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      Shapiro: ‘Dangerous’ Republican rival Mastriano could override will of voters

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      Shapiro: ‘Dangerous’ Republican rival Mastriano could override will of votersDemocratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor says if Mastriano wins he could wield power to choose his own slate of electors and overturn presidential election results Josh Shapiro, who was nominated this week as the Democrats’ candidate for governor in the electorally critical state of Pennsylvania, has accused his Republican rival of intending to override the democratic will of voters and pick his own winners in future elections.Shapiro launched his attack on Doug Mastriano in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. He called Mastriano, a far-right state senator, “dangerous and divisive” and warned that were he to become Pennsylvania’s governor he could wield power to choose his own slate of presidential electors as a means of overturning the results of the 2024 presidential election.“Senator Mastriano has made it clear that he will appoint electors based on his belief system,” Shapiro said. “He is essentially saying, ‘Sure you can go vote, but I will pick the winner’. That’ is incredibly dangerous.”Republicans just nominated one of the most radical governor candidates in history | Judd LegumRead moreFears about the anti-democratic leanings of Mastriano have rippled across Pennsylvania and through the country since he won the Republican primary last week. Were he to go on to defeat Shapiro, the state’s current attorney general, in November he would have considerable powers at his disposal to support what would in effect be an insurrection.As governor, he would theoretically be able to refuse to certify the results of an election even though it had been conducted freely and fairly. He would also have the power to appoint Pennsylvania’s secretary of state – the position that controls all elections in the state.Donald Trump endorsed Mastriano for the governor nomination shortly before the primary. The move was seen as rewarding the candidate’s loyalty in backing the former president’s attempt to cling to power illegitimately in 2020 – as well as paving the ground for a possible similar attempt at insurrection in 2024.Mastriano was one of the most avid proponents of Trump’s “big lie” that electoral fraudsters stole the 2020 race against Joe Biden from him. He was present at the US Capitol on 6 January when Trump supporters and white supremacist extremists made their violent attempt to throw out the election results and keep Trump in office.“Senator Mastriano wants to take us to a divisive and dark place,” Shapiro told CNN. “He has openly talked about, if he were governor, with a stroke of a pen doing away with voting machines which had votes that he didn’t agree with.”Republican ‘big lie’ supporters triumph in sign of Trump’s enduring powerRead morePennsylvania has been a vital swing state in recent presidential elections. Trump won the commonwealth by 44,000 votes in 2016, but he lost it to Biden four years later by 82,000 votes.Mastriano is seen as being so extreme by Democratic strategists that the Shapiro campaign went to the lengths of running adverts during the primary that appeared to boost the Republican state senator – presumably on the principle that his far-right tendencies would make him easy to beat in November. The ad called Mastriano “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters” and said if he won the Republican nomination “it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for”.Shapiro was asked by CNN whether the move was an irresponsible attempt to help a candidate “because you think you can beat him”. The Democratic nominee denied the claim, saying he ran the ad as a way of getting an early start on the general election campaign.TopicsPennsylvaniaDemocratsRepublicansUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Trump pays $110,000 in fines after being held in contempt of court – as it happened

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      Former US president Donald Trump has paid the $110,000 in fines he racked up after being held in contempt of court for being slow to respond to a civil subpoena issued by New York’s attorney general, the Associated Press writes.Trump paid the fine Thursday but must still submit additional paperwork in order to have the contempt order lifted, the office of attorney general Letitia James said Friday.A message seeking comment was left Friday with Trump’s lawyer.A Manhattan judge declared Trump in contempt of court on April 25 and fined him $10,000 per day for not complying with a subpoena in James’ long-running investigation into his business practices.Judge Arthur Engoron agreed May 11 to lift the contempt order if, by Friday, Trump paid the fines and submitted affidavits detailing efforts to search for the subpoenaed records and explaining his and his company’s document retention policies.Engoron also required a company hired by Trump to aid in the search, HaystackID, finish going through 17 boxes kept in off-site storage, and for that company to report its findings and turn over any relevant documents. That process was completed Thursday, James’ office said.Engoron told Trump to pay the money directly to James’ office and for the attorney general to hold the money in an escrow account while Trump’s legal team appeals the judge’s original contempt finding.Engoron stopped the fine from accruing May 6, when Trump’s lawyers submitted 66 pages of court documents detailing the efforts by him and his lawyers to locate the subpoenaed records. He warned that he could reinstate it, retroactive to May 7, if his conditions weren’t met.James, a Democrat, has said her three-year investigation uncovered evidence that Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, misstated the value of assets like skyscrapers and golf courses on financial statements for over a decade.Trump, a Republican, denies the allegations.Trump’s lawyers have accused her of selective prosecution. Trump is also suing James in federal court, seeking to shut down her probe.Last week, a lawyer for James’ office said that evidence found in the probe could support legal action against the former president, his company, or both.The lawyer, Andrew Amer, said at a hearing in Trump’s lawsuit against James that:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s clearly been a substantial amount of evidence amassed that could support the filing of an enforcement proceeding.” A final determination on filing such an action has not been made.That’s it for the US politics blog for the day and the week. Thanks for joining us.Donald Trump’s wallet is a little lighter this weekend after he coughed up $110,000 in contempt of court fines for defying the New York attorney general’s investigation into the former president’s business dealings. Here’s what else we followed today:
      A Florida appeals court reinstated Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s “racist” congressional redistricting map that disenfranchises Black voters.
      With no resolution yet in the Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania, neck-and-neck candidates Mehmet Oz and David McCormick are beefing up their staff with lawyers experienced in vote recounts.
      Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, conservative activist and wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers to set aside Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state.
      Joe Biden ended the first day of his Asian tour with the lowest approval rating of his presidency.
      Bill Barr, attorney general in the Trump administration, is reportedly in negotiations to testify before the 6 January House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat by Joe Biden.
      A reminder that you can follow coverage of the Ukraine conflict in our global live news blog here.If you had billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison on your insurrection bingo card, congratulations. The co-founder and chairman of the software company Oracle was identified by the Washington Post Friday afternoon as a participant in a call of staunch Donald Trump allies trying out ways to keep him in office after his election defeat by Joe Biden.The 14 November 2020 teleconference focused on strategies for contesting the legitimacy of the vote, according to court documents and a participant, the Post said.It included fellow Trump acolytes Lindsey Graham, Republican senator for North Carolina; Sean Hannity, Fox News host; Jay Sekulow, attorney for Trump; and James Bopp Jr, attorney for True the Vote, a nonprofit that has promoted the lie of widespread voter fraud. That Ellison was/is a Trump supporter is not new. He gave significant support to Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, including hosting a fundraiser at his California mansion.But the Post says Ellison’s reported participation in the call is “the first known example of a technology industry titan joining powerful figures in conservative politics, media and law to strategize about Trump’s post-loss options and confer with an activist group that had already filed four lawsuits seeking to uncover evidence of illegal voting”.He was also among business figures identified by CNBC as distancing themselves from Trump in the wake of the deadly 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.Ellison is the world’s eighth richest person with a net worth of $106bn, according to Forbes.Oracle representatives did not respond to the Post’s request for comment. As Tucker Carlson asked Hunter Biden for help getting his son into an elite Washington university in 2014, the Fox News host’s wife, Susie, reportedly wrote in an email: “Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!” Since the 2020 election, however, Carlson has fueled rightwing attacks on Joe Biden’s son, particularly over business affairs in which he allegedly benefited from his father’s position.The existence of emails about getting Buckley Carlson into Georgetown has been known for some time, thanks to a laptop once owned by Hunter Biden that was obtained by Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and pushed to media in 2020.On Thursday the Washington Post revealed new emails and said analysis by security experts confirmed their authenticity.The emails, the Post said, “reveal the extent to which Carlson was willing to turn on a former associate as he thrives in a hyper-partisan media world in which conservatives have made Biden a prime target for attack”.“They also show how Carlson once sought to benefit from the elite political circles in Washington that he now regularly rails against as the ‘ruling class’.”Carlson told the Post that in 2014, when Joe Biden was vice-president, “Hunter Biden was my neighbor. Our wives were friends. I knew him well.“I talked to him many times about addiction, something I know a lot about. And I’ve said that. I think that Hunter Biden is an addict and that’s why his life is falling apart, and I feel bad for him. I’ve said that many times, and I mean it.”Read more:Tucker Carlson tried to use Hunter Biden to get his son into GeorgetownRead moreWith no resolution yet in the Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania, neck-and-neck candidates Mehmet Oz and David McCormick are beefing up their staff with lawyers experienced in vote recounts, the Associated Press reports.A few hundred votes separated the candidates on Friday afternoon, with 99% of the count completed. Barring a surprise surge in the remaining votes one way or the other, an automatic recount is all but certain.Both campaigns have hired Washington-based lawyers to lead their recount efforts, and both have hired Philadelphia-based campaign strategists who helped lead the operation to observe vote-counting on election day for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2020, the AP says.The two campaigns already had dozens of lawyers and volunteers fanned out around the presidential battleground state as election workers and election boards toiled through the remaining ballots.A recount would mean that the outcome of the race might not be known until 8 June, the deadline for counties to report their results to the state.Oz, the celebrity TV doctor endorsed by Trump, led McCormick, a former treasury department official, by 1,092 votes, or 0.08%, out of 1,338,399 ballots counted by midday Friday. Pennsylvania’s department of state, which oversees elections, said there were almost 28,000 mail-in and absentee ballots still to count.A see-saw legal battle over Florida’s “racist” redestricting of its congressional maps has tilted back in favor of Republican governor Ron DeSantis.An appeals court on Friday removed a block on the new maps that a circuit judge – one appointed by DeSantis himself – had imposed.It means that, for now at least, the governor’s hand-drawn redistricting stands. It effectively removes Black representation from areas in the state’s north by dividing Florida’s Black majority fifth district into four smaller ones where the vote will be diluted.Although Florida’s Republican controlled legislature should have been the body to draw up the maps, it abrogated the responsibility to DeSantis then obediently gave the governor’s proposal swift approval at a hastily convened special legislative session last month.That sparked a lawsuit from voting rights groups, and the hold put on DeSantis’s map by circuit court judge Layne Smith last week that the 1st District Court of Appeals overturned today. “Based on a preliminary review, the court has determined there is a high likelihood that the temporary injunction is unlawful, because by awarding a preliminary remedy to the appellees [plaintiffs] on their claim, the order ‘frustrated the status quo, rather than preserved it,’” the appeals court said.In simple terms, the court indicated it was fine with DeSantis carving up the congressional map however he saw fit.Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, said of DeSantis last month:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is a deeply racist move that targets Black political power. What he’s doing in the Florida fifth just seems gratuitous. It seems mean-spirited. Read more:‘Democracy in Florida is not functioning.’ Governor’s rigged maps rob Black voters of power Read moreIt’s been a lively morning and there’s more to come in the next few hours so please stay tuned for live updates in US political news.Here’s where things stand:
      Former US president Donald Trump has paid the $110,000 in fines he racked up after being held in contempt of court for being slow to respond to a civil subpoena issued by New York’s attorney general Letitia James.
      Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers to set aside Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, the Washington Post reports.
      There’s more trouble at home for Joe Biden as he ends the first day of his Asian tour: his approval rating has dropped to the lowest point of his presidency.
      Bill Barr, attorney general in the Trump administration, is reportedly in negotiations to testify before the special House committee investigating the events on and surrounding the insurrection at the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, who were intent on overturning Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
      Former US president Donald Trump has paid the $110,000 in fines he racked up after being held in contempt of court for being slow to respond to a civil subpoena issued by New York’s attorney general, the Associated Press writes.Trump paid the fine Thursday but must still submit additional paperwork in order to have the contempt order lifted, the office of attorney general Letitia James said Friday.A message seeking comment was left Friday with Trump’s lawyer.A Manhattan judge declared Trump in contempt of court on April 25 and fined him $10,000 per day for not complying with a subpoena in James’ long-running investigation into his business practices.Judge Arthur Engoron agreed May 11 to lift the contempt order if, by Friday, Trump paid the fines and submitted affidavits detailing efforts to search for the subpoenaed records and explaining his and his company’s document retention policies.Engoron also required a company hired by Trump to aid in the search, HaystackID, finish going through 17 boxes kept in off-site storage, and for that company to report its findings and turn over any relevant documents. That process was completed Thursday, James’ office said.Engoron told Trump to pay the money directly to James’ office and for the attorney general to hold the money in an escrow account while Trump’s legal team appeals the judge’s original contempt finding.Engoron stopped the fine from accruing May 6, when Trump’s lawyers submitted 66 pages of court documents detailing the efforts by him and his lawyers to locate the subpoenaed records. He warned that he could reinstate it, retroactive to May 7, if his conditions weren’t met.James, a Democrat, has said her three-year investigation uncovered evidence that Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, misstated the value of assets like skyscrapers and golf courses on financial statements for over a decade.Trump, a Republican, denies the allegations.Trump’s lawyers have accused her of selective prosecution. Trump is also suing James in federal court, seeking to shut down her probe.Last week, a lawyer for James’ office said that evidence found in the probe could support legal action against the former president, his company, or both.The lawyer, Andrew Amer, said at a hearing in Trump’s lawsuit against James that:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s clearly been a substantial amount of evidence amassed that could support the filing of an enforcement proceeding.” A final determination on filing such an action has not been made.The Washington Post said Friday it had obtained emails showing that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers to set aside Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state and choose “a clean slate of electors”.Thomas wrote to two unidentified lawmakers on 9 November 2020, the newspaper says, six days after the general election, arguing they needed to intervene because the vote had been marred by fraud. The emails came two days after media organizations declared Biden the victor in Arizona, and nationally.Thomas urged the lawmakers to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure”, the Post says, telling them responsibility to choose electors to present Arizona’s result to Congress for certification was “yours and yours alone” and that they had the “power to fight back against fraud”.In Arizona, as in the rest of the country, there was no evidence of widespread fraud.Yet in sending the emails, the newspaper noted, Thomas played a significant role in Donald Trump’s scheming to substitute the will of Republican-controlled legislatures for the will of voters.Thomas has come under increasing scrutiny for her activities since the election and support of Trump’s big lie that it was stolen from him.In March, the Post obtained text messages between Thomas and Trump’s then chief of staff Mark Meadows, also sent in the days following the election, calling on him to do anything he could to subvert the democratic result. Ginni Thomas texts spark ethical storm about husband’s supreme court roleRead moreEither Joe Biden is having a very late night, or somebody on his staff is. It’s after 1.30 in the morning in Seoul, South Korea, and the president’s official Twitter account has burst back into life with news and photos from the first day of his Asia tour (this after a lengthy two-stage flight late Thursday into Friday morning from Washington DC to Seoul, via Alaska):The United States and the Republic of Korea work together to make the best, most advanced technology in the world. This factory is proof. And that gives us both a competitive edge in the global economy if we can keep our supply chains resilient, reliable, and secure. pic.twitter.com/l9NgV9zC9b— President Biden (@POTUS) May 20, 2022
      In a week when a teenager shot dead 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York, apparently motivated by the ‘great replacement’ theory, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Michael Harriot and Anne Applebaum about why this racist ideology has become mainstream in rightwing circles in the US, and why we shouldn’t be surprised.Listen to the Guardian’s latest Politics Weekly America podcast here:Politics Weekly AmericaWill Republicans drop the ‘great replacement’ theory? Politics Weekly AmericaSorry your browser does not support audio – but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp300:00:0000:36:22Donald Trump appears to be engaged in a hasty retreat from next week’s Republican governor’s primary in Georgia, in which his vendetta against the incumbent Brian Kemp looks about to blow up in his face.The former president went all in on the candidacy of former senator David Perdue, convinced his hand-picked choice was certain to oust Kemp from the governor’s mansion.Kemp angered Trump by refusing to bend to his demands to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.However, after a bright start in the polls, Perdue – a recent convert to Trump’s big lie of a stolen election – appears to have lost his luster and now trails Kemp by a seemingly unassailable margin, according to RealClearPolitics.Accordingly, Trump is washing his hands of Perdue, according to NBC News, which said on Friday he’s given up the Perdue campaign for dead and won’t be making any more appearances or offering any further support.Trump, the article says, citing anonymous insiders, “has groused about what he believes is a lackluster campaign effort from Perdue”.It also quoted Kemp’s lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, who said Trump had engaged in “a very shallow attempt at trying to unseat a perfectly fit conservative governor”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}At the end of the day, Donald Trump doesn’t care about David Perdue winning. He just cared about Brian Kemp losing.Defeat for Perdue would be a particularly bloody nose for Trump, who likes to boast about the power of his endorsements. Former president Mike Pence, with whom Trump has also feuded in recent months, campaigned for Kemp.Regardless of the outcome of the Kemp v Perdue race, Georgia is unlikely to be a total dead loss for Trump. His pick for the Republican senate nomination, former NFL star Herschel Walker, enjoys a huge lead, more than 60% in some polls, over rivals.Joe Biden has been talking microchips in South Korea, touring a factory that could become the model for a similar facility in Texas he says will keep the US at the forefront of new technology.The president also promised closer cooperation between the US and South Korea in an address with the country’s leader Yoon Suk Yeol.“It’s emblematic of the future of cooperation and innovation that our nations can and must build together,” Biden said of the Samsung semiconductor plant in Pyeongtaek.The company he said, was investing $17bn in US operations, including the new factory in Texas he said would create 3,000 new jobs:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}So much of the future of the world is going to be written here, in the Indo Pacific, over the next several decades. This is the moment, in my view, to invest in one another to deepen our business ties, to bring our people even closer together. It’s past midnight now in Seoul, so we’re not expecting any more news from the president’s first Asian visit of his presidency in the next few hours.But we do know that the bill passed by the US Senate on Thursday approving $40bn in new military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine is being flown to South Korea for Biden’s urgent signature. Here’s the video of Biden’s address from Friday night:Tune in as I deliver remarks with President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea. https://t.co/vnkjCXQQfw— President Biden (@POTUS) May 20, 2022
      We’re still waiting for the final result from Tuesday’s Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania, in which Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate, celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz, and former treasury official David McCormick are separated by only a few hundred votes with 99% of the count in.But there was a clear winner in the race to become the Republican nominee for state governor in November’s midterms – Trump loyalist and big lie proponent Doug Mastriano.My colleague Sam Levine has this profile of the extremist, whom critics fear will be in charge of appointing officials to oversee the state’s elections if he wins later this year, and who will theoretically have the power to reject a result he doesn’t like:The Trump loyalist who could be a major threat to US democracyRead moreBill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York city, is running for Congress in a district that includes areas of Manhattan and his home in western Brooklyn.He made the announcement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday, shortly before his Bill de Blasio for Congress website went live with the campaign slogan: “The only way to save our democracy is to be a part of it”. De Blasio, whose second term as NYC mayor ended last year, is seeking election in New York’s 10th congressional district, currently represented by Democrat Jerry Nadler. Redistricting under the supervision of a New York judge, which Nadler says is unconstitutional, has forced him into a race for the 12th district with another Democratic incumbent, Carolyn Maloney, opening up the 10th for de Blasio’s run.The state’s primary has been pushed back from June to 23 August following legal wrangling over the legality of New York’s maps and a court’s decision last month that Democrats’ original proposals were too heavily in their own favor.De Blasio, 61, toyed with running for governor this year, the Associated Press says, but decided not to challenge incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul. He also had a short-lived run for president in 2019. There’s more trouble at home for Joe Biden as he ends the first day of his Asian tour: his approval rating has dropped to the lowest point of his presidency.Raging inflation, soaring gas prices, the baby formula shortage and a failure to deliver on campaign promises were cited by respondents in an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research study that also reflects deepening pessimism among his own Democratic party.Only 39% of US adults approve of Biden’s performance as president, a further drop from already negative ratings a month earlier.Overall, only about two in 10 adults say the US is heading in the right direction or the economy is good, both down from about three in 10 a month earlier. Those drops were concentrated among Democrats, with just 33% within the president’s party saying the country is headed in the right direction, down from 49% in April.Of particular concern for Biden ahead of the midterm elections, his approval among Democrats stands at 73%, a substantial drop since earlier in his presidency. In AP-NORC polls conducted in 2021, Biden’s approval rating among Democrats never dropped below 82%.The findings reflect a widespread sense of exasperation in a country facing a cascade of challenges ranging from inflation, gun violence, and a sudden shortage of baby formula to a persistent pandemic.