back to Republican posturing.“It’s crazy. I mean, Mark McCloskey on his AR-15, frightening people who are walking by his house. You don’t even hold it right. He would have burned himself up with hot brass if he’d shot a round. The fakeness here is just incredible. Josh Hawley’s right there too.“Real men aren’t a bunch of posers. They are people like my dad who sacrifice for their family, sacrifice for their community, stay in the first job they ever took out of school for their entire life, even when they’re miserable, because they needed their little girl to have health insurance so that she would survive. People that invest in their community, in their families.“It’s like the guy who inspired me to join the marines. This guy named Al. When I was a kid, we always volunteered at the church soup kitchen. Twice a month we’d go down there … and this guy who ran the kitchen, he was always like, ‘OK, what chores do all the kids want to do?’ And my little sister and I were always like, ‘Oh, we want to do the dishes.’ And Al was always confused about why two kids wanted to do the dishes.‘If I’d not got help, I’d probably be dead’: Jason Kander on PTSD, politics and advice from ObamaRead more“But at my house with a big family, doing the dishes, man, it was like 40 minutes of standing at the sink, hurting your back, scrubbing hard and drying. Well, the church kitchen had a dishwasher. So doing the dishes was a scam there. You just threw a bunch of stuff in and walked away. I was like, ‘This guy’s an idiot, he thinks we’re doing a chore.’ And so Al figured that out.“And two years later, when he renovated the kitchen in his house, he took his old dishwasher, put it in his pickup truck, drove it to our house and installed it for us, because he remembered that and he wanted to do something for somebody.“That’s what a real man does. That’s masculinity. Al was a marines officer in Vietnam. Never talked about it. Just, you know, quiet fortitude. That’s what I think being a man is and it’s why I joined the Marine Corps and it’s why I think these [Republican] guys are just a bunch of posturing peacocks.”My last question is in part prompted by Kunce’s mention of “quiet fortitude”. Kunce is a fan of Clint Eastwood movies. Which is his favorite?“Unforgiven. Because Unforgiven was such a comeback for the western brand. It brought it back in the early 90s. And I thought that was really cool. I mean, I watch all the old ones. Pale Rider, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly … but I think Unforgiven was just, it was a real comeback story for the genre which I love.”I’m for In the Line of Fire. If Kunce wins on Tuesday, the Republicans will be too.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsMissouriUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressinterviewsReuse this content More

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      How Bernie Sanders and conservatives united against US semiconductor bill

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      How Bernie Sanders and conservatives united against US semiconductor billVermont senator opposed ‘corporate welfare’ to firms paying huge salaries to executives – but Chips and Science Act passed Congress When it comes to alliances in Washington, few are as unlikely as the common ground the democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders briefly found with the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, two architects of conservative policies across the United States.Yet that is what happened this week when Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, made a lonely and unsuccessful stand against a $280bn bill funding scientific research and, controversially, giving computer chip manufacturers financial incentives to build more production in the United States – one that rightwing groups also encouraged lawmakers to make.Pro-Israel group pours millions into primary to defeat Jewish candidateRead more“The question we should be asking is this: should American taxpayers provide the microchip industry with a blank check of over $76bn at a time when semiconductor companies are making tens of billions of dollars in profits and paying their executives exorbitant compensation packages? I think the answer to that question should be a resounding no,” Sanders said during a Monday speech on the Senate floor.The senator’s objections ultimately amounted to naught. The bill passed Congress on Thursday, and Joe Biden is expected to soon sign it.But the episode underscores the tensions that arise when Washington moves to help an industry facing tough times. In this case, the stricken businesses were semiconductor makers who are struggling to keep up with demand and fearful of the threat from ascendant Chinese industry.“The left in this country has generally sort of failed to recognize the importance of capital investment. At the same time, they’re sort of complaining about companies not investing in America, they haven’t actually supported the companies that do invest in America,” said Michael Mandel, chief economist and vice-president of the Progressive Policy Institute thinktank.“My personal view is that capital investment is absolutely essential, and anything we can do to get more investment in this country is a plus for workers and a plus for consumers.”Dubbed the Chips and Science Act, the measure represents Washington’s response to the shortage of semiconductors that began during the pandemic and has snarled the assembly lines of US industries while helping drive up inflation. The bill would offer computer chip manufacturers $52.7bn in incentives to build factories in the United States, as well as $24.3bn in tax breaks.The proposal has taken a tortuous path to passage, with the Senate first approving a version of it last year, before the idea was caught up in the legislative logjam that struck Biden’s agenda in the closing months of 2021.But, unlike some of what the Democratic president hoped to get out of Congress, many Republicans supported the concept of helping the semiconductor industry, particularly because it was seen as an effort to counter China, which has heavily invested in its own microchip industry.And while the US ally Taiwan is one of the biggest manufacturers of computer chips globally, another motivation for Chips is concern about what would happen to its supply if Beijing moves against the island. In July, the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, and defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, wrote a letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress, saying that the measure was “critical for our national security”.Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state under the Republican president Donald Trump, made an unlikely contribution to calls for its passage. “Congress must pass the Chips Act for both our national and economic security. We have to become less dependent on China for critical technologies – and this is how we do it,” he tweeted as the House of Representatives was considering it.But some of the most influential conservative groups in Washington didn’t buy in.“The answer to the [Chinese Communist party’s] malevolent ambitions is not spending billions of dollars to help Fortune 500 companies, with no guarantee those dollars won’t end up supporting these companies’ business operations in China,” the Heritage Foundation president, Kevin Roberts, said in a statement.