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      Kerfuffle after drone carrying sex toy disrupts Albuquerque mayoral event

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      A New Mexico sheriff who is running for mayor of Albuquerque was interrupted at a campaign event by a flying drone with a sex toy attached to it and a man who called him a “tyrant” while swinging his fist.The campaign group for the Bernalillo county sheriff, Manuel Gonzales, said the Democrat was unharmed and “will not be intimidated”.A video posted on Facebook shows Gonzales answering questions from the audience while standing on a stage at an events centre, when the drone bearing the sex toy starts buzzing near the stage.A sheriff’s office report said the owner of the event centre grabbed the device and that a 20-year-old, Kaelan Ashby Dreyer, also tried to grab it.The report said Dreyer then turned his attention to Gonzales, swinging his fist and calling him a tyrant. A deputy wrote that Dreyer punched Gonzales’ hands and was then removed from the event.Gonzales said at a news conference on Wednesday he believed Dreyer was with several companions and spotted someone standing on the other side of a fence who he believes was flying the drone. “It became so distracting from the sound and everything I couldn’t really get my point across,” Gonzales said.Dreyer has been charged with petty misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor resisting, evading or obstructing an officer. According to a deputy in the report, Dreyer said he did not intend to hit Gonzales but was upset at the way the sheriff answered a question and intended to swing his fist through the air.Gonzales suggested on Wednesday that the stunt with the drone might have been sent by the rival campaign of the incumbent mayor, Tim Keller, also a Democrat.Keller’s campaign condemned the stunt as “disruptive, rude and immature” and denied any involvement. “To suggest we were behind it is pathetic and the kind of desperation that has marked Manny’s troubled campaign,” Keller’s campaign manager, Neri Holguin, said.Dreyer denied he was working for Keller’s campaign and said he was not a fan of the incumbent either, the Albuquerque Journal reported. He declined to comment further. More

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      ‘This was not a riot, this was a massacre’: Biden honors victims of 1921 violence – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      4.40pm EDT
      16:40

      ‘This was not a riot, this was a massacre,’ Biden says in Tulsa

      4.29pm EDT
      16:29

      Biden tells Tulsa race massacre survivors: ‘Now your story will be known in full view’

      4.23pm EDT
      16:23

      Biden delivers remarks in Tulsa to commemorate race massacre anniversary

      2.38pm EDT
      14:38

      Biden arrives in Tulsa to meet with race massacre survivors and deliver remarks

      2.04pm EDT
      14:04

      Biden issues proclamation to mark LGBTQ+ Pride Month

      1.41pm EDT
      13:41

      “Tragic and devastating” – WH spox

      Live feed

      Show

      5.22pm EDT
      17:22

      The Biden administration has suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were issued in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
      Just two weeks before Biden was inaugurated, the Trump administration had actioned the right to drill in the expansive, delicate tundra that is home to migrating waterfowl, denning polar bears and herds of Porcupine caribou. The move drew fierce opposition from Alaska Native activists and environmental groups – who lobbied Biden to quickly claw back the 1.5m acre of the refuge that has been opened up to fossil fuel production.
      Here’s more background on the Trump administration’s move:

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      Joe Biden’s speech in Tulsa has now concluded, and that’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Biden delivered remarks in Tulsa to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the city’s race massacre. The president emphasized the importance of acknowledging the lives and livelihoods lost in the massacre, which resulted in the death of at least 300 African Americans and the destruction of 35 blocks of Black real estate. “For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness,” Biden said. “My fellow Americans, this was not a riot, this was a massacre.”
      Biden met with the three living survivors of the massacre before delivering his speech. All three survivors – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle – are over 100 years old. Biden acknowledged them in his remarks, saying, “Now your story will be known in full view.”
      Ahead of the trip, the Biden administration announced a series of initiatives aimed at narrowing the country’s racial wealth gap. The administration pledged to take action to address racial housing discrimination and use its purchasing power to direct an additional $100bn to small disadvantaged business owners.
      Biden will meet tomorrow with Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito to discuss a potential compromise on infrastructure. The meeting comes a week after Republicans outlined their latest offer, which called for spending $928bn on infrastructure over the next eight years, far less than what Biden has proposed.
      Biden issued a proclamation to mark the start of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. “This Pride Month, we recognize the valuable contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals across America, and we reaffirm our commitment to standing in solidarity with LGBTQ+ Americans in their ongoing struggle against discrimination and injustice,” the president said in his proclamation.