“I don’t know how much worse it can get,” Milan Ramsey, a 29-year-old high school counselor and Democrat in Santa Monica, California, told the AP. She said she and her husband had to move into her parents’ house to raise their infant son.“He hasn’t delivered on any of the promises. I think he’s tired and I don’t blame him, I’d be tired too at his age with the career he’s had.”Biden has been attempting to play up his successes at home over improved unemployment figures and his bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the White House sees his tour of Asia, including meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, as an opportunity to market the US abroad.But the trip has already attracted unwelcome headlines. A member of Biden’s advance security detail was arrested for allegedly assaulting a South Korean citizen in Seoul in a dispute over a taxi, and CNN reports that two secret services agents have been sent home.It is not known if it relates to the same incident.Read more:Biden security team member arrested in Seoul over alleged drunken assaultRead moreBill Barr, the former attorney general who says he told Donald Trump his fantasy of a stolen election was “bullshit”, could soon be on the record with the 6 January House panel.Axios is reporting that Barr, who resigned in the waning days of Trump’s single term of office, is in negotiations with the committee to tell what he knows of the days surrounding the deadly insurrection, and Trump’s demand for the justice department to declare the election fraudulent.Details are scant, the committee is refusing to confirm the story, and it’s not known if Barr will be invited to take part in public hearings the panel will be holding this spring.But Axios says it has sources with knowledge of the situation who insist Barr is in “active discussions” to follow up his previous informal conversations with the committee with on-the-record testimony and transcribed interviews.The news comes at an important juncture for the bipartisan inquiry, which wants to complete its work ahead before November’s midterms, when Republicans are expected to win back control of the House and shut it down.What information Barr has to offer remains to be seen. Most of what we already know about his knowledge of Trump’s desperate efforts to stay in power comes from his book, which the Guardian reviewed in March as a “self-serving narrative that ignores tricky truths”. But the pace of the 6 January investigation is undoubtedly picking up as members scramble to complete their work.Separately on Friday, CNN reported that John Eastman, the rightwing attorney and Trump acolyte, was deeply involved in the plot to steal back the election, and has revealed in a court filing that he spoke regularly with, and had handwritten notes from the former president, concerning those efforts.The panel is chasing those documents, and on Thursday wrote to Georgia congressman Barry Loudermilk seeking information about “reconnaissance tours” of the Capitol the Republican is reported to have hosted on 5 January 2021, one day before Trump’s supporters ransacked the building in efforts to stop Congress certifying his defeat. Read more:Congress members led ‘reconnaissance tours’ of Capitol before attack, evidence suggestsRead moreGood morning blog readers, and welcome! We’ve made it to Friday, but as you know, the pace of US politics never winds down!We’re learning that Bill Barr, the former attorney general, is poised to give sworn testimony to the 6 January House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.Axios reports that Barr, who has already spoken informally to the panel, is in “active discussions” for a formal, transcribed interview. We’ll have more on that coming up, as well as the following:
      Joe Biden is in Seoul, South Korea, talking computer chips at a technology factory with ties to Texas. Meanwhile, his popularity rating back home has taken another dive.
      Vote counting from Tuesday’s Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania is limping towards the finish line, with Trump-endorsed TV doctor Mehmet Oz in a neck-and-neck race with former treasury department official David McCormick.
      Polls suggest Trump is set for a bruising in next week’s Georgia primary, where David Perdue, the former senator Trump wants to replace incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp, has fallen further behind.
      Covid-19 cases are rising again across the US, and there’s little sign that Congress is willing to fund Biden’s requested $22.5bn relief package for vaccines, testing and therapeutics.
      A decision is expected imminently from a federal judge in Louisiana, who will decide if the Biden administration can proceed with plans to end next Monday the Trump-era Title 42 immigration policy keeping refugees at the border because of the pandemic.
      Stick with us as the days unfolds, and you can also follow developments in the Ukraine conflict in our global live news blog here. More

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      in Elections

      Bill Barr in ‘active discussions’ to testify before Capitol attack panel – live

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      We’re still waiting for the final result from Tuesday’s Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania, in which Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate, celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz, and former treasury official David McCormick are separated by only a few hundred votes with 99% of the count in.But there was a clear winner in the race to become the Republican nominee for state governor in November’s midterms – Trump loyalist and big lie proponent Doug Mastriano.My colleague Sam Levine has this profile of the extremist, whom critics fear will be in charge of appointing officials to oversee the state’s elections if he wins later this year, and who will theoretically have the power to reject a result he doesn’t like:The Trump loyalist who could be a major threat to US democracyRead moreBill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York city, is running for Congress in a district that includes areas of Manhattan and his home in western Brooklyn.He made the announcement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday, shortly before his Bill de Blasio for Congress website went live with the campaign slogan: “The only way to save our democracy is to be a part of it”. De Blasio, whose second term as NYC mayor ended last year, is seeking election in New York’s 10th congressional district, currently represented by Democrat Jerry Nadler. Redistricting under the supervision of a New York judge, which Nadler says is unconstitutional, has forced him into a race for the 12th district with another Democratic incumbent, Carolyn Maloney, opening up the 10th for de Blasio’s run.The state’s primary has been pushed back from June to 23 August following legal wrangling over the legality of New York’s maps and a court’s decision last month that Democrats’ original proposals were too heavily in their own favor.De Blasio, 61, toyed with running for governor this year, the Associated Press says, but decided not to challenge incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul. He also had a short-lived run for president in 2019. There’s more trouble at home for Joe Biden as he ends the first day of his Asian tour: his approval rating has dropped to the lowest point of his presidency.Raging inflation, soaring gas prices, the baby formula shortage and a failure to deliver on campaign promises were cited by respondents in an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research study that also reflects deepening pessimism among his own Democratic party.Only 39% of US adults approve of Biden’s performance as president, a further drop from already negative ratings a month earlier.Overall, only about two in 10 adults say the US is heading in the right direction or the economy is good, both down from about three in 10 a month earlier. Those drops were concentrated among Democrats, with just 33% within the president’s party saying the country is headed in the right direction, down from 49% in April.Of particular concern for Biden ahead of the midterm elections, his approval among Democrats stands at 73%, a substantial drop since earlier in his presidency. In AP-NORC polls conducted in 2021, Biden’s approval rating among Democrats never dropped below 82%.The findings reflect a widespread sense of exasperation in a country facing a cascade of challenges ranging from inflation, gun violence, and a sudden shortage of baby formula to a persistent pandemic.“I don’t know how much worse it can get,” Milan Ramsey, a 29-year-old high school counselor and Democrat in Santa Monica, California, told the AP. She said she and her husband had to move into her parents’ house to raise their infant son.“He hasn’t delivered on any of the promises. I think he’s tired and I don’t blame him, I’d be tired too at his age with the career he’s had.”Biden has been attempting to play up his successes at home over improved unemployment figures and his bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the White House sees his tour of Asia, including meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, as an opportunity to market the US abroad.But the trip has already attracted unwelcome headlines. A member of Biden’s advance security detail was arrested for allegedly assaulting a South Korean citizen in Seoul in a dispute over a taxi, and CNN reports that two secret services agents have been sent home.It is not known if it relates to the same incident.Read more:Biden security team member arrested in Seoul over alleged drunken assaultRead moreBill Barr, the former attorney general who says he told Donald Trump his fantasy of a stolen election was “bullshit”, could soon be on the record with the 6 January House panel.Axios is reporting that Barr, who resigned in the waning days of Trump’s single term of office, is in negotiations with the committee to tell what he knows of the days surrounding the deadly insurrection, and Trump’s demand for the justice department to declare the election fraudulent.Details are scant, the committee is refusing to confirm the story, and it’s not known if Barr will be invited to take part in public hearings the panel will be holding this spring.But Axios says it has sources with knowledge of the situation who insist Barr is in “active discussions” to follow up his previous informal conversations with the committee with on-the-record testimony and transcribed interviews.The news comes at an important juncture for the bipartisan inquiry, which wants to complete its work ahead before November’s midterms, when Republicans are expected to win back control of the House and shut it down.What information Barr has to offer remains to be seen. Most of what we already know about his knowledge of Trump’s desperate efforts to stay in power comes from his book, which the Guardian reviewed in March as a “self-serving narrative that ignores tricky truths”. But the pace of the 6 January investigation is undoubtedly picking up as members scramble to complete their work.Separately on Friday, CNN reported that John Eastman, the rightwing attorney and Trump acolyte, was deeply involved in the plot to steal back the election, and has revealed in a court filing that he spoke regularly with, and had handwritten notes from the former president, concerning those efforts.The panel is chasing those documents, and on Thursday wrote to Georgia congressman Barry Loudermilk seeking information about “reconnaissance tours” of the Capitol the Republican is reported to have hosted on 5 January 2021, one day before Trump’s supporters ransacked the building in efforts to stop Congress certifying his defeat. Read more:Congress members led ‘reconnaissance tours’ of Capitol before attack, evidence suggestsRead moreGood morning blog readers, and welcome! We’ve made it to Friday, but as you know, the pace of US politics never winds down!We’re learning that Bill Barr, the former attorney general, is poised to give sworn testimony to the 6 January House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.Axios reports that Barr, who has already spoken informally to the panel, is in “active discussions” for a formal, transcribed interview. We’ll have more on that coming up, as well as the following:
      Joe Biden is in Seoul, South Korea, talking computer chips at a technology factory with ties to Texas. Meanwhile, his popularity rating back home has taken another dive.
