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      JD Vance ‘disrespecting the dead’ with bump stock remarks, Nevada senator says

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      Political ripples from the supreme court’s decision to overturn a Trump White House-era ban on sales of “bump stocks” – a spring-loaded stock that uses recoil to in effect turn a semi-automatic firearm into a machine gun – continued to radiate on Monday when Jacky Rosen took exception to comments on the issue made by his Republican colleague JD Vance.Vance, the Ohio senator and potential vice-presidential pick as Trump seeks a second presidency in November had dismissed efforts by senior Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, to pass legislation banning the devices as “a huge distraction”.Vance went further. “What is the real gun violence problem in this country, and are we legislating in a way that solves fake problems? Or solves real problems?” Vance said, before adding: “My very strong suspicion is that the Schumer legislation is aimed at a PR problem, not something that’s going to meaningfully reduce gun violence in this country.”Rosen, the Democratic senator, hit back, facing re-election this year in politically purple Nevada, the site of the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting that killed 58 and prompted Trump to ban the rapid-fire device.“This is not a fake problem,” she told reporters. “Let him come to Las Vegas. Let him see the memorial for those people who died. Let him talk to those families. It’s not a fake problem. Those families are dead.”Rosen said Las Vegas, the gambling mecca and major source of Nevada’s revenue, had been “changed forever because of what the shooter did, and the bump stocks helped him”. She invited Vance to visit memorials to the victims as well as to talk to first responders. “Shame on him,” Rosen added, visibly enraged. “Shame on him for disrespecting the dead.”In its ruling last week, the conservative majority on the supreme court ruled that the executive branch of government did not have the power to use existing firearms laws to prohibit bump stocks. But the justices allowed legislators to pass new laws banning the accessory.Schumer and other senior Democrats have since said they would quickly move to do so.Outcry from Democrats mounted after Vance reasoned that a bill to ban bump stocks would “end up just inhibiting the rights of law-abiding Americans” and mused about how many people would still have been killed if the heavily armed video poker player Stephen Paddock had not outfitted his armory with the contested devices.“How many people would have been shot alternatively? And you have to ask yourself the question: will anyone actually not choose a bump stock because Chuck Schumer passes a piece of legislation?” Vance said.After Vance made his comments, Schumer retorted: “Talk to the people in Las Vegas who lost loved ones.”The supreme court ruling gives both sides of the gun issue red meat for the election campaign, though it is complicated by the initial ban coming from the Trump White House. Lindsey Graham, the Republican South Carolina senator, told NBC News he will block the Democrats’ measure. And Vance questioned Democrats’ legislative priorities.Chris Murphy, the Democratic Connecticut senator who has championed tougher gun laws after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, said Republicans in his chamber should have no problem voting for the measure banning bump stocks.“Is it good politics to make it easier for potential mass killers to get their hands on machine guns? Probably not,” Murphy said. “The idea is to try to make this attractive to Republicans. And we would be a lot better off if psychopaths couldn’t get their hands on machine guns.”Between Friday – when the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks returned gun control to the top of the national discourse – and Monday, there were 17 mass shootings reported across the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive.Among those was a shooting Saturday in Rochester Hills, Michigan, in which nine people – including two children – were wounded at a city-run splash pad that families frequent to cool off in the summer. Police said the attack was carried out at random by a gunman who later died by suicide.Another shooting on Saturday in Round Rock, Texas, saw 14 people wounded and two killed. There, the shooting erupted after an altercation between two groups of people – the victims were uninvolved bystanders, police said.The non-partisan Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are wounded or killed.There have been at least 230 such shootings reported in the US so far this year, a high rate which has fueled public calls for more substantial gun control but which Congress for the most part has not heeded.
      Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed reporting More

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      Iowa presidential poll may contain warning for Biden’s re-election – but it’s still early – as it happened