“Additionally, the act’s $250bn price tag will contribute to record inflation and increase the already historic cost of living for working- and middle-class Americans.”Americans for Prosperity, which was funded by the conservative industrialists Charles Koch and his late brother David, who are well known for their work promoting climate change denialism, sees the bill as “corporate welfare”.“The United States didn’t become the strongest and most prosperous society in the history of mankind by emulating the Chinese government’s central planning, and we shouldn’t start now,” the group’s vice-president of government affairs, Akash Chougule, said. “If we want to see more American investment, the US government needs to stay out of the way.”The effort ultimately failed, with 24 Republicans voting for Chips in the House and 17 Republicans in the Senate, along with almost all Democrats. While Sanders voted against it, none of his usual allies in that chamber or the House joined him in opposition.It wasn’t just the Biden administration that lawmakers were hearing from. Semiconductor firms invested heavily in lobbying to make the bill become law, with Bloomberg reporting major manufacturers spent $19.6m in just the first half of this year, after $15.8m in the same period of 2021.Particularly vocal was Intel, which has announced a $20bn investment in two new semiconductor factories in Ohio. But amid the Chips Act delay in June, the company announced those plans could be pushed back or curtailed without the funding.“My message to our congressional leaders is: hey, if I’m not done with the job, I don’t get to go home. Neither should you. Do not go home for August recess until you have passed the Chips Act, because I and others in the industries will make investment decisions. Do you want those investments in the US?” Intel’s chief executive, Ryan Scott, said in an interview on CNBC. “Get the job done.”Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who sponsored a bill that was a precursor to Chips, denied that the legislation was corporate welfare, saying there were guardrails in its text to stop corporations from using the funds for their own enrichment. Instead, he likened it to a return of 1940s-era industrial policy, in which the government makes investments in industries deemed strategically important.“I think there’s understandable concern about corporate welfare, but corporate welfare is different than the FDR model of mobilizing for production,” he said, referring to the Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led the country through most of the second world war.He envisioned Chips as a template for future efforts that could boost green technologies such as electric vehicles, and solar and wind energy.“I think it’s a first step for how we continue to industrialize America, how we bring our production back, how we reduce our trade deficits. I absolutely think this should be a model,” Khanna said. “And the commerce department should enforce this so none of the money is going to stock buybacks, that it is going to building factories.”TopicsBernie SandersDemocratsUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      House-passed assault weapons ban appears to be doomed in the Senate

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      House-passed assault weapons ban appears to be doomed in the SenateBill would require support from at least 10 Senate Republicans, and it isn’t certain that all 50 Democratic senators are onboard The assault weapons ban in America passed by the House appears set to be doomed in the Senate amid implacable Republican opposition to gun reform, even in the wake of a series of mass shootings in the US.The legislation in the House, which would ban assault weapons for the first time since 2004, is interpreted as a sign that Democrats plan more aggressive gun violence prevention after a series of mass shootings using the military-derived weapons, including in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.It was passed 217-213, with two Republicans voting in favor and five Democrats opposing. The legislation would criminalize the knowing sale, manufacture, transfer, possession or importation of many types of semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines.“Our nation has watched in unspeakable horror as assault weapons have been used in massacre after massacre in communities across the country,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Friday before the vote. “We know that an assault weapons ban can work because it has worked before.”The Democrat-controlled House judiciary committee estimated last week that the five major gun manufacturers have collected more than $1bn from the sale of assault rifles in the past decade.New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney said that gun manufacturers use “dangerous selling tactics to sell assault weapons to the public”, including “marketing to children, preying on young men’s insecurities and even appealing to violent white supremacists.”.Cogressman Brad Schneider, who represents Highland Park in Illinois where a mass shooter recently disrupted a Fourth of July parade with a hail of gunfire, killing seven, said at the hearing that “the shooter was able to fire off his bullets so fast that they couldn’t even identify where they were coming from”.But in the 50-50 evenly-split Senate, the bill is unlikely to pass despite a political breakthrough last month in bringing the bill forward. In that chamber, it would require support from at least 10 Republicans. Nor is it certain that all 50 Democrat senators are on board.Congressional Republicans argue that the legislation is unconstitutional and would result in the confiscation of firearms. “Today, they’re coming for your guns,” said rightwing Ohio congressman Jim Jordan, a senior member of the judiciary committee. “They want to take all guns from all people.”The last time the legislature passed an assault weapons ban was in 1994. A 2019 study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery showed the number of mass shooting deaths declined while the law, which expired in 2004, was in effect.Since then, the number of assault-style weapons in private hands has proliferated to 19.8m, according to a November 2020 statement by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, with mass-shooting growing in frequency alongside.The legislation has not yet been scheduled in the senate for before or after the August recess. On Friday, Joe Biden said he welcomed the House vote, saying a majority of Americans “agree with this common sense action”.“There can be no greater responsibility than to do all we can to ensure the safety of our families, our children, our homes, our communities and our nation”, he added in a statement issued by the White House.TopicsUS SenateUS gun controlHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      DoJ reportedly preparing court fight to get Trump insiders to testify – as it happened

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      Prosecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.We’re closing the blog now at the end of a momentous week in US politics, with the landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act set to become a big win for Joe Biden ahead of the midterm elections.Here’s what else we followed:
      The US will not allow any further Russian annexation in Ukraine to go “unchallenged or unpunished”, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, following secretary of state Antony Blinken’s conversation with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov earlier in which he pressed his Kremlin counterpart over negotiations to release jailed Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.