      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.09pm EDT

      4.55pm EDT
      16:55

      Joe Biden has just announced that he will tap Kamala Harris to lead the administration’s efforts to strengthen national voting rights.
      Biden described the recent Republican efforts in dozens of states to limit access to the ballot box as “un-American”.
      The president pledged he would “fight like heck with every tool at my disposal” to pass the For the People Act, Democrats’ expansive election reform bill, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
      Biden also appeared to criticize two moderate Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, referencing “two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends”. Manchin has said he opposes the For the People Act.

      4.40pm EDT
      16:40

      ‘This was not a riot, this was a massacre,’ Biden says in Tulsa

      Joe Biden underscored the importance of recognizing the devastating impact that the Tulsa race massacre had on Black lives and livelihoods.
      At least 300 African Americans were killed in the 1921 massacre, and about 35 blocks of Black real estate in the Greenwood neighborhood were destroyed.
      “For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness,” Biden said. “But just because history is silent it doesn’t mean that it did not take place. While darkness can hide much, it erases nothing.”
      The president added, “My fellow Americans, this was not a riot, this was a massacre.”

      Updated
      at 4.47pm EDT

      4.29pm EDT
      16:29

      Biden tells Tulsa race massacre survivors: ‘Now your story will be known in full view’

      Joe Biden noted that he is the first US president to ever visit Tulsa to commemorate the anniversary of the 1921 race massacre that killed at least three hundred African Americans.
      “The events we speak of today took place 100 years ago – and yet I’m the first president in 100 years ever to come to Tulsa,” Biden said, emphasizing the need to “acknowledge the truth of what took place here”.

      CBS News
      (@CBSNews)
      President Biden addresses three survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre: “You are the three known remaining survivors of a story seen in the mirror dimly. But no longer. Now, your story will be known in full view.” https://t.co/0kXzNfudf0 pic.twitter.com/ESpeEFGbel

      June 1, 2021

      The president specifically acknowledged the three living massacre survivors with whom he met today – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle.
      “You are the three known remaining survivors of a story seen in the mirror dimly – but no longer,” Biden said. “Now your story will be known in full view.”

      Updated
      at 4.49pm EDT

      4.23pm EDT
      16:23

      Biden delivers remarks in Tulsa to commemorate race massacre anniversary

      Joe Biden is now delivering remarks on the 100th anniversary of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
      Before launching into his prepared remarks, the president walked into the audience to speak to two young girls sitting toward the front of the crowd.
      Returning to the mic, Biden explained, “I just had to make sure the two girls got ice cream when this is over.”

      ABC News
      (@ABC)
      Ahead of remarks in Tulsa, Pres. Biden leaves the stage to talk to two young girls in the audience: “I just had to make sure the two girls got ice cream when this is over.” https://t.co/8tsvN79IHC pic.twitter.com/TmCPLPRMf5

      June 1, 2021

      4.03pm EDT
      16:03

      Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the city’s race massacre.
      According to a White House pool report, there are about 200 people in attendance for Biden’s speech, including civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
      The speech comes immediately after Biden met with the three living survivors of the massacre – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle – all of whom are over 100 years old.

      Updated
      at 4.08pm EDT

      3.35pm EDT
      15:35

      Joe Biden is now meeting with the three living survivors of the Tulsa race massacre, according to the latest White House pool report.
      Those survivors are Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle. They are all between the ages of 101 and 107.
      The three survivors testified two weeks ago at a House subcommittee hearing on the need to financially compensate massacre survivors and their descendants.
      “I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home,” Fletcher told House members. “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre every day.”

      3.30pm EDT
      15:30

      Ed Pilkington

      It is one of the extraordinary elements of the 1921 catastrophe that survivors are still alive. Three individuals are active today who as children experienced the horror of white sadism perpetrated on that day.
      The oldest of the trio, Mother Viola Fletcher, just turned 107. At a recent event in Tulsa, she walked unassisted to the podium and recalled what happened to her as a seven-year-old girl.
      “I still remember all the shooting and running,” she said. “People being killed. Crawling and seeing smoke. Seeing airplanes flying, and a messenger going through the neighbourhood telling all the Black people to leave town.”
      Then Fletcher stopped speaking. Even after 100 years, the memories of that day still have the power to overwhelm her.