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      Donald Trump has a big lead over Joe Biden in Iowa, according to a survey of the state conducted by authoritative pollster Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom.Fifty percent of Iowa voters who responded to the survey say they will vote for Trump, against 32% who say they’ll support Biden, the poll finds, which is not much of a surprise, since Iowa has become increasingly Republican in recent cycles.The former president’s big lead could nonetheless be a bad sign for Biden’s support in other midwestern states he must win in order to secure a second term. While Iowa is not considered a swing state, there has in the past been some correlation between Trump’s lead there, and his support in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – all states that Biden is targeting to win.Trump’s 18-point lead in Iowa could signal a significant loss in support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest, but there is a big caveat: we are still a ways away from the November election, and though Selzer is considered the best pollster in the Hawkeye state, there’s plenty of time for voters’ sentiments to change.Are the voters who could matter most in determining the November election souring on Donald Trump over his felony convictions? A newly released poll showed a drop off in support for the former president among independents, who may prove crucial in tipping a race that other polls indicate is currently too close to call. However, the same survey shows a sizable segment of voters wondering whether Trump’s conviction was politically motivated, while a poll of red state Iowa indicates Trump has an 18-point lead, potentially a sign of low support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest. The big caveat with all these polls is that it’s still early, and a lot could change between now and the 5 November vote.Here’s what else happened today:
      Senate Democrats will on Tuesday attempt to pass a bill banning “bump stocks”, which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly. Majority leader Chuck Schumer pleaded with Republicans not to block the legislation.
      The Biden campaign is spending big to remind voters of Trump’s felony conviction ahead of next week’s presidential debate.
      Tim Scott, the Republican senator and potential vice-presidential pick for Trump, said he stood behind his decision to certify Biden’s 2020 election win.
      The Mountain Valley Pipeline is in operation, after overcoming years of protests and lawsuits by activists concerned about the natural gas conduit’s effect on the climate and environment.
      Joe Biden may on Tuesday announce a new program to shield from deportation undocumented spouses of US citizens.
      Immigration advocates are cautiously optimistic Joe Biden will unveil a new program on Tuesday that would shield from deportation the undocumented spouses of US citizens in what some say will be the largest relief program since Daca.Biden is expected to make the announcement on Tuesday during an event marking the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which shields from deportation nearly 530,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.On a call with reporters, advocates said they were still waiting for the formal announcement, but felt confident Biden would deliver the relief many have sought for so many years.Among those who will be listening closely on Tuesday is Ashley de Azevedo, the president of American Families United. She met her husband, Sergio, an immigrant from Brazil, on a train to New York City. When they married in 2012, she assumed he would be eligible for a green card. But under US law, he would have to return to Brazil for 10 years before he could apply for permanent residency because he had entered the US illegally.“The system doesn’t work like it does in the movies,” Azevedo told reporters. “You don’t marry an American and automatically get a green card. There are laws in place that make it impossible for so many.”The expected announcement will come after Biden moved forward with an aggressive asylum crackdown that infuriated immigration advocacy groups and some Latino leaders, who compared the action to Trump-era border policies.“A positive, effective announcement like the one we expect tomorrow can be a game changer for many of the voters in our communities who need to see the bright line, clear contract between the parties on immigration,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of the pro-immigration group, America’s Voice.It could also help Biden win back support among Hispanic voters, as polling shows Trump making significant inroads with this key constituency.“We anticipate that immigrants and Latino voters will express their gratitude at the ballot box in November, rewarding the president,” said Gustavo Torres, president of CASA in Action.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would attempt to pass legislation to ban “bump stocks”, the device that allows semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly which the supreme court last week allowed to remain available to the public.Schumer said Martin Heinrich, the Democratic senator of New Mexico, will propose the ban, and urged Republicans not to block it.“This week, the Senate will step in to try and fix the chaos the Maga court just unleashed,” Schumer said. “As soon as tomorrow, Democrats will seek passage of a federal ban on bump stocks, and I urge my Republican colleagues not to block Senator Heinrich when he comes to the floor.”Schumer continued:
      Passing a bill banning bump stocks should be the work of five minutes. Most Americans support this step. Poll after poll show that a majority of people, including independents, support restrictions on AR-15 style rifles, which is what ‘bump stocks’ are designed to emulate.
      I understand that the issue of gun safety provokes intense disagreement in Congress, but shouldn’t we all agree that preventing another tragedy like Las Vegas is just plain common sense and a good thing. Banning bump stocks will go a long way to making it harder for murderers to carry out large shootings. So I hope our Republican colleagues join us.
      At her briefing to reporters today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration disagreed with the supreme court’s ruling last week allowing “bump stocks” to remain available, and urged Congress to ban the modifications, as well as assault weapons.The devices allow semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly, and one was used in the 2017 shooting in Las Vegas that killed 60 people.“Weapons of war have no place in our streets,” Jean-Pierre said. “Unfortunately, the court’s ruling strikes down an important, common-sense regulation on devices that convert semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets per minute, also known as bump stocks.”She reiterated that Joe Biden would sign legislation banning bump stocks and assault weapons if Congress passes it. Left unsaid was the fact that Republicans mostly oppose such efforts.