      Justice department prosecutors are readying for a likely court fight to get testimony from Donald Trump’s former White House officials over his illegitimate actions to overturn his 2020 election defeat. CNN reports they are preparing arguments if Trump invokes executive privilege to prevent those close to his Oval Office revealing what they know.
      Text messages of two of Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported.
      Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer had secret basement meetings in the Capitol building as they negotiated the Inflation Reduction Act, the AP said. The size and scope of the climate concessions Manchin, the rebel West Virginia Democrat, agreed to surprised the Senate majority leader.
      The treasury department has imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and four entities that support the Kremlin’s “global malign influence and election interference operations”. They “attempted to destabilize the US and its allies and partners, including Ukraine,” the department said.
      Nancy Pelosi said it was “sick” that children are learning to use assault weapons, amid a surge of deadly gun violence and mass shootings in the US. The House speaker announced a vote in the chamber this afternoon on gun controls, including an assault weapons ban.
      Joe Biden has nominated a lawyer who represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the supreme court’s decision to overturn abortion rights last month to become a federal appeals court judge, Reuters reports.Julie Rikelman, an abortion rights lawyer with the center for reproductive rights, was picked to serve on the Boston-based first circuit court of appeals, one of nine new judicial nominees announced by the president today.Rikelman argued for the Jackson women’s health organization – Mississippi’s only abortion clinic – in challenging a Republican-backed law that banned the procedure after 15 weeks. Republicans are likely to oppose her elevation in the equally divided Senate. Russian government officials asked that Vadim Krasikov, a spy and former army colonel convicted of murder in Germany last year, be added to the proposed prisoner swap for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, CNN reports. “Multiple sources” familiar with the situation told the network that Russia communicated the request to the US earlier this month through an informal backchannel used by the spy agency, known as the FSB.The request was problematic because Krasikov remains in German custody, the sources said, and because the request was not communicated formally the US government did not view it as a legitimate counter to its initial offer of arms dealer Viktor Bout.Secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov earlier today and pressed for the release of Griner and Whelan, whom the US considers “wrongfully detained”. It is not certain if Russia’s reported request over Krasikov featured in the conversation.We promised you news of the Biden administration’s changing position on Covid-19 boosters as the Omicron variant BA.5 continues to grip the nation. Here’s my colleague Sam Levine’s report:Instead of expanding eligibility for a fourth Covid-19 booster shot now, the Biden administration will push this fall to get Americans to take another booster vaccination that is predicted to better protect against the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of the coronavirus.Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna are expected to start rolling out the reformulated boosters, which are expected to be authorized for anyone 12 and older, in September.The decision comes amid a surge in cases of the virus across the US – and Biden himself recently recovered from an infection.Some of the administration’s top health experts, including presidential adviser Anthony Fauci and White House Covid coordinator Ashish Jha, had advocated for expanding eligibility for a second dose of the current booster because of the latest spread.But public health officials worried that administering two different booster shots so close together could blunt their effectiveness.“You can’t get a vaccine shot August 1 and get another vaccine shot September 15 and expect the second shot to do anything,” Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, told the New York Times.“You’ve got so much antibody around, if you get another dose, it won’t do anything.”The decision means that adults over 50 and those who are immunocompromised remain the only ones authorized for a second booster, ie their fourth shot since the vaccine began being administered widely in 2021. Fewer than a third of people 50 and older who are eligible have gotten one, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Read the full story:US to hold push for Covid boosters until fall in order to better protect against BA.5Read moreA third candidate in a week has dropped out of the Wisconsin Democratic Senate primary, leaving Mandela Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, a clear favorite to challenge Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in November.Wisconsin treasurer Sarah Godlewski’s withdrawal followed those of former state assemblyman Tom Nelson on Monday and Barnes’ top rival, Alex Lasry, two days later.Democrats are hopeful of seizing Johnson’s seat in the fall in a state Joe Biden won narrowly in the 2020 presidential election, reversing Donald Trump’s victory there in 2016.Johsnon was quick to comment on Godlewski’s announcement. “Showing their lack of respect for voters and the democratic process, the power brokers of the Democrat party have now cleared the field for their most radical left candidate,” Johnson tweeted.Barnes, 35, would be the first Black senator from Wisconsin if elected. The US will not allow any further Russian annexation in Ukraine to go “unchallenged or unpunished,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said at an afternoon briefing.She is answering reporters’ questions about secretary of state Antony Blinken’s conversation with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov earlier, in which he pressed his Kremlin counterpart over negotiations to release jailed Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.Blinken “thought it was it was important to make clear where we and our global partners stand on several key issues,” Jean-Pierre said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He spoke about the importance of Russia allowing ships to depart Odessa and to adhere to their grain deals. He also emphasized how Russia’s plan to annex parts of Ukraine by force, which we warned about from here at the podium, would be a gross violation of the UN charter and we would not allow it to go unchallenged or unpunished.