      Vote counting from Tuesday’s Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania is limping towards the finish line, with Trump-endorsed TV doctor Mehmet Oz in a neck-and-neck race with former treasury department official David McCormick.
      Polls suggest Trump is set for a bruising in next week’s Georgia primary, where David Perdue, the former senator Trump wants to replace incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp, has fallen further behind.
      Covid-19 cases are rising again across the US, and there’s little sign that Congress is willing to fund Biden’s requested $22.5bn relief package for vaccines, testing and therapeutics.
      A decision is expected imminently from a federal judge in Louisiana, who will decide if the Biden administration can proceed with plans to end next Monday the Trump-era Title 42 immigration policy keeping refugees at the border because of the pandemic.
      Stick with us as the days unfolds, and you can also follow developments in the Ukraine conflict in our global live news blog here. More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets engaged to longtime partner Riley Roberts

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets engaged to longtime partner Riley RobertsDemocratic congresswoman confirms engagement to Roberts, whom she met as a student at Boston University Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a break between visiting Amazon union workers and endorsing progressive candidates to get engaged to her longtime partner Riley Roberts.Ocasio-Cortez to unionized Amazon workers: victory is ‘just the beginning’Read moreOcasio-Cortez, 32, confirmed to Insider on Thursday that she and Roberts, who met while both were at Boston University, got engaged last month while visiting her parents’ home town in Puerto Rico.She then wrote on Twitter: “It’s true! Thank you all for the well wishes.”According to Insider, the pair were quiet about their relationship even before Ocasio-Cortez became a popular political voice, and their friends at university did not always know they were together.Roberts has also been one of her greatest support systems throughout her career, according to a biography published earlier this year, People magazine reported.“What we do know about Roberts doesn’t fit the stereotype of a politician’s partner,” writes Josh Gondelman in an essay in Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC by the editors of New York magazine.“He doesn’t seem focus-grouped or media-trained for state dinners and press conferences. We know he’s supportive and encouraging in private,” Gondelman writes. “And his expertise, as far as his public image goes, is his elusiveness and restraint.”The few times Roberts, a marketing professional, has popped up in media it has been with the couple’s dog, Deco, or in the 2018 documentary Knock Down the House.Ocasio-Cortez said she and Roberts would not start planning a wedding for at least a month.TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US Senate passes $40bn aid package for Ukraine – as it happened

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      The US Senate has approved Joe Biden’s massive new military and humanitarian aid bill for Ukraine, with a huge bipartisan vote in favor of the package as allies boost the fight back against Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor.The final vote moments ago was 86 in favor, 11 against. The vote had been expected last week until Kentucky rightwinger Rand Paul blocked it.All 50 Democrats in the Senate and all but 11 Republicans supported the bill, which was larger than the original $33bn one first requested by Biden last month.The US president is expected to sign the bill into law as soon as possible. Russia invaded Ukraine three months ago.“Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” Senate majority leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said.That’s a wrap for Thursday’s US politics blog, but our global live blog of the Ukraine conflict continues here.Here’s what we followed today:
      The US Senate has (finally) passed a $40bn package of military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
      Joe Biden says he’s “proud” to support applications by Finland and Sweden to join Nato, after meeting the countries’ leaders at the White House, saying their addition will strengthen the defense alliance. But Turkey says it can’t support the move.
      Oklahoma has passed the nation’s most restrictive abortion law, a total ban beginning at conception which allows citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” a woman in terminating a pregnancy.
      The 6 January House panel wants to hear from Republican congressman Barry Loudermilk about a “tour” he allegedly hosted at the Capitol building the day before it was overrun by a mob of Donald Trump supporters.
      The homeland security department has suspended the government’s troubled new disinformation board after the resignation of its director and a wave of Republican criticism.
      Biden is on his way to Alaska, the staging post for his onward journey on Air Force One to Seoul and Tokyo and meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan in the coming days.
      The alleged white supremacist behind Saturday’s grocery store massacre in Buffalo, New York, made a brief court appearance this morning. House lawmakers sent the domestic terrorism bill to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan has been giving a preview of Joe Biden’s trip to South Korea aboard Air Force One as the president and his entourage travel on the first leg towards their staging post in Alaska.The audio feed from 38,000 feet is, how shall we say, patchy. But it seems Sullivan was asked about the likelihood of North Korea launching some kind of deliberate action or challenge to the US while Biden is in Asia to meet the leaders of South Korea and Japan:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Our analysis [is] that there is a genuine possibility, a real risk of some kind of provocation while we’re in the region, whether in South Korea or in Japan, that could take the form of a nuclear test, the seventh nuclear test that North Korea has conducted.
      It could take the form of a missile test. There have been a number of missile tests this year. And of course, North Korea has a long history going back decades of missile tests, both to advance their capabilities and to cause provocations.
      We are prepared for those eventualities, we are coordinated closely with both the ROK [Republic of South Korea] and Japan, we know what we will do to respond to that.
      One of the main messages we are sending on this trip is that the United States is here for our allies and partners. We are here to help provide deterrence and defense for the ROK and Japan. Our cooperation will only strengthen in the face of any further provocations by North Korea.Vladimir Putin “had to keep explaining things” to Donald Trump when Trump was US president, the former White House aide Fiona Hill said. “Putin doesn’t like to do that,” Hill told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.“You could see that he got frustrated many times with President Trump. Even though he loves to be able to spin his own version of events, he wants to have predictability in the person that he’s engaging with.”Under Trump, Hill was senior director for European and Russian affairs on the national security council. She is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.The British-born adviser come to prominence when she testified in Trump’s first impeachment for withholding military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to extract political dirt on opponents including Joe Biden.Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. Bloody fighting continues. Biden has committed to supporting Ukraine.At the Chicago event, Hill said Putin “thought that somebody like Biden, who’s a trans-Atlanticist, who knows all about Nato, who actually knows where Ukraine is, and actually knows something about the history, and is very steeped in international affairs, would be the right person to engage with as opposed to somebody that you have to explain everything to all the time, honestly”.The Russian president, Hill said, might still be “waiting for us to sue for peace, [to] negotiate away Ukraine”.Trump and Republicans claim Putin would not have invaded if Trump was in power.The Trump administration was dogged by investigations of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Read more:Putin ‘had to keep explaining things to Trump’, ex-White House aide saysRead moreThe 6 January House panel wants to hear from a Republican congressman about a “tour” he allegedly hosted at the Capitol building the day before it was overrun by a mob of Donald Trump supporters.The committee has written to Georgia representative Barry Loudermilk asking for his voluntary cooperation.According to a publicly released letter, panel chair and Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson wrote:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Based on our review of evidence in the select committee’s possession, we believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021.