“We want to see that happen. And so, this is a legislative priority for this president,” Jean-Pierre said.Here’s more from last week, on the ruling by the supreme court’s conservative supermajority:Donald Trump and Joe Biden are right now scheduled to debate twice before the November election, with their first encounter scheduled for 27 June. Over the weekend, CNN, the host of the first debate, made public their rules for the parlay, the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports:The first US presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump on 27 June will include two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when recognized to speak, CNN said on Saturday.The rules, agreed outside the Commission on Presidential Debates, are designed to reduce fractious interruptions and cross-talk that have often marred TV encounters in recent presidential election cycles.CNN, a division of Warner Bros Discovery, said debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash “will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion” during the 90-minute broadcast from Atlanta.Another Biden-Trump face-off will be hosted by ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis in September. The traditional October debate will not take place as part of the agreement between the two campaigns and television networks that cut out the commission following years of complaints and perceived slights.A big change is coming to the way Oklahoma courts handle the sentencing for domestic violence survivors found guilty of crimes, the Guardian’s Olivia Empson reports:Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, signed Senate Bill 1835 at the end of last month – marking a radical change for incarcerated domestic violence survivors in the state.Also known as Oklahoma’s Survivors Act, the law will be signed into effect on 1 September and will grant hundreds of people who experienced abuse the opportunity to be resentenced with more leniency in what is one of the most extensive reforms to the state’s justice system following years of advocacy.Incarcerated people in Oklahoma, like Shari McDonald and April Wilkens, whose crimes were motivated by domestic violence, can file for resentencing when the law is signed. Going forward, courts can impose lesser sentences under certain circumstances if abuse is substantiated, and survivors can be considered for a lesser prison range than they were initially eligible for.Crucially, the legislation will also ensure that future survivors are not judged so harshly by the justice system for acting in self-defense.Wilkins was 25 years old when she killed her fiance. She alleged he raped, threatened and abused her for years, and that behavior had been happening on the night of the murder. She claims that pulling the trigger had been an act of retaliatory self-defense and never imagined it would be repudiated by the police who arrested her. Over the years, Wilkens had three past protective orders against her fiance and had filed 14 police reports.“What use is a piece of paper, though,” she said, “if you’re dead.”Norcross attended the press conference announcing his own indictment, according to several outlets.Norcross sat front row as the New Jersey attorney general gave additional insight into the corruption charges Norcross and five other defendants face.A powerful Democratic broker from New Jersey has been charged with racketeering, the New Jersey attorney general announced on Monday.George E Norcross III, a former member of the Democratic National Committee, along with five defendants face several corruption charges, according to a 13-count indictment that was unsealed on Monday.Norcross and others allegedly obtained properties throughout the city of Camden, unlawfully collecting millions in tax credits and influencing New Jersey politicians to continue their scheme, NJ.com reported.New Jersey attorney general Matthew J Platkin alleged that Norcross and others had been “running [the] criminal enterprise in this state for at least the last 12 years,” the New York Times reported.“On full display in this indictment is how a group of unelected, private businessmen used their power and influence to get government to aid their criminal enterprise and further its interests,” Platkin added.Read the full NJ.com article here.Read the full Times article here (paywall).Maryland governor Wes Moore signed an executive order Monday morning that pardons more than 175,000 people with marijuana-related convictions.The pardon by Moore is the largest state pardon to date. Moore told the Washington Post that he signed the pardon to coincide with the Juneteenth holiday, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.Historically, Black people are more than three times more likely than white people to be arrested on marijuana-related charges despite similar rates of drug use.“I’m ecstatic that we have a real opportunity with what I’m signing to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said to the Post. “If you want to be able to create inclusive economic growth, it means you have to start removing these barriers that continue to disproportionately sit on communities of colour.”The pardon will not release anyone from prison, the Post reported, but will forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for some 100,000 people.Are the voters who could matter most in determining the November election souring on Donald Trump over his felony convictions? A newly released poll showed a drop off in support for Trump among independents, who may prove crucial in tipping a race that other polls indicate is currently too close to call. However, the same survey shows a sizable segment of voters wondering whether Trump’s conviction was politically motivated, while a poll of Iowa indicates the former president has an 18-point lead in the red state, which could be a sign of low support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest. The big caveat with all these polls is that it’s still early, and lots could change between now and the 5 November election.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      The Biden campaign is spending big to remind voters of Trump’s felony conviction ahead of next week’s presidential debate.
      Tim Scott, the Republican senator and potential vice-presidential pick for Trump, said he stood behind his decision to certify Biden’s 2020 election win.
      The Mountain Valley Pipeline is in operation, after overcoming years of protests and lawsuits by activists concerned about the natural gas conduit’s effect on the climate and environment.
      Reuters reports that lawyers for the president’s son, Hunter Biden, withdrew a motion requesting a new trial after he was convicted on federal gun charges last week.Biden is considering whether to appeal his conviction, and is also scheduled to face trial in September on federal tax charges.Here’s more from last week, when a jury in Delaware returned guilty verdicts on the gun charges:Donald Trump has a big lead over Joe Biden in Iowa, according to a survey of the state conducted by authoritative pollster Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom.Fifty percent of Iowa voters who responded to the survey say they will vote for Trump, against 32% who say they’ll support Biden, the poll finds, which is not much of a surprise, since Iowa has become increasingly Republican in recent cycles.The former president’s big lead could nonetheless be a bad sign for Biden’s support in other midwestern states he must win in order to secure a second term. While Iowa is not considered a swing state, there has in the past been some correlation between Trump’s lead there, and his support in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – all states that Biden is targeting to win.Trump’s 18-point lead in Iowa could signal a significant loss in support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest, but there is a big caveat: we are still a ways away from the November election, and though Selzer is considered the best pollster in the Hawkeye state, there’s plenty of time for voters’ sentiments to change. More