      We are under no illusions that Moscow is prepared to engage meaningfully and constructively yet, so Secretary Blinken made clear that this was not about a return to business as usual.Joe Biden has “no plans” to call Russian president Vladimir Putin over that or any other issue, Jean-Pierre said.As for Griner and Whelan, she added: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}What the president is doing, the secretary and his national security team, is to make sure we keep our promise and [are] doing everything that we can in bringing home US nationals that are wrongfully detained.
      This is top of [Biden’s] mind, this is a priority. We are doing everything we can to bring Paul home, to bring Britney home. Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s former acting chief of staff, testified on Thursday before the House select committee investigating the insurrection on January 6, 2021, and the-then US president’s role in inciting it. And on Friday, Mulvaney spoke about it.He was asked questions by “four or five” lawyers for the committee, who interviewed him for about 2.5 hours behind closed doors, he told CNN on Friday morning.He said they were courteous and there was “no animosity”. he said the questions were “designed to find out stuff that might make President Trump look bad” and pointed out there was no-one there asking “the other side of the questions” [note: it is a bipartisan committee co-chaired by Republican Liz Cheney] “that might have made President Trump look good”, but he added that that was “fine” and it was not a fight, it was a free-flowing discussion.“I would have given the exact same answers, obviously, if there had been folks there from the other side of the political spectrum, so it just reaffirms in my mind that the committee is politically-biased, there is no question about that, the structure is politically biased.“But the information that you are getting is from Republicans, like myself, who are testifying – you are not under oath but you still can’t lie to Congress anyway, that’s still a crime, and I think the information they are getting is good and sound information.”Mulvaney said the lawyers were at the meeting in person while some members of the committee, who are all members of Congress, attended remotely, and Cheney questioned him.He also acknowledged that the separate Department of Justice investigation into events surrounding January 6 last year, when supporters of Trump stormed the US Capitol to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory over him, was now “moving closer and closer to the [Trump] White House”. CNN reported that federal prosecutors want to force Trump officials to testify.“They are starting to talk to people inside the Trump orbit as opposed to just the rioters themselves, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers,” he said.It’s lunchtime, so time to take stock of where we’re at today in US politics:
      Justice department prosecutors are readying for a likely court fight to get testimony from Donald Trump’s former White House officials over his illegitimate actions to overturn his 2020 election defeat. CNN reports they are preparing arguments if Trump invokes executive privilege to prevent those close to his Oval Office revealing what they know.
      Text messages of two of Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported.
      Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer had secret basement meetings in the Capitol building as they negotiated the Inflation Reduction Act, the AP said. The size and scope of the climate concessions Manchin, the rebel West Virginia Democrat, agreed to surprised the Senate majority leader.
      The treasury department has imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and four entities that support the Kremlin’s “global malign influence and election interference operations”. They “attempted to destabilize the US and its allies and partners, including Ukraine,” the department said.
      Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he pressed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to accept a US proposal for the release of detained Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan. Blinken said he had a “frank and direct” conversation with Lavrov earlier today.
      Nancy Pelosi said it was “sick” that children are learning to use assault weapons, amid a surge of deadly gun violence and mass shootings in the US. The House speaker announced a vote in the chamber this afternoon on gun controls, including an assault weapons ban.