      3.13pm EDT
      15:13

      Joe Biden is now touring an exhibit on the 1921 race massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

      Karine Jean-Pierre
      (@KJP46)
      .@POTUS touring the Tulsa Race Massacre Exhibit at Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. pic.twitter.com/bKlD5XlJRQ

      June 1, 2021

      The president will soon deliver remarks at the center to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the massacre, which killed at least 300 African Americans. More

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      Biden ‘finishing the job’ my administration started, Obama says

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      Joe Biden is “finishing the job” begun by Barack Obama, the former president told the New York Times in an interview released on Tuesday.“I think that what we’re seeing now, is Joe and the administration are essentially finishing the job,” Obama said. “And I think it’ll be an interesting test.“Ninety per cent of the folks who were there in my administration, they are continuing and building on the policies we talked about, whether it’s the Affordable Care Act or our climate change agenda and the Paris [climate deal], and figuring out how do we improve the ladders to mobility through things like community colleges.”Obama also considered why in 2016, after his eight years in power, so many voters plumped for a hard-right successor in Donald Trump.“It’s hard to just underscore how much the bank bailouts just angered everyone, including me,” Obama said, of the remedy for the 2008 financial crisis he helped lead.“And then you have this long, slow recovery. Although the economy recovers technically quickly, it’s another five years before we’re really back to people feeling like, ‘OK, the economy is moving and working for me.’“… Let’s say a Democrat, a Joe Biden, or Hillary Clinton had immediately succeeded me, and the economy suddenly has 3% unemployment, I think we would have consolidated the sense that, ‘Oh, actually these policies that Obama put in place worked.’“The fact that Trump interrupts essentially the continuation of our policies, but still benefits from the economic stability and growth that we had initiated, means people aren’t sure. Well, gosh, unemployment’s 3.5% under Donald Trump.”Obama also mused about Biden’s much-discussed ability to reach voters, particularly in post-industrial midwestern states, who voted Obama then switched to Trump.“By virtue of biography and generationally,” Obama said, his vice-president, who is 78 and was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, “can still reach some of those folks”.“People knew I was left on issues like race, or gender equality, and LGBTQ issues and so forth,” Obama said. “But I think maybe the reason I was successful campaigning in downstate Illinois, or Iowa, or places like that is they never felt as if I was condemning them for not having gotten to the politically correct answer quick enough, or that somehow they were morally suspect because they had grown up with and believed more traditional values.”In fact Obama famously stirred controversy in 2008 when he said such voters “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”.The New York Times interviewer Ezra Klein did not raise those remarks.Obama continued: “I could go to the fish fry, or the [Veterans of Foreign Wars] hall, or all these other venues, and just talk to people. And they didn’t have any preconceptions about what I believed. They could just take me at face value.”The former president noted the drastic effects on such states of the collapse of local newspapers and the proliferation of misinformation via rightwing and social media.“If I went into those same places now,” Obama said, “or if any Democrat who’s campaigning goes in those places now, almost all news is from either Fox News, Sinclair news stations, talk radio, or some Facebook page. And trying to penetrate that is really difficult.“It’s not that the people in these communities have changed. It’s that if that’s what you are being fed, day in and day out, then you’re going to come to every conversation with a certain set of predispositions that are really hard to break through. And that is one of the biggest challenges I think we face.”According to recent polling, 53% of Republicans – and 25% of Americans – accept Trump’s lie that his defeat by Biden was the result of electoral fraud, while 15% of Americans believe the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that a cabal of child-murdering cannibals controls the US government.“If you have a conversation with folks,” Obama said, “you can usually assuage those fears. But they have to be able to hear you. You have to be able to get into the room. And I still could do that back in 2007, 2008. I think Joe, by virtue of biography and generationally, I think he can still reach some of those folks. But it starts getting harder, particularly for newcomers who are coming up.”Obama also said a successful Biden administration “will have an impact” on a deeply polarised political landscape in which Republican states are restricting voting among communities of color and making it easier to overturn results, while Republicans in Congress block a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.“Does [success for Biden] override that sort of identity politics that has come to dominate Twitter, and the media, and that has seeped into how people think about politics?” Obama asked. “Probably not completely. But at the margins, if you’re changing 5% of the electorate, that makes a difference.” More

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      Ex-Senate majority leader Harry Reid on UFOs: ‘We’re at the infancy of it’