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      Biden ad blitz targets Trump’s criminal conviction in pitch to swing voters

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      Joe Biden is seeking to exploit Donald Trump’s recent felony conviction in a television advertising blitz, amid polling evidence that the presumptive Republican nominee’s criminal status is hurting him with independent voters.A new 30-second advert released on Monday homes in on Trump’s 31 May conviction in a Manhattan court on 34 counts of falsifying documents to conceal the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels, an adult actor, who testified that the pair had sex.The ad – featuring black-and-white courtroom images of Trump – also highlights his losses in two civil court cases, one from the writer E Jean Carroll, who said the former president raped and defamed her, and a $355m fraud ruling against his businesses.“We see Donald Trump for who he is,” the ad’s narrator says. “He’s been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault and he committed financial fraud.“Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s been working,” the narrative continues in a calculated comparison between Trump and his successor in the Oval Office. “This election is between a convicted criminal who is only out for himself and a president who is fighting for you and your family.”The ad will run in key battleground states and is the Biden campaign’s most aggressive commentary yet on Trump’s criminal status after a muted initial response.It is part of a $50m advertising onslaught as the Biden election machine seeks to make Trump’s character a central issue in the run-up to the first scheduled televised debate between the pair on CNN on 27 June.In the immediate aftermath of the verdict – which Trump has appealed – the president appeared to play it down, saying: “There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box.”The apparent change of course follows polling indicators that the conviction may sway potential swing voters, widely deemed crucial in a close race. A fresh poll for Politico shows 21% of independent voters saying it makes them less likely to vote for him in November – a potentially decisive factor in a contest in which opinion surveys have shown the two candidates running neck-and-neck, with Trump leading narrowly in many instances.The poll also recorded 43% of voters as believing that the verdict was intended to help Biden.One of Trump’s leading surrogates, the Florida congressman Byron Donalds, who has been tipped as a potential vice-presidential contender, called on the US supreme court – which has a six-to-three conservative majority, largely because of Trump’s nomination of conservative justices while he was president – to reverse the conviction, despite it having no jurisdiction over state cases.“In New York, the only ability for this to be overturned … is going to be happening two or three years from now,” he told NBC’s Meet The Press.“That’s why what happened in lower Manhattan was to interfere with an election, which is why Speaker [Mike] Johnson, myself included, and many Americans believe the supreme court should step in to this matter.”At a fundraising event in Los Angeles, attended by former president Barack Obama, and actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts, Biden told the comedian Jimmy Kimmel that a Trump victory would result in at least two more conservative justices being appointed to the supreme court, which he said would be “very negative in terms of the rights of individuals”. More

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      Democrat Khanna: Biden is ‘running out of time’ with young voters over Gaza war

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      Progressive California Democrat Ro Khanna warned Sunday that Joe Biden is running out of time to win over young voters opposed to his administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict and that he will not attend Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress next month.In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Representative Khanna said the erosion of support that the US president is seeing among young voters is a “challenge for our party” and the Democrats could be “running out of time” to restore support with “more people dying” in the conflict.“We have to remember the humanitarian stakes,” he said. “Young people want the war to end. But what young people want is a vision, and the president started that with a ceasefire. I hope he can go further. He should call for two states. He should say in his second term, he’s going to convene a peace conference in the Middle East, recognize a Palestinian state without Hamas, work with Egypt, Saudi Arabia on it.”Khanna said he was “not going to sit in a one-way lecture” from the Israeli prime minister during his address to a joint session of Congress, scheduled for 24 July, but “if he wants to come to speak to members of Congress about how to end the war and release hostages, I would be fine doing that.”Khanna echoed congressional colleague Jim Clyburn, who last week said he would also not attend and cited the feud between Netanyahu and Barack Obama over Palestinian statehood and the US pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran.“How he treated President Obama, he should not expect reciprocity,” Khanna said, adding that Netanyahu should be treated with “decorum” by the legislative body. “We’re not going to make a big deal about it,” he added.Khanna called on Biden to put more pressure on Netanyahu regarding a UN-endorsed ceasefire proposal, which is supported by the US and the Arab league.“Benny Ganz is saying prioritize the hostage deal and the peace,” Khanna said, referring to the Israel’s national unity chair Benny Gantz who resigned from Netanyahu’s coalition government. “Netanyahu is saying they want to destroy … all of Hamas, and I don’t think that’s achievable”.Khanna’s comments come as political divisions between progressive and centrist Democrats over Israel and Gaza are being exposed by a key congressional race in the New York suburbs that pits Bernie Sanders-supported progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman against George Latimer, a centrist who was endorsed by Hillary Clinton last week.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe contest between the two Democrat candidates in New York’s 16th district may turn on differing positions on the Israeli action on Gaza, which Sanders has called “ethnic cleansing” and Bowman a “genocide”. Clinton has said US pro-Palestinian protesters “don’t know very much” about the Middle East and that a full ceasefire would “perpetuate the cycle of violence”. More

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      Muted mics, no props: CNN details rules for Biden and Trump debate