      Please stick with us. There’s more to come this afternoon, including White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s daily briefing.Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday he pressed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to accept a US proposal for the release of detained Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.Blinken said he had a “frank and direct” conversation with Lavrov earlier on Friday, and told his counterpart that Russia must fulfill commitments it made as part of deal on the export of grain from Ukraine, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, and that the world would not accept Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory.Blinken and Lavrov spoke on the phone a few hours after Lavrov indicated some interest in Blinken’s offer.Griner’s trial resumes in Moscow on Monday.The White House has issued a statement encouraging the House to pass an assault weapons ban later today.The statement reminds the public that 40,000 Americans die from gunshot wounds every year and guns have “become the top killer of children” in the US.It notes that Joe Biden played a leading role when he was a US senator in the 1994 assault weapons ban, which stood for 10 years before the administration of George W Bush declined to extend it.The White House further notes that “when the ban expired, mass shootings tripled”.White House issues statement in support of assault weapons bill to be voted on later today in the House. pic.twitter.com/f7coJRwcXh— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) July 29, 2022
      Earlier this month, the US president called once again for a ban on such rifles, saying the US was “awash in weapons of war” and decrying how such weapons have become more and more powerful so that when hitting human flesh, people are ripped apart and parents have to supply DNA samples after school shootings, such as in Uvalde, Texas, recently, because their children are so damaged from the bullets that they cannot otherwise be certainly identified.Buffalo, in upstate New York, is still grieving mightily after a racist mass shooting there, as well as the less-documented, everyday urban gun violence blighting life in many American neighborhoods, and the valiant attempts by some community leaders to tamp it.Meanwhile, ICYMI, here’s our Joanie Greve on what gun executives had to say at a congressional hearing earlier this week.Gun executives tell Congress: don’t blame us for deadly shootingsRead moreAnd here’s our Abené Clayton’s reporting as part of the Guardian’s Guns and Lies series.Can lessons of community violence interrupters prevent mass shootings?Read moreNancy Pelosi says it’s “sick” that children are learning to use assault weapons, amid a surge of deadly gun violence in the US that has claimed numerous lives in recent weeks in a series of mass shootings.The House speaker was talking at a lunchtime press briefing at which she announced a vote in the chamber this afternoon on gun controls, including an assault weapons ban:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When I talk about it on the floor this afternoon I’m going to show a presentation of what some totally irresponsible people are putting out there about little children, toddlers, learning how to use an assault weapon.
      Smaller assault weapons, but a gun like mommy and daddy’s, small assault weapons for getting their muscles ready to be able to use it. Is that sick?Pelosi said there was an “outcry” for an assault weapons ban:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re hopeful [over the] vote for the assault weapons ban. I think the best, most important thing to do is to have background checks, that probably saves the most lives on the ongoing.
      But with that it’s very important is to reinstate [the assault weapons ban], we like to say reinstate because we did pass this before. And it did save lives.Even if passed by the House, an assault weapons ban faces next to no chance of clearing the 50-50 divided Senate, where 60 votes would be needed for its passage.Such a measure would be unlikely to attract any Republican support.The treasury department said Friday it had imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and four entities that support the Kremlin’s “global malign influence and election interference operations”, according to Reuters.“The individuals and entities designated today played various roles in Russia’s attempts to manipulate and destabilize the United States and its allies and partners, including Ukraine,” the department said in a statement.Brian E Nelson, undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said: “Free and fair elections form a pillar of American democracy that must be protected from outside influence.“The Kremlin has repeatedly sought to threaten and undermine our democratic processes and institutions. The US will continue our extensive work to counter these efforts and safeguard our democracy from Russia’s interference.” The Russian citizens sanctioned are Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov and Natalya Valeryevna Burlinova .Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a press conference for noon, at which we’re likely to learn of her plans for a House vote on the landmark Inflation Reduction Act announced yesterday, and whether she’s heading to Taiwan as early as tonight on a controversial trip.We’ll bring you her comments when she speaks. You can watch the speaker’s press conference on her YouTube channel here:Secret meetings in a dingy Capitol building basement, a “virtual handshake” across the miles to seal the deal… the Associated Press has published an extraordinary account of how the climate bill agreement between Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer that has set Washington abuzz this week came to be.The size and scope of what Manchin, the rebel West Virginia Democrat who had stalled almost the entirety of Joe Biden’s ambitious first term agenda, was willing to accept to form the Inflation Reduction Act surprised Schumer, the Senate majority leader, the AP says.The news agency account suggests it was partly Manchin’s fears about losing his gavel as chair of the Senate energy committee (he has made millions from the coal industry) that led to his reversal, and willingness to accept climate change provisions he had previously fiercely resisted.