      Public reporting and witness accounts indicate some individuals and groups engaged in efforts to gather information about the layout of the US Capitol, as well as the House and Senate office buildings, in advance of January 6, 2021.Loudermilk did not immediately reply to a request for comment.The House committee is looking into Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden and the deadly riot at the Capitol by his supporters on the day Congress was certifying the result.Today’s move suggests the panel has evidence pointing to certain “reconnaissance tours” taking place in the days before 6 January, potentially providing some rioters with a layout of the complex, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports.Read more:January 6 panel evidence suggests Congress members led ‘reconnaissance tours’ of the Capitol before attackRead moreThe words “Donald Trump” and “risk averse” rarely appear in the same sentence, but after the former president suffered mixed fortunes in some Republican primary race endorsements, and a bloodied nose in others, he’s rethinking his strategy of prolifically backing candidates, according to CNN.The network says candidate in upcoming elections are likely to have a harder time winning Trump’s coveted endorsements.An adviser tells CNN that Trump is “agitated” by the inability of his pick Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV doctor-turned-politician, to score a decisive victory over David McCormick in the Pennsylvania senate primary. The race is heading for an automatic recount with just a few hundred votes from Tuesday’s primary separating them.“This is not how he expected this to go,” the adviser tells CNN.“If Oz loses, it puts [Trump] in an awkward spot because he absolutely trashed David McCormick at his rally and pissed off quite a few allies who never thought he should have endorsed Oz.” While Trump has scored some wins, for example a convincing victory by Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial primary, other endorsements have fallen flat. The scandal-plagued North Carolina congressman Madison Cawthorn lost his seat despite Trump’s (admittedly late-in-the-game) backing, and former senator David Perdue looks headed for a thumping loss to incumbent Brian Kemp in Georgia’s governor primary next Tuesday, according to Huffpost.A newly cautious approach to upcoming primaries by Trump would underscore his belief that in order to maintain influence inside the Republican party, his endorsement must remain powerful, CNN says.Oklahoma’s Republican-led legislature just passed the nation’s strictest abortion ban, which allows citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” a woman in terminating a pregnancy. The ban begins at conception.The law would take effect immediately if Republican governor Kevin Stitt signs the bill, which he is expected to do. It would allow litigants to sue for $10,000 and “emotional distress”. If the law goes into effect, it will make Oklahoma “the first state to successfully outlaw abortion and eliminate access while Roe v Wade is still standing,” according to a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, and have profound effects for women in Texas. Oklahoma’s total abortion ban is modeled after a six-week abortion ban first passed by Texas. There, the state passed a law to allow anyone, anywhere to sue those who “aid and abet” an abortion. Texas’s law banned abortion at six weeks, which is before most women know they are pregnant. Consequently, thousands of Texan patients headed to Oklahoma seeking to terminate pregnancies. Oklahoma then passed a similar six-week abortion ban. The bill being considered by Stitt would outlaw abortion from the moment an egg is fertilized, even before it implants in the uterus. The right to obtain an abortion was established in the landmark 1973 supreme court decision Roe v Wade. The case provided a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy up to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb. In early May, a leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito Jr, one of the court’s conservatives, showed a majority of justices considered reversing Roe v Wade outright. If they followed through with that draft decision, at least 26 US states would be certain or likely to ban abortion. Thousands of patients in the Midwest and South would then be forced to seek care across state lines, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles. Perhaps as many as one-in-five, according to the estimates of one economist, would be forced to carry a pregnancy to term.Here’s a heartwarming image that encapsulates the US Senate’s celebrated spirits of bipartisanship, camaraderie and mutual friendship: Democratic and Republican senators prepare to take lunch with Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson and Finland’s president Sauli Niinistö on Capitol Hill today.The leaders held a closed-door meeting with the senators after their earlier summit with Joe Biden at the White House to discuss the Nordic nations’ historic application to join Nato.Time to take stock of developments so far today:
      The US Senate has (finally) passed a $40bn package of military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, says thank you, and predicts it will spur his country to victory.
      Joe Biden says he’s “proud” to support applications by Finland and Sweden to join Nato, after meeting the countries’ leaders at the White House, saying their addition will strengthen the defense alliance. But Turkey says it can’t support the move.
      The homeland security department has suspended the government’s troubled new disinformation board after the resignation of its director and a wave of Republican criticism.
      Biden is on his way to Alaska, the staging post for his onward journey on Air Force One to Seoul and meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan in the coming days. We’ll hear from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and national security adviser Jake Sullivan aboard the flight a little later.
      The alleged white supremacist behind Saturday’s grocery store massacre in Buffalo, New York, made a brief court appearance this morning. House lawmakers have sent the domestic terrorism bill to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate.
      A top aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has thanked the US Senate after it approved nearly $40 billion in aid, saying this would help ensure the defeat of Russia, Reuters writes.Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Zelenskiy, posted praise online.“Together we’ll win,” he tweeted.Thanks US Senate for the historic decision to provide $40 billion aid package to 🇺🇦. Together, we’ll win.— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) May 19, 2022
      He also said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} We are moving towards victory confidently and strategically. We thank our allies.”In addition, Group of Seven (G7) financial leaders have agreed on $18.4bn (£14.7bn) to help Ukraine and said they were ready to stand by Kyiv and “do more as needed”, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters.Finance ministers and central bank governors of the US, Japan, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are holding talks as Ukraine is running out of cash.G7 countries have “mobilised $18.4 billion of budget support, including $9.2 billion of recent commitments” in 2022, the draft said.You can read more about this and all the news from the ground and Europe on the war in Ukraine in our global live blog on the crisis, here.The Senate passing the $40bn aid bill for Ukraine with a richly bipartisan vote was a glaring exception to the partisan divisions that have hindered work on other issues under Biden.They promise to become only less bridgeable as November’s elections for control of Congress draw closer, the Associated Press reports.That includes Republicans blocking Democrats from including billions to combat the relentless pandemic in the measure, leaving their efforts to battle Covid-19 in limbo.Last week the House approved the Ukraine bill 368-57, with all of those opposed Republicans. Though support in both chambers was unmistakably bipartisan, the GOP defections were noteworthy after Trump, still a potent force in the party, complained that such sums should first be targeted at domestic problems.Senate Majority leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said there could be yet more aid packages for Ukraine from the US..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}They’re doing the fighting, they’re the ones getting killed, they’re the ones struggling and suffering. The least we can do is give them the weaponry they need,” he said. Schumer called it “beyond troubling” that Republicans were opposing the Ukraine assistance..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It appears more and more that MAGA Republicans are on the same soft-on-Putin playbook that we saw used by former President Trump,” said Schumer, using the Make America Great Again acronym Democrats have been using to cast those Republicans as extremists.Senate Minority leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, a strong backer of the measure, addressed concerns by his GOP colleagues, saying Ukraine’s defeat would jeopardize America’s European trading partners, increase US security costs there and embolden autocrats in China and elsewhere to grab territory in their regions..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The most expensive and painful thing America could possibly do in the long run would be to stop investing in sovereignty, stability and deterrence before it’s too late,” McConnell said. The US Senate has approved Joe Biden’s massive new military and humanitarian aid bill for Ukraine, with a huge bipartisan vote in favor of the package as allies boost the fight back against Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor.The final vote moments ago was 86 in favor, 11 against. The vote had been expected last week until Kentucky rightwinger Rand Paul blocked it.All 50 Democrats in the Senate and all but 11 Republicans supported the bill, which was larger than the original $33bn one first requested by Biden last month.The US president is expected to sign the bill into law as soon as possible. Russia invaded Ukraine three months ago.“Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” Senate majority leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said.The Buffalo massacre will be “a catalyst” for legislation to combat hate crime against Blacks, according to the prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the families of several of the 10 victims.Crump says he’s also working with the Brady Center to achieve a reduction in gun violence in the US.His office released a statement this morning announcing Crump will be representing the families of Buffalo victims Andre Mackneil and Geraldine Talley. He was already acting for the family of victim Ruth Whitfield.Mackneil was killed as he was buying a cake for his son, whose third birthday was the day of the massacre. Talley was buying iced tea.All three families will join Crump and veteran civil rights activist Al Sharpton at a press conference in Buffalo on Thursday afternoon.Crump said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I am honored to stand with these families in the face of such horror and hatred as we investigate and call for meaningful change to ensure no family has to feel such pain ever again.