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      The first US presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump on 27 June will include two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when recognized to speak, CNN said Saturday.The rules, agreed outside the Commission on Presidential Debates, are designed to reduce fractious interruptions and cross-talk that have often marred TV encounters in recent presidential election cycles.CNN, a division of Warner Bros Discovery, said debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash “will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion” during the 90-minute broadcast from Atlanta.Another Biden-Trump face-off will be hosted by ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis in September. The traditional October debate will not take place as part of the agreement between the two campaigns and television networks that cut out the commission following years of complaints and perceived slights.CNN said both candidates will appear at a uniform podium during the 90-minute debate, podium positions will be determined by a coin flip and candidates will be given a pen, a pad of paper and a bottle of water but cannot use props.“Microphones will be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak,” CNN said.The network also said that during the two commercial breaks, campaign staff will not be permitted to interact with their candidate, and unlike previous debates there will be no studio audience.Biden and Trump, the two oldest candidates ever to run for US president, will be seeking the support of an uncommonly large swathe of undecided voters who may only begin to pay close attention to the contest closer to the 5 November election day.But with polls already narrowing in crucial swing states, the debates come with risks for both candidates with markedly different styles of governance – on a seasoned senator who relies on an extensive staff for policy positions, and a New York developer-turned-reality TV star who shoots from the hip.According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month, Biden is losing support among voters without college degrees, a large group that includes Black people, Hispanic women, young voters and suburban women.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe essence of the argument – Biden accuses his predecessor of being unhinged and a danger to democracy, while Trump accuses Biden of being senile and corrupt – has so far left many voters cool to the prospect of a 2024 rematch between two political candidates who, at 81 and 78, are twice the US median age.According to a campaign memo viewed by Reuters, Biden has three preferred debate topics: abortion rights, the state of democracy and the economy. Trump’s team has indicated that immigration, public safety and inflation are his key issues.The hosting networks will be keen to ensure that the twin debates will run more smoothly than in 2020, when the discussion focused on Trump’s pandemic response and moderator Chris Wallace had to step in to remind the candidates he was asking the questions.The second scheduled debate set for October did not take place due to Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis and his refusal to appear remotely rather than in person. In this election cycle, both candidates have refused to refused to debate rivals for their party’s nomination.CNN said that candidates eligible to participate must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls.It said it was “not impossible” that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, could still qualify, saying he has received at least 15% in three qualifying polls to date and has qualified for the ballot in six states, making him eligible for 89 electoral college votes.The Kennedy campaign said Saturday that its polling showed he was now in second place alongside Biden in Utah, but behind Trump, and that he outpaces Biden and Trump among independents nationally.Reuters contributed to this story More

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      Democrats agree Biden had to act on immigration – but they’re split over his asylum order