“The coal state conservative was being publicly singled out, shamed even, as the sole figure stopping help for a planet in peril,” the AP said, noting the barrage of criticism directed at Manchin from progressive Democrats and climate crisis activists after he blocked Biden’s flagship Build Back Better project. According to the report, compiled with the help several people familiar with private conversations, and granted anonymity to discuss them, Manchin met Schumer secretly in a Capitol basement to get the conversation going.“What a beautiful office,” Schumer reportedly said. “Is it mine?”Over several sessions, the two men and their staffs thrashed out the details of what would become the $739bn Inflation Reduction Act, hailed yesterday by Biden as “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis.”They sealed the deal on Wednesday afternoon with a “virtual handshake” on a Zoom call, with Manchin isolating after testing positive for Covid-19.Whether the bill becomes law remains to be seen. Democrats will need every one of their votes in the 50-50 divided Senate, while there will also be Republican opposition in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’ll bring members back from their summer break to vote on the bill next week.Regardless of the outcome, just getting to this point was a remarkable achievement in itself, the AP says.Meanwhile, Fortune has this intriguing account of the role of former treasury secretary and Biden critic Larry Summers in the saga, suggesting he may just have “saved Biden’s presidency”.Read more:What’s in the climate bill that Joe Manchin supports – and what isn’t Read moreAn impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.Addressing the West Virginia house of delegates, Gardner, among about 90 other speakers, was given 45 seconds to plead her case.“My education is very important to me and I plan on doing great things in life. If a man decides that I’m an object and does unspeakable and tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child?” Gardner said.Read more here:‘What about my life?’ West Virginia girl, 12, speaks out against anti-abortion bill Read moreText messages of two of Donald Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the former president’s January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported Friday.It follows news that secret service texts from about the same time had been mysteriously erased, hampering the House panel’s inquiry into the deadly Capitol riot and Trump’s illegitimate efforts to remain in office.The previously unreported discovery of missing records for the most senior homeland security officials increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack, the Post says.🚨🔎🚨BREAKING POGO INVESTIGATION: yet another story of missing text messages at #DHS. This time, text messages to and from three top Trump-era officials at the dept. from early January 2021 are missing. Read the investigation now: https://t.co/AkWxoUu65Z— Project On Government Oversight (@POGOwatchdog) July 29, 2022
      The homeland security department told the agency’s inspector general in February that texts of Wolf and Cuccinelli were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, the newspaper adds.The Post says its source is an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, whose own report on the disappearance of the messages can be found here.Messages of a third senior department official, the undersecretary of management Randolph “Tex” Alles, a former Secret Service director, are also no longer available because of the reset, according to the Post.In his forthcoming memoir, the former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort describes his travels through the US prison system after being convicted on tax charges – including a stay in a Manhattan facility alongside the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Mexican drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.Manafort also writes that during one transfer between facilities, at a private airfield “somewhere in Ohio”, the sight of “prisoners … being herded in long lines and then separated into other buses and on to … transport planes … reminded me of movies about the Holocaust”.Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced, will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Manafort’s book is not all quite so startling. But he does make the surprise admission that in 2020, he indirectly advised Trump’s campaign while in home confinement as part of a seven-year sentence – advice he kept secret as he hoped for a presidential pardon.“I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the president’s re-election or, importantly, a potential pardon,” Manafort writes.He got the pardon.Here’s more:Paul Manafort admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 but keeping it secret in wait for pardon Read moreProsecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.Good morning blog readers, we’ve made it to the end of an extraordinary week in US politics, but we’re not through quite yet. There’s news today of more legal peril for Donald Trump over his efforts to illegitimately reverse his 2020 election defeat.Justice department prosecutors, according to CNN, are preparing a court fight to force Trump insiders to testify over the former president’s conversations and actions around January 6. They expect Trump to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his former White House officials telling what they know.We’ll have more on that coming up, and will also be looking at the following:
      Washington is still abuzz with Senator Joe Manchin’s stunning reversal, leading to the surprise announcement of the Inflation Reduction Act and the chance for Joe Biden to achieve some of his signature climate policy goals.
      Text messages around the time of the January 6 Capitol riot “vanished” from the the phones of Trump’s senior homeland security officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the Washington Post reports.
      The Biden administration reportedly has a new plan for Covid-19 boosters, scrapping advice for a summer shot and concentrating instead on pushing next-generation vaccines in the fall.
      It could be a busy day in the House with possible votes on gun controls and police funding, before members head off for a six-week break. But the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, could call them back next week for a vote on the Inflation Reduction Act.