      I hope that one day soon these families will know their loved ones’ deaths were a catalyst for long overdue Black anti-hate crime legislation – and for that we demand swift action from our elected officials.Gun reform legislation has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Republicans. On Wednesday, the House passed the domestic terrorism bill including some gun reforms and new categories of offenses for some hate crimes. It, too, faces substantial headwinds in the Senate.Information is coming in that the government’s new disinformation board is out.The homeland security department has paused the work of the troubled panel and accepted the resignation of its director Nina Jankowicz.She told the Associated Press hours after resigning on Wednesday that a wave of attacks and violent threats she has fielded since the board’s launch will not stop her from speaking out about disinformation campaigns pulsing through the social media feeds of Americans:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We need to have a grownup conversation about how to deal with threats to our national security and that’s not what happened here. I’m not going to be silenced.It remains to be seen how the board’s disastrous rollout and ensuing criticism around it will damage ongoing US efforts to counter disinformation used as a weapon by Russia and other adversaries.The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, acknowledged the board’s controversy had become a distraction to the department’s other work, which includes safeguarding US elections, two officials familiar with his decision said.While the board has not formally been closed down, it will be reviewed by members of a DHS advisory council that is expected to make recommendations in 75 days. The Washington Post first reported the board’s pause.The department announced the formation of the Disinformation Governance Board on 27 April with the stated goal to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.” Read more:US homeland security pauses new disinformation board amid criticismRead more More

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      Republican ‘big lie’ supporters triumph in sign of Trump’s enduring power

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      Republican ‘big lie’ supporters triumph in sign of Trump’s enduring powerHard-right candidates who challenged 2020 result win string of primary victories on a good night too for progressive Democrats Republican candidates who questioned, denied and challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election won a string of consequential primaries in Pennsylvania and North Carolina this week, a testament to the enduring power of Donald Trump’s voter fraud myth, which continues to animate the hard-right movement he started.In a campaign season dominated by angst over the economy and frustration with leadership in Washington, several hard-right candidates successfully channeled conservative grassroots momentum, and are now in striking distance of positions that will have enormous influence over voting and elections administration in battleground states across the country.US primary elections: Dr Oz tied with McCormick in test of Trump’s influence on Republicans – liveRead moreDemocrats, meanwhile, who face a grim electoral outlook dampened by Joe Biden’s dismal approval ratings, chose to elevate candidates who more closely reflected the party’s base, with progressives on the verge of growing their ranks in Congress.Though not yet complete, the results from Tuesday’s highly anticipated election night delivered a composite portrait of a Republican party still in Trump’s thrall, even in races where his chosen candidate came up short.In Pennsylvania, Republicans nominated Doug Mastriano, a hard-right election denier who was a key figure in the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his state. He attended and helped organize Trump’s “Save America” rally in Washington on January 6 that preceded the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, and has been subpoenaed by the House panel investigating the assault.Mastriano’s victory sets up a high-stakes showdown with Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general. Should Mastriano prevail in November, he would be in charge of one of the most contested states in the country – one in which the governor appoints the secretary of state, who in turn oversees the election.During his campaign, Mastriano embraced elements of Christian nationalism, staking out controversial positions on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights and public health mandates. In one debate, he suggested he would oppose any exceptions to an abortion ban, including in cases involving rape or incest. Shapiro has cast himself as a defender of abortion rights, an issue that is expected to play a key role in governor’s races this fall should the supreme court strike down Roe v Wade, as is anticipated.In his victory speech Tuesday night, Mastriano lashed out at media outlets and commentators who referred to him as “extreme”.“They like to call people who stand on the constitution far-right and extreme,” he said. “Forcing your kids to mask up, that’s extreme. Forcing healthcare workers to lose their job for not getting a jab. It’s extreme when you shut down businesses in our state.”In the marquee Senate race, the Trump-backed celebrity physician, Mehmet Oz, was neck-and-neck with the former hedge fund chief executive David McCormick, with nearly all of the vote tallied. The conservative commentator Kathy Barnette had fallen far behind and was out of contention for the nomination.During the campaign, the candidates competed to claim the Maga mantle. Both Oz, who touted Trump’s endorsement, and McCormick, who is married to the former Trump administration official Dina Powell, struggled to animate the former president’s loyal base, and spent millions of dollars of their personal war chests attacking each other in one of the most expensive intra-party brawls of the cycle.That apparently left an opening for Barnette, who enjoyed a last-minute surge in the polls. Despite her Maga bona fides and endorsements from Trump’s allies, the former president warned voters that she was unelectable.In response to doubts about the strength of her candidacy, Barnette said: “Maga does not belong to President Trump.”In North Carolina, the scandal-plagued first-term congressman Madison Cawthorn lost his re-election bid despite Trump urging supporters to give the 26-year-old Maga firebrand a “second chance”. He was beaten by Chuck Edwards, a state senator who offered a record that was every bit as conservative but without the celebrity. It was a sharp fall for Cawthorn, once viewed as a rising star in the Maga universe, and a rare win for the Republican party’s old guard, which aligned against him.Trump’s choice for Senate, the North Carolina congressman Tedd Budd, also triumphed. Trump’s early endorsement of the little-known House Republican reshaped the race, elevating a candidate who objected to the certification of 2020 election results in two states. He beat out the state’s former governor, Pat McCrory, who refused to say the 2020 election was stolen.Budd now faces the former state supreme court chief justice Cheri Beasley for the seat being vacated by the retiring Republican senator Richard Burr. If elected, Beasley would be the southern state’s first Black senator if elected.Trump’s choice in Idaho also came up short, failing to unseat the state’s Republican governor, Brad Little. Janice McGeachin, the state’s far-right lieutenant governor, who twice attempted a power grab while Little was out of state, had made Trump’s false claims of a stolen election a central plank of her candidacy.While much of the focus was on Trump’s influence over his party, Tuesday’s results tested Biden’s appeal among the party’s base. In Oregon, a progressive challenger, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, appeared on track to unseat the congressman Kurt Schrader, a seven-term incumbent with a reputation for breaking with his party. Schrader was the first candidate Biden endorsed this cycle, and his loss would be a major victory for the progressive movement.In Pennsylvania, Congressman Conor Lamb, an avowed centrist from the Biden wing of the party who won difficult races in Trump country, lost handily to the state’s lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, an iconoclastic progressive with blue-collar appeal.Meanwhile, Pennsylvania state representative Summer Lee, running for an open House seat, appeared to have overcome a wave of money from outside groups aiming to counter the progressive movement. If she wins the primary in the solidly Democratic district, Lee would be on track to become the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress.“Our victory shows that we can overcome the billionaire class that wants to divide and conquer us all with fear and lies-for-profit, if only we come together across our differences for a positive vision of multiracial democracy,” Lee wrote on Twitter after declaring victory on Tuesday night. “We can have nice things, if we fight.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Pennsylvania and North Carolina primaries test Trump’s hold on Republican party

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      Pennsylvania and North Carolina primaries test Trump’s hold on Republican partyVoters nominated Maga-bona fide Doug Mastriano as the GOP candidate in Pennsylvania’s governor race, but were divided in North Carolina Pennsylvania Republicans on Tuesday nominated Donald Trump’s choice for governor, an election denier who was outside the Capitol on 6 January, but were divided over his candidate for Senate in a consequential round of primary contests that also saw the ousting of Madison Cawthorn, the scandal-plagued first-term congressman, in North Carolina. Voters in five states went to the polls on Tuesday to pick the candidates at the center of some of this year’s most contentious battles for control of Congress, statehouses and governor’s offices. From Oregon to North Carolina, Idaho to Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the array of nominating contests tested both Trump’s grip on the Republican party and Joe Biden’s leadership of the Democratic party.In Pennsylvania – a perennial swing state and one of the fiercest electoral battlegrounds – Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who was a key figure in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state, will face Democrat Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, in a highly anticipated contest for governor.Madison Cawthorn, pro-Trump firebrand who faced political stumbles, concedes in House raceRead moreThe Associated Press declared Mastriano, a retired Army colonel, the winner in a crowded field of Republican candidates. Shapiro ran unopposed. Despite his Maga bona fides, Trump only endorsed Mastriano in the final days of the campaign after he had consistently led in the polls. But his candidacy has worried party leaders concerned that he is too extreme to appeal to swing voters in the state.In North Carolina, Cawthorn failed to win re-election amid multiple scandals, losing his seat to Chuck Edwards, a three-term state senator and business owner. It was a stunning fall for the 26-year-old congressman, once seen as a rising star in the Republican party.But his rabble-rousing antics angered many of his colleagues, some of whom turned sharply against him in the race after he claimed without evidence that Washington figures he “looked up to” had invited him to orgies and used cocaine. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy rebuked Cawthorn publicly over the remark.John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, handily won the state’s Democratic primary for Senate that was complicated when a stroke took Fetterman off the campaign trail in the final weekend before the election. His victory sets the stage for one of the fiercest Senate races of the cycle – and one of the best opportunities for Democrats to pick up a seat in a year when the political headwinds are blowing against them.Fetterman, a plain-spoken Harvard graduate known for wearing gym shorts and championing marijuana legalization, beat congressman Conor Lamb, a moderate who aligned himself closely with Biden and state representative Malcolm Kenyatta, a leftwing state legislator. Fetterman is expected to make a full recovery from his stroke, but was not able to attend his election night party because he was still in the hospital.In a statement, Joe Biden said electing Fetterman, a liberal Democrat, would be a “big step forward for Pennsylvania’s working people”. Calling him a “strong nominee” who could unite Democrats and win a general election, the president lashed out at his prospective Republican opponent, warning that whoever emerged as the nominee was guaranteed to be “too dangerous, too craven, and too extreme” for the US Senate.As of late Tuesday, Fetterman’s opponent was not yet known. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician known as Dr Oz, was trailing Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, but the race remained too close to call. Conservative commentator Kathy Barnette, who enjoyed an 11th hour surge as Oz and McCormick lobbed brutal attacks on one another, finished in a distant third.“Unfortunately we’re not going to have a resolution tonight,” McCormick said during a speech at his election night party on Tuesday, citing “tens of thousands” of outstanding ballots left to count. On the Republican side, Oz struggled to unite the conservative base behind him. Hounded as a “Hollywood liberal,” Oz embraced Trump’s false claim of voter fraud and was rewarded with the former president’s seal of approval. But when they appeared together a rally, boos could be heard whenever Trump mentioned Oz.Conservatives in the state also appeared tepid about McCormick, the husband of former Trump administration official Dina Powell. During the campaign, he and Oz unloaded their personal war chests, leveling such a ferocious campaign against one another that exasperated voters said they began looking at Barnette.Several states over, in North Carolina, the Trump-backed congressman Ted Budd bested ex-governor Pat McCrory and a dozen other candidates to clinch the Republican nomination for Senate. Budd had struggled to gain traction early in the race until a surprise endorsement from the former president elevated his candidacy. He also received a major boost from the Club for Growth, an influential anti-tax group that poured money into the race on his behalf.Budd will face Democrat Cheri Beasley, a former chief justice for the North Carolina state supreme court, who easily won her party’s 10-way primary to replace retiring Republican senator Richard Burr. Beasley faces an uphill climb in the state, where Republicans have dominated the Senate race. If victorious, the trailblazing former public defender would make history as the southern state’s first Black senator.In a setback for progressives, state senator Valerie Foushee defeated Nida Allam, the first Muslim woman ever elected to public office in North Carolina, in the hotly contested primary to replace retiring the congressman David Price in North Carolina’s 4th congressional District, a safe Democratic seat.Foushee was one of the many candidates who benefited from the support of a Super Pac affiliated with American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby group,which poured money into primary races with the goal of countering the rise of progressive Democrats sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.The group also targeted Summer Lee in the final weeks of her bid to capture the party’s nomination in the solidly Democratic Pennsylvania district.But as of late Tuesday evening, Lee, a progressive representative, appears to have overcome the flood of money spent against her to defeat Steve Irwin in the race to replace congressman Mike Doyle, who is retiring at the end of next year. Lee’s victory would be a major win for the progressive movement in the safely Democratic seat. If elected, she would be the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress.In deeply conservative Idaho, the sitting governor, Brad Little, defeated his far-right lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, a Trump-endorsed candidate who twice attempted a power grab to ban coronavirus mask and vaccine mandates when Little was out of state on business. Little overturned the orders when he returned.Republican Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz calls far-right rival’s comments on Islam ‘reprehensible’Read moreAnd in Oregon, congressman Kurt Schrader, a moderate Democrat known for breaking with his party, was hoping to fend off a strong progressive challenge in a race seen as a test of the president’s appeal among the party’s base.And in an expensive fight for Oregon’s newly created sixth congressional district, Democratic state representative Andrea Salinas was leading a sprawling primary that included a political novice backed by a cryptocurrency billionaire. If elected, Salinas will be the state’s first Latina in Congress.The seven-term incumbent was a top target for progressives after joining Republicans in opposition to Biden’s $1.9tn pandemic relief package, among other policy positions. Nevertheless, Schrader was the first candidate Biden endorsed this cycle.In Kentucky, the state’s highest ranking Democrat, Morgan McGarvey, won the party primary for an open congressional seat to replace the retiring congressman John Yarmuth, who endorsed him. He beat state representative Attica Scott, who drew national attention when she sued Louisville police officers after being arrested during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, a disappointment for movement activists hoping to translate the grassroots energy into political gains.Charles Booker, a Black former state lawmaker who emerged as a powerful voice against racial justice in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020, won the Democratic Senate primary in the state. The progressive faces long odds in his bid to unseat Republican senator Rand Paul in November.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsDemocratsPennsylvaniaNorth CarolinaIdahoOregonnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden tells Buffalo shooting mourners: ‘Evil will not win. Hate will not prevail’ – as it happened

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      Joe Biden attacked the “hateful and perverse ideology” behind the Buffalo massacre as he and first lady Jill Biden visited the city and paid tribute to the victims.In an emotional but powerful address to mourners, officials and first responders, the president called on Americans to “enlist” in the fight against racial hatred:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In America, evil will not win. I promise you. Hate will not prevail. White supremacy will not have the last word.
      What happened here is simple and straightforward terrorism, domestic terrorism, violence inflicted in the service of hate, and a vicious thirst for power.
      The media, and politics, the internet, have radicalized angry and lost and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced. That’s the word. Replaced by other people who don’t look like them.
      I call on all Americans to reject the lie, and those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit.Biden condemned years of racially-based attacks across the country..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas and Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta, this week in Dallas, Texas. Now in Buffalo… Buffalo, New York…
      White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison running through our body politic that’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. No more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can, that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America.We’re closing our live blog now, but it’s far from the end of our political coverage for the day. It’s primary day in several states, with prominent Republican Senate and governor candidates in Pennsylvania notably going head to head.Please watch for my colleague Lauren Gambino’s coverage later, including TV doctor Mehmet Oz’s bid to advance his chase for a Senate seat and North Carolina extremist Madison Cawthorn’s efforts to hold on to his in the House of Representatives.The day was otherwise dominated by Joe Biden’s visit to grieve with the families of victims and survivors of the weekend’s massacre of 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo.“Evil will not win. Hate will not prevail,” Biden said, calling white supremacy “a poison” that had no place in America. Here’s what else we followed:
      Buffalo mayor Byron Brown said he saw Biden’s “sense of resolve” to get something done about gun reforms following the grocery store massacre.
      Republicans in Wisconsin who submitted to Congress false ballots stating Donald Trump won the 2020 election in the state are facing a $2.4m lawsuit.
      The food and drug administration approved a Covid-19 booster shot for children aged five to 11.
      The FBI opened a federal hate crime investigation into a shooting at an Asian-American owned hair salon in Dallas that wounded three women.
      Black students in Georgia who say they were blocked from protesting a rule that allowed Confederate flags on clothing but not Black Lives Matter materials are suing their school district.
      02:19Donald Trump has received a savage Twitter smackdown from George Conway, a constant bête noire of the former president as co-founder of the Lincoln Project, and husband to his former adviser Kellyanne Conway.The Tuesday afternoon insult likening Trump to a caged monkey throwing feces came as part of a chain that began with news the 6 January committee was not expecting to call him as a witness in public hearings this spring.Jan. 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson says its “not our expectation” to call Donald Trump as a witness. He said it’s not clear Trump would enhance investigators’ understanding of the evidence they’ve already unearthed.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 17, 2022
      Lawyer Elizabeth de la Vega decided it was not something she wanted to see:Smart. Calling Trump as a witness in the June hearings would be a terrible move. https://t.co/FxCobKVb32— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) May 17, 2022
      And Conway followed up with this:Yes. Displaying a monkey in a cage throwing its feces around would provide equal enlightenment, even if the monkey were sworn. https://t.co/6oHg2oWapd— George Conway🇺🇦 (@gtconway3d) May 17, 2022
      Thousands of ballots from several counties in today’s Pennsylvania primary election might not be able to be read “for several days”, the Associated Press reports, because of a printing error.Officials in Lancaster county, the state’s sixth most populous, said the problem involved at least 21,000 mailed ballots, only a third of which were scanning properly. The glitch will force election workers to redo ballots that can’t be read by the machine, a laborious process expected to take several days, the AP says. Officials in the Republican-controlled county pledged that all the ballots will be counted eventually.“Citizens deserve to have accurate results from elections and they deserve to have them on election night, not days later,” Josh Parsons, Republican vice chair of the county board of commissioners said at a news conference. “But because of this, we’re not going to have final election results from these mail ballots for probably several days”. pic.twitter.com/YacDxjCitN— Commissioner Ray D’Agostino (@CommissionerRD) May 17, 2022
      John Fetterman, frontrunner in today’s Democratic senate primary in Pennsylvania, is undergoing what campaign staff say is “a standard procedure” to install a heart pacemaker.The state’s lieutenant governor announced on Sunday he had suffered a minor stroke two days previously, but said he was recovering and his campaign “isn’t slowing down one bit”.“John Fetterman is about to undergo a standard procedure to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator. It should be a short procedure that will help protect his heart and address the underlying cause of his stroke, atrial fibrillation (A-fib), by regulating his heart rate and rhythm,” the statement from his campaign said.Fetterman tweeted that he used “an emergency absentee ballot” to cast his vote today (presumably for himself) from his bed in Penn Medicine Lancaster general hospital.Just cast my Primary Election Vote from Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital using an emergency absentee ballot. ✅ pic.twitter.com/HftIKtZG2V— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) May 17, 2022
      Buffalo’s mayor Byron Brown has just been talking about Joe Biden’s visit to his city today, and what he sees as the president’s “sense of resolve” to get something done about gun reforms following the grocery store massacre.Brown told reporters that the president and first lady Jill Biden spent considerable private time with the families of the 10 killed by an alleged white supremacist, which he said he thought strengthened Biden’s “commitment to try to bring change”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As it relates to gun control in this country change has been very elusive. There are those in Washington who have put the needs and the desires of the gun manufacturers ahead of the lives of Americans. That has to stop.
      The president talked about gun control. He talked about his concern for the families here. There was talk about what could be done to end these mass shootings.
      The president seemed very moved by what he saw here in this community. And I really felt a strong sense of resolve and commitment in the president to try to bring change as it relates to these kinds of situations.
      I saw him steel himself during this visit to get something done. I felt it, I think it’s powerful, and I think it’s real.Brown also paid tribute to police officers and fire fighters who responded to Saturday’s shooting, and credited Aaron Salter, the former police officer and Tops market security guard who lost his life in a firefight with the killer, for saving lives:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If not for the heroic actions of… Aaron Salter engaging the shooter and exchanging gunfire with the shooter that ultimately took his life, more people would probably have gotten killed inside the store.The US Congress held its first open briefing on UFOs in more than 50 years on Tuesday, but those seeking explanations for the numerous military sightings of unexplained objects were left disappointed, as defense officials appeared to hold their juiciest information for closed door hearings.During a 90-minute briefing in Washington a highlight was the release of two new videos showing unidentified aerial phenomena, although one of them was immediately debunked by Scott Bray, the deputy director of navy intelligence.The hearing, the first of its nature since 1966, came after a bumper year for UFO enthusiasts. In 2021, US intelligence released a landmark report which found 144 reports of unidentified aerial phenomenon, only one of which could be explained.The report followed US navy pilots publicly discussing their encounters with UAPs, with one retired lieutenant claiming he saw objects in the sky above the east coast “every day for at least a couple years”.On Tuesday Bray sought to defend the government’s investigation of UAPs – following accusations that the Pentagon is not taking the issue seriously enough – but also showed members of an intelligence subcommittee videos of airborne objects.One video, filmed during daylight, showed an object appearing to whiz past a military jet. The fleeting appearance of the object – it appeared on screen for less than a second – showed the difficulty in gathering data on some UAPs, Bray said.Another clip, recorded at night from a military plane at some time in 2019, showed triangle shapes appearing to hover in the sky. Bray then played another video that captured the same phenomena, but followed it up with a mundane explanation: the objects were drones, rendered triangular in shape and other-worldly in motion because of a quirk in the way video was captured through night-vision equipment.The debunking did little to counter accusations – including one leveled by Andre Carson, the committee chair – that the Pentagon has little interest in investigating the inexplicable. Read more:Out-of-this-world revelations in short supply at US Congress briefing on UFOs Read moreThe US has taken control of Afghanistan’s embassy in Washington DC, and consulates in New York and Beverly Hills, California, the state department has said.It moved to secure the properties Tuesday, according to the Associated Press, after determining Afghanistan “formally ceased conducting diplomatic and consular activities in the United States” at noon yesterday.In reality, there have been no formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Kabul since the Taliban assumed power after the chaotic US withdrawal last summer. The US does not recognize the Taliban as a legitime government.An official notice will be published in the federal register on Wednesday stating that the department had assumed responsibility for “protection and preservation” of the properties the AP said.Nobody will be allowed to enter the buildings without state department official, it said.The day has been dominated so far by Joe Biden’s visit to grieve with the families of victims and survivors of the weekend’s massacre of 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo.The president and first lady Jill Biden met with the families, then he delivered a powerful address in which he called out the racial hatred behind the killings, and urged Americans to unite in the fight against “hateful and perverse ideology”.“Evil will not win. Hate will not prevail,” Biden said, calling white supremacy “a poison” that had no place in America.Elsewhere:
      Republicans in Wisconsin who submitted to Congress false ballots stating Donald Trump won the 2020 election in the state are facing a $2.4m lawsuit.
      The food and drug administration approved a Covid-19 booster shot for children aged five to 11.
      The FBI opened a federal hate crime investigation into a shooting at an Asian-American owned hair salon in Dallas that wounded three women.
      Black students in Georgia who say they were blocked from protesting a rule that allowed Confederate flags on clothing but not Black Lives Matter materials are suing their school district.
      Republicans in Wisconsin who attempted to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, by submitting false electoral ballots to Congress declaring Donald Trump the winner, are facing a lawsuit.The legal action in Dane county circuit court says the decision by a Republican slate of electors to send the ballots saying Trump had won was “as legally baseless as it was repugnant to democracy”, the Associated Press says. Biden won the state, and its 10 electoral college votes, by almost 21,000 votes. The lawsuit, filed by three Democratic voters, names 10 Republicans and two attorneys it says were responsible and seeks up to $2.4m in damages, as well as disqualifying the Republicans from serving as electors in the future.“It’s essential to have accountability and to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Jeffrey Mandell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the AP.“We have heard in the more than a year since the fraudulent electors met the excuse that what they did was not wrong, it was totally fine. We want a court to make clear that is not true”.Republican electors who have spoken publicly have argued they weren’t trying to change the Wisconsin result but attempting to “preserve legal options” if a court ruled in favor of Trump.Wisconsin was among a number of heavily contested swing states that Biden won to deny Trump a second term in office. The twice-impeached Trump has since expounded the big lie that the election was fraudulent and victory was stolen from him, and incited the 6 January Capitol riot by his supporters to try to cling on to power.Numerous conservative groups pushing the big lie are facing legal actions is several states, the Guardian reported last week.Read more:Groups perpetuating Trump’s 2020 election lie face scrutiny and lawsuitsRead moreA tweet from the president in Buffalo urges the nation “to find purpose to live a life worthy of those we lost. We must resolve that from tragedy will come hope and light and life”.Jill and I are in Buffalo to stand with the community and to grieve with the families. As a nation, we must find purpose to live a life worthy of those we lost. We must resolve that from tragedy will come hope and light and life. pic.twitter.com/Om8sTigHXl— President Biden (@POTUS) May 17, 2022
      An emotional Joe Biden, who received several bursts of applause during his Buffalo address, closed with a powerful call for Americans to come together to defeat what he said was a “hateful minority”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re the most multiracial, most dynamic nation in the history of the world. Now’s the time for the people of all races, from every background, to speak up as a majority in America and reject white supremacy.
      These actions we’ve seen in these hate filled attacks represent the views of a hateful minority. We can’t allow them to distort America. We can’t allow them to destroy the soul of the nation.And he widened his comments to include the divisiveness of the current political climate:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I travel the world all the time. Heads of state in other countries ask me, ‘What’s going on? What in God’s name happened on January 6th? What happened in Buffalo?’
      We have to refuse to live in a country where black people going about weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war deployed in a racist cause.
      We have to refuse to live in a country where fear and lies are packaged for power and for profit.
      You must all enlist in this great cause of America. This is work that requires all of us, presidents and politicians, commentators, citizens, none of us can stay on the sidelines.
      We have to resolve that here in Buffalo, that from this tragedy, will come hope, in light, in life. It has to. And not on our watch… the sacred cause of America will never bow, never break, never bend. The America we love will endure.
      May the souls of the fallen rest in peace and rise in glory.The president said Americans had a duty to call out the hatred and racial bigotry behind the massacre in Buffalo, and countless other mass shootings. Then he turned to gun laws, and a call for Congress to pick up the baton:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The venom of the haters and their weapons of war… the violence in the words and deeds that stalk our streets, our stores, our schools. This venom, this violence, cannot be the story of our time. We cannot allow that to happen.
      Look, I’m not naive. I know tragedy will come again. It cannot be forever overcome. It cannot be fully understood either.
      But there are certain things we can do. We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. We passed pass the crime bill last time and violence went down. Shootings went down.
      You can’t prevent people from being radicalized to violence but we can address the relentless exploitation of the internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism. We just need to have the courage to do that, to stand up. Biden went on the address the peril he said the US is in, if urgent action is not taken:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The American experiment and democracy is in a danger like it hasn’t been in my lifetime. It’s in a danger this hour.
      Hate and fear are being given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America but who don’t understand America.
      To confront the ideology of hate requires caring about all people, not making distinctions.Joe Biden attacked the “hateful and perverse ideology” behind the Buffalo massacre as he and first lady Jill Biden visited the city and paid tribute to the victims.In an emotional but powerful address to mourners, officials and first responders, the president called on Americans to “enlist” in the fight against racial hatred:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In America, evil will not win. I promise you. Hate will not prevail. White supremacy will not have the last word.
      What happened here is simple and straightforward terrorism, domestic terrorism, violence inflicted in the service of hate, and a vicious thirst for power.
      The media, and politics, the internet, have radicalized angry and lost and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced. That’s the word. Replaced by other people who don’t look like them.
      I call on all Americans to reject the lie, and those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit.Biden condemned years of racially-based attacks across the country..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas and Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta, this week in Dallas, Texas. Now in Buffalo… Buffalo, New York…
      White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison running through our body politic that’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. No more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can, that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America.Joe Biden has just begun his remarks at the scene of the mass shooting in Buffalo that claimed 10 lives on Saturday.“We’ve come to grieve with you,” the president said, after being introduced by first lady Jill Biden.“The feeling like there’s a black hole in your chest, you’re suffocating, you’re unable to breath. The anger, and the pain, the depth of a loss that’s so profound”.Biden is naming the victims one by one, and telling his audience a little about them.He is expected to move on shortly to a call for Congress to tighten gun laws. More