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      Democratic mayors, governors and members of Congress from the south-west to the north-east stood beside Joe Biden at the White House, when he unveiled an executive order temporarily sealing the US-Mexico border to most asylum seekers – the most restrictive immigration policy of his presidency.“We must face a simple truth,” the US president said. “To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now.”Those around him agreed, applauding the directive as a welcome, if belated, step. Yet for many Democrats not in attendance, the moment marked an astonishing retreat from just four years ago, when the president campaigned on dismantling the incendiary immigration policies of Donald Trump.Most Democrats accept that Biden had to do something to address an issue that has become one of his biggest political vulnerabilities. But the party, once united in furious opposition to Trump’s asylum clampdown, now finds itself divided over his course of action, split on both the substance of the policy and the wisdom politics.Biden is once again campaigning for the presidency against Trump, but the political climate has changed demonstrably.Unprecedented levels of migration at the south-west border, fueled by poverty, political upheaval, climate change and violence and amplified by incendiary Republican rhetoric, have rattled Americans. Polls show border security is a top – sometimes the top – concern among US voters this election season.The action, designed to deter illegal border crossings, was an attempt by the Biden administration to confront those concerns. But it also invited unwelcome comparisons to his predecessor, whose policies he was accused of “reviving” in a legal challenge brought last week by the American Civil Liberties Union.“It violates fundamental American values of who we say we are – and puts people in danger,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of America’s Voice, an immigration advocacy organization. “It’s part of a trap that the Democrats are falling into – they’re buying the narrative the right is pushing on immigration.”For three years, Republicans have accused Biden of ignoring mounting concern over the south-west border, which they falsely claim is under “invasion”. But as the humanitarian situation has worsened, he has also been confronted by criticism from Democratic mayors and governors pleading for more federal help managing the record number of people arriving in their cities and states, especially during peaks in 2022 and 2023.Biden moved to act unilaterally after Republicans blocked – at Trump’s behest – an attempt to pass a bipartisan bill to restrict asylum. Congress also rejected a multibillion-dollar budget request from the White House for additional resources to manage the situation, raising questions about how authorities will enforce the new rule.Supporters of Biden’s latest policy, including border-state and swing-state Democrats, say the action will deter illegal immigration by encouraging people to seek asylum in an “orderly” manner at legal ports of entry. Even if the rule is blocked by the courts, they are ready to make the case to voters that Biden took decisive action when Republicans would not.“We all want order at the border,” said New York representative Tom Suozzi, a Democrat who flipped a House seat in a special election earlier this year after campaigning on more border security. “The American people want us to deal with immigration.”But progressives, immigration-rights advocates and some Hispanic leaders say that the new order not only suspends long-standing guarantees that anyone who reaches US soil has the right to seek asylum, it undermines American values. The president’s embrace of punitive policies, they argue, risks losing the support of key parts of his coalition.Biden knew the order would infuriate corners of his party – he addressed them directly in his White House remarks earlier this month, saying the goodwill of the American people was “wearing thin”.“Doing nothing is not an option,” he said. “We have to act.”But advocates and progressives say he can do more to protect undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for decades, some for nearly their entire lives.They are urging Biden to use his bully pulpit to move the immigration fight beyond the border by using his presidential authority to shield more immigrants from deportation and create avenues for them to work legally. The White House is reportedly considering a future action that would protect undocumented spouses of American citizens from deportation.Last week the Biden campaign released a new ad marking the 12th anniversary of Daca – the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program established by the Obama White House in 2012 – as the Democrat runs for re-election and looks for ways to shore up support from Latino voters.The program provides temporary work permits and reprieves from deportation for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, people brought without permission to the US as children.In the “Spanglish” ad, Dreamers tout a recent move by the Biden administration to extend health care coverage to Daca recipients while warning that Trump has threatened to end the program.“Ultimately, Congress needs to act to reform our immigration system,” Cárdenas said. “But until then, we need Biden doing everything he can to show that he still believes what he promised he would do when he came into office.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s policy, which took effect immediately, seeks to deter illegal immigration by temporarily blocking people who cross the US border outside lawful ports of entry from claiming asylum, with some exceptions. The order lifts when daily arrests for illegal crossing from Mexico fall to 1,500 per day across a seven-day average. The last time crossings fell below that threshold was in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic halted migration.The number of illegal border crossings has fallen in recent months, due in part to stepped-up Mexican enforcement and seasonal trends. But officials say the level is still elevated, and worry the trend could reverse as the weather cools and a new Mexican president takes power weeks before the November election.Despite its failure, the bipartisan border security deal, negotiated with the blessing of the White House, underscored just how far to the right the immigration debate in Washington has shifted.The legislation included a wishlist of Republican border security demands aimed at keeping people out. Absent were any long-sought Democratic aspirations of expanding pathways to citizenship and work visas for the millions of undocumented people living in the US. Instead, Democrats tied the border deal to a foreign aid package opposed by conservatives.“That changed the contours of what had been a widely understood immigration framework,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, immigration policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, adding: “I’m not sure what the consensus or compromise border solution is anymore.”On the campaign trail, Democrats hope to capitalize on Republican resistance to the border deal by casting Trump as unserious about addressing illegal immigration at the border, his signature issue. But it may prove difficult for Biden to make inroads on what has long been one of the country’s most polarizing political issues.Polls consistently show deep public disapproval of how Biden has handled the border, with voters giving Trump, who has also faced sharp criticism for his immigration plans, a wide advantage.A CBS News poll found broad public support for the president’s executive order, including among Republicans, but they also believed illegal border crossings were more likely to fall under Trump than Biden.And a new Monmouth University poll last week found Biden’s standing practically unchanged by the action, with roughly half of Americans – 46% – saying it did not go far enough, compared with 31% who said it was about right. Just 17% said the order went too far.On Wednesday, a coalition of immigrant-advocacy groups led by the ACLU sued the Biden administration over the directive.“By enacting an asylum ban that is legally indistinguishable from the Trump ban we successfully blocked, we were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU.The administration anticipated legal challenges. “We stand by the legality of what we have done,” the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said in a Sunday interview with ABC, adding that he would have preferred for Congress to act.Last week, a group of 18 progressive members of Congress sent a letter to Mayorkas asking the administration to reconsider the asylum rule on the grounds that it “puts asylum seekers at grave risk of unlawful removal and return to harm”.Despite their disappointment, Biden’s Democratic critics say Trump – who has said undocumented immigrants “poison the blood of our country” and is planning a sweeping mass-deportation campaign in a potential second term – would be far more dangerous.“The more American voters focus on the anti-immigrant, extremist policies that the right is pushing, the more they’re going to reject that vision,” Cárdenas said. But, she added: “Americans want to know, what’s the plan? What’s the strategy? What’s the vision? And I think it will serve Biden and Democrats better if they have an answer to the question of what it is they are for.” More

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      How the US supreme court could be a key election issue: ‘They’ve grown too powerful’

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      “Look at me, look at me,” said Martha-Ann Alito. “I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you.”It was a bizarre outburst from the wife of a justice on America’s highest court. Secretly recorded by a liberal activist, Martha-Ann Alito complained about a neighbour’s gay pride flag and expressed a desire to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag in protest.This, along with audio clips of Justice Samuel Alito himself and a stream of ethics violations, have deepened public concerns that the supreme court is playing by its own rules. The Democratic representative Jamie Raskin has described a “national clamour over this crisis of legitimacy” at the court.A poll last month for the progressive advocacy organisation Stand Up America suggests that the supreme court will now play a crucial role in voters’ choices in the 2024 election. Nearly three in four voters said the selection and confirmation of justices will be an important consideration for them in voting for both president and senator in November.Reed Galen, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a pro-democracy group, said: “The idea that these guys act as if they are kings ruling from above, to me, should absolutely be an issue. It was always Republicans who said we hate unelected judges legislating from the bench and we hate judicial activism. That’s all this stuff is.”View image in fullscreenPublic trust in the court is at an all-time low amid concerns over bias and corruption. Alito has rejected demands that he recuse himself from a case considering presidential immunity after flags similar to those carried by 6 January 2021 rioters flew over his homes in Virginia and New Jersey. Justice Clarence Thomas has ignored calls to step aside because of the role his wife, Ginni, played in supporting efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020.Ethical standards have been under scrutiny following revelations that some justices failed to report luxury trips, including on private jets, and property deals. Last week Thomas, who has come under criticism for failing to disclose gifts from the businessman and Republican donor Harlan Crow, revised his 2019 form to acknowledge he accepted “food and lodging” at a Bali hotel and at a California club.These controversies have been compounded by historic and hugely divisive decisions. The fall of Roe v Wade, ending the nationwide right to abortion after half a century, was seen by many Democrats as a gamechanger in terms of people making a connection between the court and their everyday lives.There are further signs of the debate moving beyond the Washington bubble. Last week, the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper argued that, since the court’s own ethics code proved toothless, Congress should enact legislation that holds supreme court justices to higher ethical standards. The paper called for the local senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who is chair of the Senate judiciary committee, to hold a hearing on the issue.Maggie Jo Buchanan, managing director of the pressure group Demand Justice, said: “It’s important to keep in mind that, even though debate among members of Congress would lead you to believe that court reform is a polarising issue, it really isn’t. For years we have seen broad bipartisan support for basic supreme court reforms such as ethics.“A broad bipartisan consensus exists that they’ve grown too powerful, that they have too much power over laws and regulations. That’s shared among nearly three-fourths of Americans, including 80% of independents, so the demand is there and this isn’t something where it’s Democrats versus Republicans in the sense of real people. The American people want change and want to check the judiciary.”Congressional Democrats have introduced various bills including one to create an independent ethics office and internal investigations counsel within the supreme court. Broader progressive ideas include expanding the number of seats on the court or limiting the justices to 18-year terms rather than lifetime appointments.But such efforts have been repeatedly thwarted by Republicans, who over decades impressed on their base the importance of the court, ultimately leading to a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees.This week Senate Republicans blocked the ​​Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, legislation that would require the court to adopt a binding code of conduct for all justices, establish procedures to investigate complaints of judicial misconduct and adopt rules to disclose gifts, travel and income received by them that are at least as rigorous as congressional disclosure rules.In response, Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, said its “nearly 2 million members are fired up and ready to continue advocating for supreme court reform – in Congress and at the ballot box”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Galen of the Lincoln Project worries that Democrats lack the necessary aggression to capitalise on the issue. “[Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer and Durbin are not change agents. They consider themselves institutionalists and they continue to call themselves that. They’re in a place where they can’t possibly conceive of something like that. Democrats are just afraid of their own shadow.”That principle might apply to the US president himself. The 81-year-old, who served in the Senate for 36 years, is reluctant to call out justices by name or call for sweeping reforms of the court, although he is making its decision to end the constitutional right to abortion a centrepiece of his campaign.Ed Fallone, an associate law professor at Marquette University Law School said: “I don’t know that Joe Biden is the politician to try and benefit from this issue. Biden has always presented himself as an institutionalist and more of a centrist than many segments of the Democratic party.“There’s a real risk here for Biden because, if he does try to get political advantage from the public’s growing concern about the supreme court, it seems to conflict with his message that we should all respect the court system and the judicial system and the Trump prosecutions and the various legal problems of former Trump advisers. It seems difficult to reconcile telling the public to respect the judicial system with also embracing the idea that the very top of the system is flawed and needs reform.”Fallone added: “You will see other Democrats seize on this issue and start to push it, in particular those who are are going to try to energise the left side of the base, maybe not necessarily for this election, but maybe anticipating Biden might lose and starting already to look ahead to the following election.”Other argue that, competing for voter attention with the cost of living, immigration and other issues, the supreme court will ultimately fade into background noise.Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington DC, said: “The middle of the country, the independents and the swing voters do not care about the supreme court, and I don’t think any effort by Democrats or the media bringing up these things about Alito or Thomas is going to register or motivate those people. It motivates partisans. It doesn’t motivate swing voters on either side.”Read more: The supreme court’s decisions this week
      US supreme court strikes down federal ban on ‘bump stock’ devices for guns
      US supreme court unanimously upholds access to abortion pill mifepristone
      US supreme court sides with Starbucks in union case over fired employees More