      The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has her daily briefing scheduled for 1.30pm. Joe Biden has no public events listed. More

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      DoJ reportedly preparing court fight to get Trump insiders to testify – live

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      Prosecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.An impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.Addressing the West Virginia house of delegates, Gardner, among about 90 other speakers, was given 45 seconds to plead her case.“My education is very important to me and I plan on doing great things in life. If a man decides that I’m an object and does unspeakable and tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child?” Gardner said.Read more here:‘What about my life?’ West Virginia girl, 12, speaks out against anti-abortion bill Read moreText messages of two of Donald Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the former president’s January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported Friday.It follows news that secret service texts from about the same time had been mysteriously erased, hampering the House panel’s inquiry into the deadly Capitol riot and Trump’s illegitimate efforts to remain in office.The previously unreported discovery of missing records for the most senior homeland security officials increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack, the Post says.🚨🔎🚨BREAKING POGO INVESTIGATION: yet another story of missing text messages at #DHS. This time, text messages to and from three top Trump-era officials at the dept. from early January 2021 are missing. Read the investigation now: https://t.co/AkWxoUu65Z— Project On Government Oversight (@POGOwatchdog) July 29, 2022
      The homeland security department told the agency’s inspector general in February that texts of Wolf and Cuccinelli were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, the newspaper adds.The Post says its source is an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, whose own report on the disappearance of the messages can be found here.Messages of a third senior department official, the undersecretary of management Randolph “Tex” Alles, a former Secret Service director, are also no longer available because of the reset, according to the Post.In his forthcoming memoir, the former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort describes his travels through the US prison system after being convicted on tax charges – including a stay in a Manhattan facility alongside the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Mexican drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.Manafort also writes that during one transfer between facilities, at a private airfield “somewhere in Ohio”, the sight of “prisoners … being herded in long lines and then separated into other buses and on to … transport planes … reminded me of movies about the Holocaust”.Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced, will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Manafort’s book is not all quite so startling. But he does make the surprise admission that in 2020, he indirectly advised Trump’s campaign while in home confinement as part of a seven-year sentence – advice he kept secret as he hoped for a presidential pardon.“I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the president’s re-election or, importantly, a potential pardon,” Manafort writes.He got the pardon.Here’s more:Paul Manafort admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 but keeping it secret in wait for pardon Read moreProsecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.Good morning blog readers, we’ve made it to the end of an extraordinary week in US politics, but we’re not through quite yet. There’s news today of more legal peril for Donald Trump over his efforts to illegitimately reverse his 2020 election defeat.Justice department prosecutors, according to CNN, are preparing a court fight to force Trump insiders to testify over the former president’s conversations and actions around January 6. They expect Trump to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his former White House officials telling what they know.We’ll have more on that coming up, and will also be looking at the following:
      Washington is still abuzz with Senator Joe Manchin’s stunning reversal, leading to the surprise announcement of the Inflation Reduction Act and the chance for Joe Biden to achieve some of his signature climate policy goals.
      Text messages around the time of the January 6 Capitol riot “vanished” from the the phones of Trump’s senior homeland security officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the Washington Post reports.
      The Biden administration reportedly has a new plan for Covid-19 boosters, scrapping advice for a summer shot and concentrating instead on pushing next-generation vaccines in the fall.
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      Pro-Israel group pours millions into primary to defeat Jewish candidate

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      Pro-Israel group pours millions into primary to defeat Jewish candidateAipac says Democrat Andy Levin, a self-described Zionist, is insufficiently pro-Israel – alarming some because much of the money comes from wealthy Trump donors It is in Andy Levin’s nature to pick fights.The forthright Detroit congressman and former trade union leader has built a political career on confronting big oil, the gun industry and anti-abortion campaigners.But as the scion of a distinguished Jewish political dynasty, a committed Zionist and the former president of his synagogue, Levin has been stung by the largest pro-Israel lobby group’s campaign to paint him as an enemy of the Jewish state because he has spoken up for the Palestinians.The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has spent more than $4m to defeat Levin in next Tuesday’s Democratic primary for a congressional seat in north-western Detroit with a twin strategy to discredit him within the city’s sizable Jewish community while funding an advertising blitz aimed at the wider electorate that avoids mention of the Israel lobby’s involvement.Aipac and its allies have poured millions of dollars into opposing candidates deemed not to be pro-Israel enough in this year’s Democratic primaries, a move that has alarmed some in the party because much of the money comes from wealthy Trump donors and other rightwing billionaires including Jan Koum, the inventor of WhatsApp, who recently donated $2m.Levin said Aipac’s involvement also raises the spectre of the entire primary process being hijacked by well-funded lobbies from big oil to the gun industry.“This strategy to gather millions from rightwing billionaires and other Republican sources to try to determine the outcome of Democratic primaries is deeply troubling. I don’t think the Democratic party can really stand for it and maintain the integrity of our own elections,” he told the Guardian at a campaign rally in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.