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      Former US Senate majority leader Harry Reid may be retired from Congress, but he still has ideas on how lawmakers should study unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.A report detailing US military encounters with UFOs requested by the Senate intelligence committee is due to be released in June, (although it may be delayed). However, the findings should not be seen as the end of the current investigations into UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), he said.“Congress should make this an ongoing program. I don’t think the report is going to tell us too much. I think they need to study it more and not just have one shot at it,” Reid told the Guardian.The former Democratic senator from Nevada has long been fascinated by UFOs and has been increasingly more vocal on the subject since his retirement in 2017.In 2007, Reid joined his colleagues Senators Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, and Daniel Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, to invest $22m in a clandestine Pentagon operation that would be called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The program investigated military reports of UFOs and other inexplicable aerial objects. It was shut down in 2012.“They had many sightings, hundreds and hundreds of these sightings. I didn’t know if it would be 20 or 40 – I was stunned – it was hundreds of them,” Reid said.AATIP was the predecessor to the current Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, which is expected to release its findings shortly.The US is enjoying an exponential surge in interest – and rapid shedding of taboos – regarding taking UFOs seriously. With scientists and high-profile politicians weighing in on the conversation – including former President Barack Obama, Reid’s efforts are now more fully appreciated. He compares the current era with that of the Wright Brothers and the beginnings of modern air travel.“I believe it’s just as if we were starting airplanes. Airplanes were not understood very quickly. There’s so much to learn. Technologically, everything today is happening quickly. UFOs fascinate people who are pilots, physicists, because they can’t understand how these UFOS have no vapor trail, no lights on them, yet they can go so fast, so quickly. If it was under the technology we have today it would kill the pilots. We’re at the infancy of it,” he said.When asked about the role of private sector companies and space travel, he expressed admiration for entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, who the former senator said he has met “several times”.“We’ve not talked about UFOs because the last time I met with him we weren’t even talking about UFOs and now we are,” Reid said, leaving the door open for that conversation with the tech mogul.“The work that Musk has done is really breathtaking and how it has influenced the public forum today … people are fascinated by what he’s doing. We have these spaceships going up and coming back, he fixes them up … sends them back up,” he said referring to SpaceX’s successful launches of reusable rockets.Reid also expressed optimism that there are people alive now who may live to see much more commonly available space travel in their lifetimes.“There’s every indication that there’s going to be a lot more space travel, they’ll have colonies on the moon and we’ll have room beyond that,” he said. More

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      Texas Democrats’ late-night walkout scuppers Republican efforts to restrict voting rights

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      Texas Republican have failed in their efforts to push through one of the most restrictive voting measures in the US after Democrats walked out of the House at the last minute, leaving the bill languishing ahead of a midnight deadline.The exodus came at the instruction of Chris Turner, the House Democratic chairman, who told colleagues at 10.35pm to “take your key and leave the chamber discreetly”, referring to the key that locks the voting mechanism on their desks, the Washington Post reported.Democrat state representative Jessica González said after the walkout: “We decided to come together and say we weren’t going to take it.” She said she objected to the bill’s content and the way it was crafted with no input from her party. “We needed to be part of the process. Cutting us out completely – I mean this law will affect every single voter in Texas.”Fellow Democrat Carl Sherman said: “We’ve said for so many years that we want more people to participate in our democracy. And it just seems that’s not the case.”Governor Greg Abbott said the failure of the legislation was “deeply disappointing and concerning” but vowed to bring it back at a special session at an unspecified date.Republicans showed restraint in criticising Democrats for the move. Republican state representative Briscoe Cain, who carried the bill in the House, said: “I am disappointed that some members decided to break quorum. We all know what that meant. I understand why they were doing it, but we all took an oath to Texans that we would be here to do our jobs.”Less than 24 hours earlier, the bill seemed all but guaranteed to reach Abbott’s desk. The bill had passed in the Senate on party lines around 6am on Sunday, after eight hours of questioning by Democrats who had virtually no path to stop it. However, a Democrat walkout prevented a quorum in the House.In closed-door negotiations, Republicans added language to Senate Bill 7 that could make it easier for a judge to overturn an election. They also pushed back the start of Sunday voting, when many Black churchgoers go to the polls. The measure would also eliminate drive-thru voting and 24-hour polling centers, both of which Harris county, a Democratic stronghold, introduced last year.Critics say such measures suppress turnout among minorities likely to vote Democratic. On Sunday morning Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a member of Democratic leadership in the US House, called SB7 “shameful”.“Republicans clearly in Texas and throughout the country want to make it harder to vote and easier to steal an election,” he told CNN’s State of the Union. “That’s the only way that I can interpret the voter suppression epidemic that we see working its way from Georgia to Arizona to Texas and all across the country.”At a press conference held by the Texas Democratic party, national figures including former congressman Beto O’Rourke, former housing secretary Julián Castro and his brother Joaquin Castro, a serving congressman, sought to raise the alarm.“This is gonna make it harder for the average Texan to get out and cast their ballot whether they’re Republican or Democrat,” said Julián Castro. “But it is clearly aimed at people of colour, at Black and Hispanic Texas.“The Republican party is running scared because they know that this state is changing. Senate Bill 7 is an attempt by the Republican party to hold on to their power at the expense of everybody else. And we can’t let it stand.”Michael McCaul, a senior US House Republican from Texas, told CNN he thought the law “may be more of an optics issue, restoring confidence with the American people. In my state you actually do believe that there was tremendous fraud.”There was not. Texas has only one pending voter fraud case arising from the 2020 election. Nonetheless it is the last big battleground in Republican efforts to tighten voting laws, driven by Donald Trump’s lie that the presidential election was stolen. Joe Biden on Saturday compared the Texas bill to election changes in Georgia and Arizona, as “an assault on democracy”.Since Trump’s defeat, at least 14 states have enacted restrictive voting laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. It has counted nearly 400 bills nationwide.The vote in the Texas Senate came a short time after a final version of the bill was made public. Republicans suspended rules that normally prohibit taking a vote on a bill that has not been posted for 24 hours. Democrats protested.The bill would empower partisan poll watchers by allowing more access to polling places and threatening criminal penalties against officials who restrict their movement. Another provision allows a judge to void an election outcome if the number of fraudulent votes could change the result, regardless of whether it was proved that fraud affected the outcome.Election officials would face penalties including felony charges for sending mail voting applications to people who did not request one. The Texas District and County Attorneys Association counted at least 16 new, expanded or enhanced crimes.Republicans are also moving to prohibit Sunday voting before 1pm, which critics call an attack on “souls to the polls”, a get-out-the-vote tactic used by Black congregations nationwide and dating back to the civil rights movement. Asked why Sunday voting couldn’t begin sooner, Texas Republican Bryan Hughes said: “Election workers want to go to church too.”Colin Allred, a US representative from Dallas, told the press conference Sunday was “one of the darkest days” for democracy in America. “This isn’t legislation,” he said. “It’s discrimination.”Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader in the US Senate, has said he will bring the For the People Act, a federal measure to protect voting rights, to the floor next month. But it has little chance of beating the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome the Republican minority. More

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      Texas Democrats say Republican voting bill marks ‘dark day for democracy’

      by

      Texas Democrats called Sunday “one of the darkest days” for American democracy, after Republicans pushed one of the most restrictive voting measures in the US to the cusp of law, rushing the bill through the state Senate in the middle of the night.Senate Bill 7 was passed on party lines around 6am, after eight hours of questioning by Democrats who had virtually no path to stop it. It was due to receive a vote in the House later on Sunday before reaching Governor Greg Abbott, who was expected to sign it.In closed-door negotiations, Republicans added language that could make it easier for a judge to overturn an election. They also pushed back the start of Sunday voting, when many Black churchgoers go to the polls. The measure would also eliminate drive-thru voting and 24-hour polling centers, both of which Harris county, a Democratic stronghold, introduced last year.Critics say such measures suppress turnout among minorities likely to vote Democratic. On Sunday morning Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a member of Democratic leadership in the US House, called SB7 “shameful”.“Republicans clearly in Texas and throughout the country want to make it harder to vote and easier to steal an election,” he told CNN’s State of the Union. “That’s the only way that I can interpret the voter suppression epidemic that we see working its way from Georgia to Arizona to Texas and all across the country.”At a press conference held by the Texas Democratic party, national figures including former congressman Beto O’Rourke, former housing secretary Julián Castro and his brother Joaquin Castro, a serving congressman, sought to raise the alarm.“This is gonna make it harder for the average Texan to get out and cast their ballot whether they’re Republican or Democrat,” said Julián Castro. “But it is clearly aimed at people of colour, at Black and Hispanic Texas.“The Republican party is running scared because they know that this state is changing. Senate Bill 7 is an attempt by the Republican party to hold on to their power at the expense of everybody else. And we can’t let it stand.”Michael McCaul, a senior US House Republican from Texas, told CNN he thought the law “may be more of an optics issue, restoring confidence with the American people. In my state you actually do believe that there was tremendous fraud.”There was not. Texas has only one pending voter fraud case arising from the 2020 election. Nonetheless it is the last big battleground in Republican efforts to tighten voting laws, driven by Donald Trump’s lie that the presidential election was stolen. Joe Biden on Saturday compared the Texas bill to election changes in Georgia and Arizona, as “an assault on democracy”.Since Trump’s defeat, at least 14 states have enacted restrictive voting laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. It has counted nearly 400 bills nationwide.The vote in the Texas Senate came a short time after a final version of the bill was made public. Republicans suspended rules that normally prohibit taking a vote on a bill that has not been posted for 24 hours. Democrats protested.The bill would empower partisan poll watchers by allowing more access to polling places and threatening criminal penalties against officials who restrict their movement. Another provision allows a judge to void an election outcome if the number of fraudulent votes could change the result, regardless of whether it was proved that fraud affected the outcome.Election officials would face penalties including felony charges for sending mail voting applications to people who did not request one. The Texas District and County Attorneys Association counted at least 16 new, expanded or enhanced crimes.Republicans are also moving to prohibit Sunday voting before 1pm, which critics call an attack on “souls to the polls”, a get-out-the-vote tactic used by Black congregations nationwide and dating back to the civil rights movement. Asked why Sunday voting couldn’t begin sooner, Texas Republican Bryan Hughes said: “Election workers want to go to church too.”State representative Nicole Collier, chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, was one of three Democrats picked to negotiate the final bill. None signed it. She said she saw a draft around 11pm on Friday which was different than one received earlier and was asked to sign the next morning.Colin Allred, a US representative from Dallas, told the press conference Sunday was “one of the darkest days” for democracy in America.“This isn’t legislation,” he said. “It’s discrimination.”Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader in the US Senate, has said he will bring the For the People Act, a federal measure to protect voting rights, to the floor next month. But it has little chance of beating the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome the Republican minority.In an emotional appeal in support of the For the People Act, O’Rourke cited the example of civil rights legislation under President Lyndon Johnson, a Texan, in the 1960s.Calling the new federal bill “a Voting Rights Act for our day”, he said passing it would “protect the sanctity of the ballot box and make sure that no state legislature can keep us from voting. So I hope after this good fight is fought in Texas, that we direct all of our energy and all of our focus on our friends in Washington DC, who like they did in 1965 can save American democracy.”With centrist Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona opposed to filibuster reform, that seems unlikely. More

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      ‘Real compromise’ possible on Biden infrastructure plan, key Republican says

      by

      Negotiations with Joe Biden over a potentially massive infrastructure investment package are inching forward even though disagreements remain over the size and scope of such legislation, Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito said on Sunday.“I think we can get to real compromise, absolutely, because we’re both still in the game,” Capito told Fox News Sunday.Capito leads a group of six Republicans in regular contact with Biden and White House aides over a bill the administration wants to move through Congress promptly.The Republicans have proposed $928bn to improve roads, bridges and other traditional infrastructure projects. Much of the funding would come from money already enacted into law for other purposes.The administration’s latest offer in negotiations is for $1.7tn and would include spending on projects that go beyond traditional infrastructure, such as homecare for the elderly.The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, told ABC’s This Week: “There’s movement in the right direction, but a lot of concern … We need to make investments over and above what would have happened anyway.” He also highlighted the need for using the infrastructure bill to address climate change and indicated opposition to shifting Covid-19 relief money to infrastructure accounts.Capito said that following a White House meeting which Republicans viewed as productive, Biden aides stepped away from some ideas Republicans pushed.“We have had some back and forth with the staff that sort of pulled back a little bit but I think we’re smoothing out those edges,” said the West Virginia senator, whose state stands to benefit significantly from infrastructure investment.Republicans continued to balk at raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to help finance the projects.“I’m not going to vote to overturn those,” Capito said when asked about rolling back some tax cuts enacted during the Trump administration.She also held the line against including new funding for projects that go beyond physical infrastructure, saying those could be considered in other measures.Talks are expected to continue this week even though Congress is on a break, with the Senate returning on 7 June. When lawmakers return to Washington, Biden will be under pressure from Democrats to sidestep Republicans if talks do not show signs of significant progress.Buttigieg told CNN’s State of the Union there needed to be a clear direction on the infrastructure bill. “The president keeps saying ‘Inaction is not an option’ and time is not unlimited here,” he said.The New York Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand told CNN: “I think waiting any longer for Republicans to do the right thing is a misstep … I would go forward.”The Senate could use the “reconciliation” process that requires only a simple majority to advance legislation, instead of the usual 60-vote threshold. The Senate is split 50-50 with Vice-President Kamala Harris having the power to break deadlocks.It is not clear if all Democrats would go along with such a process. More