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      Justice department won’t pursue criminal contempt charge against Merrick Garland – as it happened

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      The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland.This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.Garland has defended the justice department, saying that officials have done everything they could to provide information to the investigative committees about Hur’s classified documents investigation into Biden.Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland. This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters. On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
      The supreme court has ruled 6-3 in favor of a challenge to a federal ban on gun ‘bump stock’ devices. The vote was 6-3, with liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
      In her dissent against the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks, liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor said: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” She adds that the “majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”
      Joe Biden released a statement in light of the supreme court’s latest decision on bump stocks, saying: “Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation. Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.”
      Vice president Kamala Harris has released the following statement in response to the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks: “Weapons of war have no place on the streets of a civil society… Unfortunately, today’s supreme court ruling strikes down this important, commonsense regulation on devices that convert semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets per minute.”
      Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump.” Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.
      The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces. “The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more,” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.
      March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.” It went on to add: “While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave.”
      That’s it as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Louisiana’s Republican representative Garret Graves will not be running for re-election, he announced on Friday.In a statement, Graves, who has represented the state’s 6th district since 2015, said:
      “After much input from constituents, consultation with supporters, consensus from family, and guidance from the Almighty, it is clear that running for Congress this year does not make sense. It is evident that a run in any temporary district will cause actual permanent damage to Louisiana’s great representation in Congress.”
      Democrats are seizing on Donald Trump’s ‘horrible city’ remark about Milwaukee for ads. Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:US Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings – a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican national convention, where the former president is set to be the party’s presidential nominee this November.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021, to try to stop Joe Biden’s victory over him.Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.For the full story, click here:The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland.This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.Garland has defended the justice department, saying that officials have done everything they could to provide information to the investigative committees about Hur’s classified documents investigation into Biden.March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision on bump stocks, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.”It went on to add:
      “While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave…
      While this decision is egregious, dangerous, and out of touch, we can’t say we’re surprised. The NRA spent $2 million to help place ideological extremists on the bench that have done nothing but bend over backward to serve the gun lobby. The recent audio recordings of the Justices depict exactly what we already knew – that they are extreme, ultra-conservative, partisan, and rely on their own personal beliefs to make decisions rather than settled constitutional jurisprudence.”
      Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator of Massachusetts, has called on Congress to ban bump stocks following the supreme court decision, which she said “enables mass shooters to inflict carnage”.Kamala Harris, who earlier released a statement criticizing the ruling on bump stocks, said the court was “rolling back” on “important progress” to prevent gun violence in America.Republicans and Democrats alike have targeted Wisconsin as a must-win state in November’s poll.Joe Biden won it by a margin of about 21,000 votes in the 2020 election, although Donald Trump challenged some vote tallies in his drive to prove that the election had been “stolen”.Trump scored a narrow win in the state in the 2016 election, a result that played a crucial role in his victory over Hillary Clinton.Milwaukee is on the western shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago and east of the state capital of Madison, and is a minority white, largely industrial city that votes Democratic, with a long history of racial segregation laws against Black residents. African Americans make up almost 39% of the population, with about 20% Hispanic or Latino.In a tacit admission of the potential self-harm inflicted, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, described the reporting of the comment as “total bullshit”.“He never said it like how it’s been falsely characterized as,” Cheung posted on X, insisting that Trump had been referring to crime and election issues.Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings, a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican National Convention.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021.Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.Trump and Biden are running neck and neck in the state, according to numerous polls.The remark calling Milwaukee horrible drew immediate condemnation from Democrats. Republicans – recognising the extent of the possible damage – initially denied the comment had been made, before trying to soften the blow by putting it in various contexts.In a graphic sign of the high stakes, the Democratic election machine swiftly commissioned several billboards to be erected in Milwaukee, the local newspaper the Journal Sentinel reported.One featured picture of Trump next to an image of the X post that broke the story. “TRUMP TO HOUSE REPUBLICANS: ‘Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city’.” it read.The other had the incriminating quote next to a picture of the former president against a red background.Ten billboards are planned to be placed throughout the city in the run-up to the convention to maximise the words’ effect.Here’s how the justices voted in the supreme court’s decision to strike down a federal ban on bump stocks:The ruling was 6-3, with the court’s liberal justices dissenting from the conservative majority’s decision.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump”.Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.
      The far-right Supreme Court continues their unprecedented assault on public safety by reversing the commonsense guidance issued in 2018 by the ATF … Sadly it’s no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out of touch extreme agenda.
      He added that he warned the Trump administration at the time that “the only way to permanently close this loophole is through legislation.” Schumer added:
      Senate Democrats are ready to pass legislation to ban bump stocks but we will need votes from Senate Republicans.
      The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces.“The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more, ” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.
      The ATF has gone rogue in assuming lawmaking authority that it does not have with pistol brace rules, homemade firearms, who a gun dealer is, etc, and they must be reined in. More