“It’s Israel today. It could be the fossil fuel industry tomorrow. It could be the tobacco industry, big pharma, any industry or any group that wants to have Democrats who are pliable and will do what they want.”Aipac boasts that its favored candidates have won in nine of the 10 Democratic primaries it waded into in recent months. Hardline pro-Israel groups have proclaimed these victories as evidence of American voters’ support for its positions. But the campaigns, funded through Aipac’s political action committee, the United Democracy Project (UDP), rarely mention the Jewish state or US policy on Israel.Other critics note that while Aipac opposes Levin and other candidates deemed to be out of line on Israel by accusing them of working against America’s interests, it has endorsed 37 Republicans who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s victory after the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2020.Levin is running for a newly created district after his existing one was scrapped with boundary changes. He is competing against another sitting Democrat, Haley Stevens, whose constituency has also been abolished.Aipac turned its guns on Levin, a member of the House foreign affairs committee, after he introduced the Two State Solution Act in September, intended to promote a peace agreement including by preventing US aid being used to tighten Israel’s grip on the occupied Palestinian territories, and to block expansion of Jewish settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank.The legislation also infuriated some by defining East Jerusalem as occupied territory, which much of the world says it is, when Israel claims sovereignty over the entire city.Aipac portrayed the act as “anti-Israel” and Levin as an extremist.“Andy Levin represents the fringe wing that is working to undermine the US-Israel relationship,” the lobby group said in an email to supporters last week. “Defeating Andy Levin would remove one hostile voice, but as important, ensuring Haley Stevens wins would cement a pro-Israel champion in the Democratic party.”Earlier this year, David Victor, a former president of Aipac who lives in the Detroit area, wrote to prospective donors saying that the redistricting “presents a rare opportunity to defeat arguably the most corrosive member of Congress to the US-Israel relationship”.“To make matters worse, Andy sincerely claims to be a lifelong Zionist, proud Jew and defender of Israel. So when Andy Levin insists he’s pro-Israel, less engaged Democratic colleagues may take him at his word,” wrote Victor.The email, which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of Stevens, was denounced by other current and former Jewish Democrats in Congress.“It is fair to disagree on and debate policy approaches. But it is out of bounds to malign the only Jewish candidate in this race by impugning Andy’s love for the State of Israel or his community bona fides, which run strong and run deep,” they wrote in a letter.The lobby has since poured millions of dollars into supporting Stevens who admits she knew little about Israel until she visited the country three years ago on an Aipac-sponsored trip. Since then she has put an emphasis on “Israel’s right to defend itself” and has expressed scepticism about the US rejoining the Iran nuclear deal.Levin, on the other hand, comes from a line of politicians with strong ties to Israel including his father, Sander, who served 36 years in Congress, and uncle Carl Levin, who was a US senator for nearly four decades.Levin accused Aipac of attempting to impose a single hardline view of what it is to be pro-Israel when he has a “proud record” of supporting the Jewish state and a two state solution while also advocating for Palestinian rights. He says his position “has been the position of every Democratic and Republican administration besides Donald Trump”.“They’re the rightwing Israel lobby. They’re not more pro-Israel than me. In fact, they’re worse for Israel. If you want to be the best friend of Israel, you better give an honest opinion about what needs to happen for your best friend to be secure and safe, and to thrive in the future instead of supporting whatever the Israeli government of the moment does right or wrong,” he said.“This is the politics of intimidation. When I wrote the Two State Solution Act, I can’t tell you how many of my colleagues came up to me and said, ‘Oh, Andy, I read your bill, it’s great. But of course, I’m not going to co-sponsor.’ They didn’t even need to say why. It’s just assumed that they’re afraid to cross Aipac.”Much of this fight has gone unnoticed by the average voter in the Detroit district. But they have nonetheless felt its effects.The UDP has spent heavily on television spots for Stevens that featured President Barack Obama in 2018 praising her work as chief of staff for the taskforce that saw the US auto industry through bankruptcy during the recession. Another focuses on her stand for abortion rights. None of them makes mention of Israel.Opinion polls show the impact. In February, a Target Insyght poll had the two candidates tied at 41% support each. At the time, Levin led among groups likely to be key to victory, including union workers and women.A poll by the same company last week showed Stevens at 58% to Levin on 31%. The number of women who said they would vote for Levin fell sharply.Target Insyght’s director, Edward Sarpolus, said Levin was vulnerable in a number of ways including being a progressive in a new district with a more conservative demographic than his old one.But Sarpolus said UDP and other pro-Israel lobby money was a gamechanger because it paid for advertising to pound away at those differences in support of Stevens.“Aipac and the other [pro-Israel] groups kicking in the funds put her over the top because they’re dominating the airwaves with ads and mailings and that type of thing,” he said.Levin has the backing of a more moderate pro-Israel group, J Street, which has spent about $700,000 to support him with advertising attacking Levin for taking Aipac money.Aipac is targeting another Detroit Democratic primary race too. The UDP has spent nearly $2m running ads against a member of the Michigan state legislature, Shri Thanedar, who backed a resolution to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.Aipac supporters say it is not doing anything other pressure groups do, such as those advocating for abortion rights or environmental policies. But critics say those groups are open about their intent whereas most voters targeted by UDP funded-ads have no idea it is run by Aipac or that it’s goal is to elect a member of Congress it sees as more sympathetic to Israel.A fellow Democratic member of Congress, Mark Pocan, accused Aipac and its allies of deceiving voters.“It’s not just dark special interest money that’s spent on candidates. It’s the sketchy, anonymous misleading nature of the money that needs to get called out in the strongest of terms,” he said.“Now we have groups in Democratic primaries doing this in the most Trojan horse way. First, their values aren’t stated as an organisation. But second they’re raising money from Republican multimillionaires and billionaires to do this. It’s stealth campaigning combined with dirty oppositional money to create a Trojan horse within a Trojan horse.”TopicsUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansDetroitIsraelfeaturesReuse this content More