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      The Republican party wants to turn America into a theocracy | Robert Reich

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      In a case centering on wrongful-death claims for frozen embryos that were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic, the Alabama supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children” under state law.As a result, several Alabama in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics are ceasing services, afraid to store or destroy any embryos.The underlying issue is whether government can interfere in the most intimate aspects of people’s lives – not only barring people from obtaining IVF services but also forbidding them from entering into gay marriage, utilizing contraception, having out-of-wedlock births, ending their pregnancies, changing their genders, checking out whatever books they want from the library, and worshipping God in whatever way they wish (or not worshipping at all).All these private freedoms are under increasing assault from Republican legislators and judges who want to impose their own morality on everyone else. Republicans are increasingly at war with America’s basic separation of church and state.According to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution, more than half of Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation – either adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21%) or sympathizing with those views (33%).Christian nationalism is also closely linked with authoritarianism. According to the same survey, half of Christian nationalism adherents and nearly four in 10 sympathizers said they support the idea of an authoritarian leader powerful enough to keep these Christian values in society.During an interview at a Turning Point USA event last August, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (a Republican from Georgia) said party leaders need to be more responsive to the base of the party, which she claimed is made up of Christian nationalists.“We need to be the party of nationalism,” she said. “I am a Christian and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”A growing number of evangelical voters view Trump as the second coming of Jesus Christ and see the 2024 election as a battle not only for America’s soul but for the salvation of all mankind. Many of the Trump followers who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021 carried Christian symbols and signs invoking God and Jesus.An influential thinktank close to Trump is developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas into his administration if he returns to power, according to documents obtained by Politico.Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget during his presidential term and remains close to him.Vought, frequently cited as a potential chief of staff in a second Trump White House, has embraced the idea that Christians are under assault and has spoken of policies he might pursue in response.Those policies include banning immigration of non-Christians into the United States, overturning same-sex marriage and barring access to contraception.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a concurring opinion in last week’s Alabama supreme court decision, Alabama’s chief justice, Tom Parker, invoked the prophet Jeremiah, Genesis and the writings of 16th- and 17th-century theologians.“Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,” he wrote. “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”Before joining the court, Parker was a close aide and ally of Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama supreme court who was twice removed from the job – first for dismissing a federal court order to remove an enormous granite monument of the Ten Commandments he had installed in the state judicial building, and then for ordering state judges to defy the US supreme court’s decision affirming gay marriage.So far, the US supreme court has not explicitly based its decisions on scripture, but several of its recent rulings – the Dobbs decision that overruled Roe v Wade, its decision in Kennedy v Bremerton School District on behalf of a public school football coach who led students in Christian prayer, and its decision in Carson v Makin, requiring states to fund private religious schools if they fund any other private schools, even if those religious schools would use public funds for religious instruction and worship – are consistent with Christian nationalism.But Christian nationalism is inconsistent with personal freedom, including the first amendment’s guarantee that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.We can be truly free only if we’re confident we can go about our private lives without being monitored or intruded upon by the government and can practice whatever faith (or lack of faith) we wish regardless of the religious beliefs of others.A society where one set of religious views is imposed on those who disagree with them is not a democracy. It’s a theocracy.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Wisconsin ethics panel calls for felony charges against Trump fundraising group

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      Donald Trump’s legal woes continue in Wisconsin, where the state’s ethics commission has recommended felony charges against Trump’s Save America Joint Fundraising Committee for its alleged role in a plot to bypass campaign finance limits.Trump is already facing 91 felony charges in criminal cases across multiple states related to his political and business dealings. The newest allegations in Wisconsin were first reported on Friday by the news site WisPolitics.The bipartisan ethics commission, which oversees the enforcement of campaign finance and lobbying laws in the state, recommended the charges in connection with a fundraising effort to target the Republican state assembly speaker, Robin Vos, during a 2022 primary challenge.Vos, who is the longest-serving assembly speaker in the state’s history, has been a consistent target of Trump and his allies since refusing to aid Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Wisconsin. Trump personally urged Vos to decertify the Wisconsin election results and, when the speaker said he could not do it under the state’s constitution, released a statement accusing Vos of “working hard to cover up election corruption”.The commission alleges Adam Steen, Vos’s primary challenger, coordinated with state Republican party chapters to evade Wisconsin’s $1,000 limit on individual campaign donations by having individuals funnel earmarked donations through the county parties, which face no limits on campaign spending. The commission found the effort generated more than $40,000 to benefit Vos’s primary opponent.The state representative Janel Brandtjen, a vocal proponent of Trump’s election lies in the Wisconsin legislature, was also implicated in the alleged scheme. Brandtjen allegedly helped coordinate donations earmarked for Steen’s campaign from the Save America committee into multiple Republican party county chapters.Vos survived the primary attempt, but barely. Steen, who earned Trump’s endorsement, lost by a mere 260 votes.Election-denying activists have most recently backed a campaign to recall Vos, which is still gathering petition signatures and has drawn the attention of national figures in the Maga movement, including the conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell. Lindell headlined an event and has promoted the effort on social media, writing that Vos had “blocked our efforts to secure our elections” in a post on the social media site X (formerly Twitter).skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe ethics commission also investigated a $4,000 donation by Lindell to a county party, but did not charge him, citing insufficient evidence the funds were directed to Vos’s primary challenger. More

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      Trump warns of enemies ‘within our country’ to Christian media gathering

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      Donald Trump told a warmly receptive gathering of religious broadcasters on Thursday that “it’s the people from within our country that are more dangerous than the people outside”, in his latest effort to mobilize Christian fundamentalists who have swung dramatically behind him in recent years.Trump’s speech in Nashville, Tennessee, to the National Religious Broadcasters presidential forum gala offered him a chance to pitch himself to hundreds of Christian media figures whose approval – and willingness to carry his message on air – could drive huge turnout in November.“The greatest threat is not from the outside of our country – I really believe it is from within,” said Trump, whose fire-and-brimstone speech focused largely on his political enemies. “It’s the people from within our country that are more dangerous than the people outside.”The former president’s relationship with the religious right has shifted since his unlikely bid for the presidency in 2016, when his campaign was met with deep skepticism from conservative Christian leaders who had initially thrown their support behind Ted Cruz.Trump has since consolidated support among Christian fundamentalists. In 2016, in exchange for the support of prominent conservative pastors, he offered them a direct hand in policymaking through an evangelical advisory board, giving rightwing Christian religious leaders unprecedented access to the White House.“In my first term I fought for Christians harder than any president has ever done before,” said Trump. “And I will fight even harder for Christians with four more years in the White House.”In his speech, Trump promised to create a new taskforce to counter “anti-Christian bias” by investigating “discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America”. He vowed to appoint more conservative judges, reminded the audience of his decision to break with decades of international consensus and move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and assured them a future Trump administration would take particular aim at transgender people – for example, by endorsing policies to restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare.The event brought together key figures in the former president’s coalition, from the president of the Heritage Foundation to the hard-right former head of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Michael Harris.A non-profit and tax-exempt organization, National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) is prohibited from campaigning directly for any candidate for public office, a fact that its president, Troy Miller, mentioned during his opening remarks. Trump was nevertheless the star of the show, with speakers lavishing him with praise in an atmosphere similar to one of his campaign rallies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Appearing on a stage before Donald Trump is like opening for the king himself, George Strait,” said the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, to laughter and applause. “If you do well, everyone will be very nice. If you do poorly, no one will remember anyway.”The event spotlighted the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a “presidential transition project” that envisions reshaping the executive branch to maximize the president’s power. Many fear Trump’s first acts should he win office would be to enact revenge on his political enemies, deport immigrants en masse and roll back legal protections for LGBTQ+ people.It also highlighted the central role that Christian fundamentalism would play in Trump’s second term in office, with Miller declaring: “One of the most dangerous falsehoods spread today is the separation of church and state.” More

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      Nikki Haley battles steep odds and Trump taunts in home state primary

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      Standing before a large crowd outside a waterfront hotel in Georgetown, Nikki Haley confronted the question that many Republicans in her “sweet” home state of South Carolina – and across the country – have asked: why is she still running for president?“I don’t care about a political future. If I did, I would have been out by now,” she said. “I’m doing this for my kids. I’m doing this for your kids and your grandkids.”Haley is the last candidate standing between Donald Trump and the Republican nomination he expects to wrap up within weeks.But her path forward is vanishingly thin, after successive losses to Trump in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, followed by a stinging defeat in Nevada’s non-binding Republican primary in which, despite being the only major candidate on the ballot, Haley finished a distant second to the option labeled “none of these”.On Saturday, she is bracing for another rebuke, this time at the hands of the very Republican voters who once elevated her to the governor’s mansion. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll released this week of likely South Carolina Republican primary voters showed Trump trouncing Haley by a margin of nearly 2 to 1, 63% to 35%.But Haley has made clear that she has no intention of conceding the nomination – not yet anyway.Arguing that Americans deserve better than a general election contest between the 77-year-old former president facing 91 criminal indictments and Joe Biden, the deeply unpopular 81-year-old incumbent cruising to his party’s nomination, Haley is asking supporters to stand behind her long-shot bid.“It’s not normal to pay campaign contributions towards personal court cases. It’s not normal to side with a thug over the allies who’ve worked to protect us,” Haley said in Georgetown, referencing Trump’s latest legal travails and his threat to Nato member states. “None of this is normal, and that’s what we need to have back. Our kids deserve to know what normal feels like again.”There is no precedent for the kind of come-from-behind victory Haley would have to pull off to win her party’s nod. But she has a history of surprising the political establishment.In her first run for public office, Haley, then an accountant, upset a nearly 30-year incumbent to win a seat in the state legislature. Years later, she bested a field of better-known Republicans to win the party’s gubernatorial primary and become the first woman and the first person of color elected governor of South Carolina. She was handily re-elected four years later.A year ago, Haley’s entrance into the presidential race was treated as an afterthought, with polls barely registering her support. But she outlasted Trump’s other rivals, leaving, as she likes to say, just “one fella left” to beat.“You never count Nikki Haley out. You just don’t,” said Dave Wilson, an unaffiliated Republican strategist in South Carolina. “There is always some sort of political trick or maneuver up her sleeve that makes you go, ‘I just never saw that one coming.’”View image in fullscreenHaley’s refusal to drop out and “kiss the ring” – and nearly all of Trump’s former Republican rivals have – has turned her once again into something of a political outsider in a party that once counted her among its brightest rising stars.The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley rose to national prominence as a Tea Party conservative. But as Trump has sought to cast Haley as a “liberal”, Haley has found herself defending her track record of championing rightwing causes, including her support for voter ID laws, tough immigration measures and anti-abortion restrictions.But in the Trump era, loyalty to the former president often matters more than conservative policy positions and on the former, Haley’s record is more complicated.Haley insists she wants nothing from Trump, whose attacks on her have become uglier and more personal the longer she stays in the race. Though she was generally reluctant to criticize Trump for much of the early stages of the campaign, she has sharpened her rhetoric since it became a two-person race. Their intensifying rivalry has all-but quelled speculation that she was gunning for vice-president or a role in his cabinet.“I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him,” Haley said in a speech from Greenville earlier this week, in which she outlined why she wasn’t departing the race.She hammered Trump for being “too chicken” to debate her and for spending “more time in courtrooms than on the campaign trail”. She now frequently criticizes his mental acuity, recalling an episode in which he confused her with the former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi. At one event in South Carolina, her team handed out mental competency tests.Haley said Trump had gotten “meaner and more offensive by the day” accusing him of “trying to bully me and anyone who supports me”. Using his derisive nickname “birdbrain” to refer to her, Trump has claimed that he only selected Haley to be his United Nations ambassador as a political favor to Henry McMaster, a political ally and her second-in-command who became governor when she left the post to serve in his administration.He also questioned her husband’s absence on the campaign trail — “What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone!” (Maj Michael Haley is serving a one-year deployment in Africa with the South Carolina national guard.)Trump’s web of legal cases, related to his role in the January 6 attack on Congress and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, among other charges, has so far only soldered Republicans to his cause. But it remains unclear how voters would react if he is convicted. A judge last week handed him a crushing $355m-plus-interest legal penalty that threatens his personal finances and his business empire, while his campaign relies on donations to cover his mounting legal fees.“What if all of these legal issues take Trump out of contention?” Wilson said. “Or what if all of these legal issues make it clear to voters in later states that there needs to be an alternative?”All of the uncertainty fueled speculation that Haley may be looking ahead, either to the party’s summer convention where she would be an obvious stand-in in the extraordinary event Trump is no longer a viable nominee, or even further down the line to 2028, when she could mount another bid for the White House.View image in fullscreen“Since she became Governor Nikki Haley has always had ambitions to be president,” said Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, who has observed Haley’s political rise from scrappy outsider to UN ambassador.After spending nearly a year warning Republicans that Trump is an electoral loser for the party, Haley’s case for the nomination would be even stronger in 2024 if Biden defeats him, Vinson said. “She’s then the one who looks very smart, and can go, ‘uh-huh, I told you so,’ but in a nice, polite way with a smile on her face.”For now, Vinson said, Haley has little to lose by staying in the race. “As long as she has the money to keep going,” she said, “this is giving her a chance to meet voters in a lot of key states.”Though Haley is wanting in delegates – the coin of the realm in party nomination politics – she is flush with cash. Despite her long odds, well-heeled donors keep giving to her campaign and her allied Super Pac.In January, Haley outraised Trump for the first time, taking in more than $11m compared with his $8.8m. And though Haley insists she is no leader of the anti-Trump resistance, her team has capitalized on donors eager to see her take him on.When Trump threatened that Haley donors would be “permanently barred” from his world, her campaign slapped the phrase on T-shirts. Supporters snapped them up – she boasted earlier this month that her team had already sold 20,000 – while top donors continue to finance her long-shot bid. Her campaign also trolled Trump’s latest fundraising gambit – Trump-branded gold high tops – with an image of a pair of running shoes emblazoned with the Russian flag.Trump and his allies have dismissed Haley as a sideshow, steamrolling her campaign as he moves aggressively to assume control of the Republican National Committee, which is supposed to remain neutral in the presidential primary election.With the RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, widely expected to step down after the South Carolina primary, Trump announced his plans to install his daughter-in-law Lara Trump and his campaign’s senior adviser Chris LaCivita in top leadership roles.View image in fullscreenIn a memo this week, LaCivita argued that the results of the first several contests “sent an unmistaken message: Nikki Haley doesn’t represent Republicans any more than Joe Biden does”. He then predicted that Trump will have accrued enough delegates to sew up the nomination by 19 March at the absolute latest, and probably even earlier.Even with its diminishing odds, Haley’s campaign has served as a welcome reminder for some that orthodox Republicans still exist despite Trump’s best efforts to purge them.The death this week of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison after being jailed by Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin, was a stark reminder of that contrast between Haley’s faith in American alliances and Trump’s isolationism.Trump, whose conciliatory posture toward Putin has long rattled America’s allies, waited days to address Navalny’s death, which Biden and western leaders have blamed on the Kremlin leader. When he did, he compared his legal travails to the circumstances that led to Navany’s imprisonment.“It is a form of Navalny,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall in Greenville this week. “It is a form of communism, of fascism.”Haley by contrast has been unequivocal. “We have to remember Russia is not our friend,” Haley said days earlier, during her own Fox News-sponsored town hall in Columbia. “Donald Trump needs to answer whether he believes Putin is responsible for Navalny.”Haley has also been a strong supporter of Ukraine, unlike Trump, who has whipped his allies on Capitol Hill to oppose funding for the democratic nation as it seeks to repel Russian forces from its territory.But with the Republican base squarely behind the former president, Haley is left to scrounge for votes among a disparate coalition of independents, anti-Trump Republicans and, where permitted, even Democrats like Chris Richardson.Richardson voted against Haley when she ran for governor and when she ran for re-election. But on Saturday he will cast his ballot for the Republican he calls a “patriot” and views, alongside Biden, as a last line of defense for American democracy.“Nikki Haley and I disagree on virtually everything. But the one thing that we agree on is really the most important thing and that’s democracy,” said Richardson, a senior adviser for PrimaryPivot, a group urging Democrats and independents in states where they can participate in the Republican primary to vote for Haley as a way to stop Trump from winning the nomination.According to Richardson, there were 400,000 South Carolinians who voted in the state Democratic primary in 2020 who did not turn out for the party’s contest earlier this month and are therefore eligible to vote in the Republican primary. The group is also targeting voters in Colorado, Michigan and elsewhere.“The way I see it, we have two more votes to stand for democracy. Nikki Haley is one firewall and Joe Biden will be the other,” he said. “But if the firewall of Nikki Haley falls, then obviously it’s all on Joe Biden and I would rather it not come down to that because to me that feels very much like a gamble for democracy.”View image in fullscreenYet the fact remains that Haley cannot win the Republican nomination without winning Republican voters. History – and convention – provides little hope for presidential candidates who lose their home states.Asked in an interview what it would take for Haley to upset Trump in the South Carolina primary, her immediate predecessor, the former governor Mark Sanford, replied: “A meteor strike.”And so Haley will plod ahead. On Sunday, a day after the South Carolina vote, she plans to hold a campaign rally in Troy, Michigan, before beginning a sprint through several of the more than a dozen Super Tuesday states that will vote on 5 March.Hope remains among Haley’s most ardent supporters, who say they’re sticking with her until the end.“She seems like a voice for the future,” said Trish Mooney, a 60-year-old voter from Georgetown. “And it’s about time that we had a strong woman candidate that’s really smart and willing to have the courage to put themselves out there.”George Chidi contributed reporting from Atlanta More

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      Will Trump abandon Ukraine if he wins in November? – podcast

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      Two years ago this weekend, Russia invaded Ukraine. Two weeks ago, Donald Trump admitted that he would encourage Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to the US’s Nato allies, if they did not meet Trump’s demand to ‘pay their fair share’ of Nato funding. He also compared himself to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny when discussing one of his many legal woes. All the while, the military aid package passed by the Senate last week, which includes $60bn for Ukraine, has stalled in the House of Representatives.
      So how worried should the US’s allies be about a second Trump presidency? What happens if the Republican party’s isolationist streak becomes the policy of the entire US? And in the meantime, how can Biden protect Ukraine when Congress refuses to act?
      Jonathan Freedland discusses these questions with Susan Glasser of The New Yorker

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Biden calls ‘disregard’ for reproductive rights in conservative push ‘outrageous’ – as it happened

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      Joe Biden has issued a statement sharply criticizing the Alabama state supreme court’s decision declaring embryos kept for IVF as “children”, and saying that this and other restrictions from the right on reproductive choice are “a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade”.In a first-of-its-kind decision, the Alabama supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children”, allowing two wrongful death suits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The decision has sweeping implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments and could increase criminalization of expectant people, my colleague Adria Walker reported earlier this week.The US president issued a statement from the White House on Thursday afternoon saying: “A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”Biden added: “Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade.” The supreme court, as stacked to the right during Donald Trump’s presidency, in 2022 tossed out the national right to an abortion in the US, almost 50 years after the landmark federal right was granted by a previous court bench.There’s more, see next post.Democrats channeled their outrage over an Alabama supreme court ruling that has curbed IVF care in the state, with Joe Biden’s re-election campaign saying Donald Trump is to blame. Republican strategists are reportedly nervous about the decision targeting the procedure many people rely on to start families, and warn it could blow back on the party ahead of the November elections. Biden has meanwhile found himself in hot water with progressives after reports emerged that he is considering implementing policies to stop migrants from crossing the border with Mexico. The president spent the day in San Francisco, where he met with the wife and daughter of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, and pledged new sanctions against Russian president Vladimir Putin.Here’s what else happened:
      A second Alabama IVF provider paused their treatments after the state supreme court ruling.
      Washington also plans to sanction Iran for selling weapons to Russia, which it has used in its invasion of Ukraine.
      Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, said he has no problem with IVF.
      Byron Donalds, a rightwing Florida congressman, threatened to shut down the government if tougher immigration laws weren’t passed.
      Moscow received a warning from the US government amid reports that it is planning to launch a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon.
      Joe Biden spoke briefly to reporters in San Francisco about his meeting with Alexei Navalny’s family, and said the sanctions he will announce tomorrow will target Vladimir Putin.Biden noted that he blamed the Russian leader for Navalny’s death. Here’s more:Vladimir Putin was none too pleased with comments Joe Biden made about him while in San Francisco, the Guardian’s Pjotr Sauer reports:Vladimir Putin has described as “rude” Joe Biden’s comments in which the American president called the Russian leader a “crazy SOB”.Biden was talking about the climate crisis on Wednesday when he said: “We have a crazy SOB like Putin and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is climate.”On Thursday, after a flight onboard a strategic bomber that is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Putin responded “yes, rude” to a reporter who said Biden had made a rude remark about him.Referring to earlier remarks in which the Russian leader said Biden was a preferable president for Russia than Donald Trump, Putin joked: “It’s not like he can say to me, ‘Volodya, thank you, well done, you’ve helped me a lot’.”He added with a smile: “You asked me which is better for us. I said it then that, and I still think I can repeat it: Biden.”The Kremlin earlier in the day said Biden’s comments were a “disgrace” for the US.“The use of such language against the head of another state by the president of the United States is unlikely to infringe on our president, President Putin,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said. “But it debases those who use such vocabulary.” The remarks were “probably some kind of attempt to look like a Hollywood cowboy”, Peskov added.The Daily Mail reports that protesters demanding Joe Biden support a ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza have entered the hotel where the president is in San Francisco:Biden has repeatedly had his speeches and events interrupted by protesters upset over his administration’s policies towards Israel in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October attack:Joe Biden has released photos of his meeting with Alexei Navalny’s wife and daughter in San Francisco:Joe Biden offered his condolences to the wife and daughter of Russian opposition figure Aleksey Navalny in a meeting today, and pledged stricter sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s government in Moscow, the White House announced:
      President Biden met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya today in San Francisco to express his heartfelt condolences for their terrible loss following the death of Aleksey Navalny in a Russian prison. The President expressed his admiration for Aleksey Navalny’s extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia in which the rule of law applies equally to everyone. The President emphasized that Aleksey’s legacy will carry on through people across Russia and around the world mourning his loss and fighting for freedom, democracy, and human rights. He affirmed that his Administration will announce major new sanctions against Russia tomorrow in response to Aleksey’s death, Russia’s repression and aggression, and its brutal and illegal war in Ukraine.
      The White House is promising to unveil new sanctions on Iran in the coming days in retaliation for its arms sales that have bolstered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and threatening a “swift” and “severe” response if Tehran moves forward with selling ballistic missiles to Moscow, the Associated Press reports.National security council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that the US will be “imposing additional sanctions on Iran in the coming days” for its efforts to supply Russia with drones and other technology for the war against Ukraine.And he issued a new warning to Iran that providing ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Kyiv would be met with even more sanctions and actions at the United Nations.The US has been warning for months of Russia’s efforts to acquire ballistic missiles from Iran in return for providing Tehran with enhanced military cooperation.
      We have not seen any confirmation that missiles have actually moved from Iran to Russia … [but] we have no reason to believe that they will not follow through.”
      He said that if Iran moves forward:
      I can assure you that the response from the international community will be swift and it will be severe.”

      He said the US would take the matter to the UN security council, where Russia has a veto.We will implement additional sanctions against Iran and we will coordinate further response options with our allies and partners in Europe and elsewhere. We have demonstrated our ability to take action in response to the military partnership between Russia and Iran in the past. We will do so in the future. In response to Iran’s ongoing support for Russia’s brutal war. We will be imposing additional sanctions on Iran in the coming days. And we are prepared to go further if Iran sells ballistic missiles to Russia.”
      The US is set to announce a new set of sanctions Friday against Russia.The United States has directly warned Russia against launching a new nuclear armed anti-satellite weapon, a US official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity, Reuters reported.The US official’s comments came two days after a source familiar with the matter told Reuters that the United States believes Russia is developing such a weapon.The detonation of a weapon of this kind, the source said, could disrupt everything from military communications to phone-based ride services.The US official said that Washington had cautioned Russia against launching such a weapon.The Wall Street Journal first reported the warning, saying that the United States told Russia that such a weapon would violate the Outer Space Treaty and jeopardize U.S. national security interests.Earlier, the Biden-Harris re-election campaign issued a statement slamming the Alabama court decision over frozen embryos for IVF. Now there’s more from Joe Biden as he weighs in directly from the White House.Here is the full statement from the US president moments ago:
      Today, in 2024 in America, women are being turned away from emergency rooms and forced to travel hundreds of miles for health care, while doctors fear prosecution for providing an abortion. And now, a court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade.I know that folks are worried about what they’re seeing happening to women all across America. I am too. I hear about it everywhere I go. My message is: The Vice President and I are fighting for your rights. We’re fighting for the freedom of women, for families, and for doctors who care for these women. And we won’t stop until we restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law for all women in every state.”
      Vice-president Kamala Harris is campaigning heavily for reproductive rights and against Republicans’ determined crusade against those right. Harris is visiting Grand Rapids, Michigan, today, where the White House said she will continue her nationwide “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour by convening a roundtable conversation with medical providers, patients, reproductive rights advocates, and state and local leaders. Expect remarks later.Joe Biden has issued a statement sharply criticizing the Alabama state supreme court’s decision declaring embryos kept for IVF as “children”, and saying that this and other restrictions from the right on reproductive choice are “a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade”.In a first-of-its-kind decision, the Alabama supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children”, allowing two wrongful death suits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The decision has sweeping implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments and could increase criminalization of expectant people, my colleague Adria Walker reported earlier this week.The US president issued a statement from the White House on Thursday afternoon saying: “A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”Biden added: “Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade.” The supreme court, as stacked to the right during Donald Trump’s presidency, in 2022 tossed out the national right to an abortion in the US, almost 50 years after the landmark federal right was granted by a previous court bench.There’s more, see next post.Democrats are channeling their outrage over an Alabama supreme court ruling that has curbed IVF care in the state, with Joe Biden’s re-election campaign saying Donald Trump is to blame. Indeed, Republican strategists are nervous about the decision against the procedure many people have used to start families, and warn it could blow back on the party ahead of the November elections. Biden has meanwhile found himself in hot water with progressives after reports emerged that he is considering implementing policies to stop migrants from crossing the border with Mexico. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson, who has repeatedly demanded tougher immigration policies, called Biden’s proposals “election year gimmicks”.Here’s what else is going on:
      A second Alabama IVF provider paused their treatments after the state supreme court ruling.
      Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, said he has no problem with IVF.
      Byron Donalds, a rightwing Florida congressman, threatened to shut down the government if tougher immigration laws weren’t passed.
      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is none too impressed by reports that Joe Biden is considering using his powers under existing law to curb migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico.In a statement, Johnson demanded Biden take tougher actions, such as forcing asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their claims are processed. He also said the reports that the president is wiling to act unilaterally prove that there’s no need for Congress to pass new laws to curb undocumented migrants:
      Americans have lost faith in this President and won’t be fooled by election year gimmicks that don’t actually secure the border. Nor will they forget that the President created this catastrophe and, until now, has refused to use his executive power to fix it.
      These reports also underscore just how brazenly and intentionally President Biden misled the public when he claimed he had done everything in his power to secure the border. Specifically, the President’s alleged desire to invoke Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which the White House dismissed using for months, is particularly telling.
      If these reports are true and the President intends to take action, he can show he’s serious by changing more than asylum policy. He should begin by reinstituting the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and ending his administration’s abuse of the parole system, along with other critical reforms.
      Earlier this month, Johnson and his fellow House Republicans torpedoed a bipartisan Senate deal that would have authorized another round of military assistance to Ukraine as well as Israel, while also imposing hardline immigration policies. Among Johnson’s objections were his belief that Biden didn’t need any new legislation to stop people from entering from Mexico – but Donald Trump also encouraged him to reject the deal, reportedly so he can use frustration with migrants in his campaign.Republican strategists are growing worried the Alabama supreme court’s decision that greatly complicates access to IVF care in the state could harm the party’s candidates nationwide, Politico reports.“It certainly intersects, badly, with general election politics for Republicans,” said Stan Barnes, a former Republican state senator from Arizona who is now a political consultant.“When a state, any state, takes an aggressive action on this particular topic, people are once again made aware of it and many think: ‘Maybe I can’t support a Republican in the general election.’”Former Donald Trump White House official Kellyanne Conway in December shared polling with congressional Republicans that found IVF care to be widely popular, including with evangelicals, a group that is traditionally anti-abortion.“Candidates for Congress – and certainly those already serving there – can bank significant political currency by advocating for increased access to and availability of contraception and fertility treatments,” Conway’s team told lawmakers.According to Politico, “The survey found that 86 percent of all respondents supported access to IVF, with 78 percent support among self-identified ‘pro-life advocates’ and 83 percent among Evangelical Christians.”While he refrained from commenting on the Alabama ruling, Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, said he supported IVF, noting many people “wouldn’t have children if it weren’t for that”.From an interview with Politico:Besides Joe Biden, other Democrats are piling on Alabama’s supreme court for its decision that curbed IVF care by finding embryos are “extrauterine children”.Here’s Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth:And her colleague from Virginia, Tim Kaine:Democrats have campaigned on restoring nationwide abortion access ever since Roe v Wade was overturned two years ago, and voters appear receptive. The party has performed well in special elections and in state legislative races, and limited its losses in Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. More

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      Trump now owes more than $500m. How will he pay?

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      You’re reading the Guardian US’s free Trump on Trial newsletter. To get the latest court developments delivered to your inbox, sign up here.On the docket: Trump’s cash crunchDonald Trump has a lot of major financial decisions to make following Judge Arthur Engoron’s Friday order that he owes more than $350m in penalties in his New York state business fraud case – and the clock is ticking for him to make them.He essentially has two options: pay now, or potentially pay a lot more later.The court gave the former US president 30 days from the verdict, or 17 March, to figure out what to do. But the $350m verdict is only the beginning: Engoron’s decision also ordered Trump to pay additional pre-judgment interest going back as far as when New York attorney general Letitia James began her investigation in March 2019.The attorney general’s office has calculated the interest due so far brings the current total he owes to more than $450m; the statutory 9% annual interest rate will keep accruing at more than $600,000 per week unless Trump puts up the entire amount.Since Trump plans to appeal the verdict, the only ways to pause the interest collection are either to park the full amount in a New York state-controlled escrow account or find a company prepared to help him post a bond that will assure the state he can pay the penalties if his appeals fail – for a hefty fee, of course.It’s unclear if Trump has the cash to post the full amount. Trump said under oath last year that he had roughly $400m in liquid assets, not quite enough to cover what he’d need to put into escrow.As the Guardian US’s Hugo Lowell reported on Monday: “Trump’s preference is to avoid using his own money while he appeals.” But to obtain a bond, Trump would have to find a company willing to do business with him and “would then have to pay a premium to the bond company and offer collateral, probably in the form of his most prized assets”, like his real estate holdings.Trump is also hemmed in by the verdict’s restriction barring his company from applying for a loan from any firm that does business in New York for the next three years, potentially limiting his options to secure the money for that bond.View image in fullscreenAnd don’t forget that this isn’t all he owes in recent court judgments. Trump already put $5.5m into a state-controlled escrow account to cover the first defamation judgment that he owes E Jean Carroll. He owes another $83m to Carroll following a late January federal court ruling that he had defamed her again.Trump has so far declined to say what his plan is. When asked during a Fox News town hall on Wednesday how he plans to pay his legal fines, he instead pivoted to comparing his loss in court to Vladimir Putin’s apparent murder of Alexei Navalny, the Russian strongman’s chief political foe. “It is a form of Navalny,” he remarked, dodging the question.Attorney general James told ABC News on Tuesday that she is prepared to “​​ask the judge to seize his assets” if Trump can’t or won’t pay the amount – including some of his most iconic properties. “Yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day,” she said.It’s unlikely things would get to that point. But while winning the presidency this year could give him power to shut down the federal criminal cases he’s facing, it won’t help him shrug off civil liability in the New York state court.“This is going to stick with him if he does not prevail on an appeal,” Columbia University law professor Eric Talley said.Calendar crunchView image in fullscreenNew York judge Juan Merchan officially set a 25 March start date for Trump’s Stormy Daniels hush money trial last Thursday, positioning it to become Trump’s first criminal case – just weeks after his team expects him to lock up the GOP nomination for president. The trial is expected to last around six weeks, meaning the verdict could arrive sometime in mid-May.The timing of Trump’s three other pending criminal trials are all uncertain, but major developments are expected soon that will give us a much better sense of which, if any, will come to fruition before the election.In Georgia, the election interference criminal trial is in limbo until Judge Scott McAfee rules on whether a potential conflict of interest exists that justifies removing Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from the case because of her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired for the case. Willis, Wade and others testified in court late last week. McAfee may hold one more hearing on this before making a decision, which could come as early as next week.In Washington DC, the criminal trial relating to Trump’s conduct on and before January 6 hinges on the US supreme court’s pending decision on whether to take up his claim of presidential criminal immunity.If they decide to simply allow a lower court ruling against him to stand, the trial could get back on track for late spring. If they decide to consider the issue, the big question is how fast they decide to do so – an expedited schedule could allow enough time for the trial to take place, but if they take their time it would all but kill the trial’s chances.And in Florida, where Trump is facing criminal charges for mishandling national security documents, Judge Aileen Cannon has scheduled a conference on 1 March to determine whether Trump’s defense motions will push back her originally scheduled 20 May trial start date. (It seems likely it will.)skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWill this matter?View image in fullscreenGuardian US opinion columnist Sidney Blumenthal points out that Trump has run his business empire aground in spite of a huge head start: “The hundreds of millions that Fred Trump bestowed on his son could not prevent him from steering the family legacy on to the rocks.”Meanwhile, Guardian US reporter Sam Levine wonders whether Willis can regain control of the Georgia election interference case after the intense scrutiny of her personal life – even if she’s allowed to stay on. “In the court of public opinion, Trump’s defense lawyers may have already won,” he writes. “Like it or not, Willis has moved to the center of the case. It’s unclear whether she’ll be able to successfully leave the witness box and return to the prosecutor’s table.”And Guardian US reporter George Chidi dives into Willis’ court appearances, arguing that the audience she most cares about (besides the judge deciding the case’s fate) are the Atlanta voters who will decide whether to re-elect her this November. “By showing her grief and rage, she humanizes herself before this audience,” he writes, “which is likely to be sympathetic to the horrors of a Black professional’s love life aired like a reality television show before the American public as a Trump defendant’s legal ploy.”Cronies & casualtiesView image in fullscreenA federal judge threatened to hold former Trump aide Peter Navarro in contempt for refusing to obey her order to return presidential records in his possession to the national archives, and gave him until 21 March to supply them. Navarro is having a rough month: he was already sentenced to four months in prison in a separate case for refusing a subpoena to appear in front of the House January 6 committee, and is expected to begin serving that time in the coming weeks after a judge denied his appeal.View image in fullscreenThe US supreme court rejected appeals from seven Trump 2020 campaign attorneys, including Sidney Powell, to pay legal fees and face other sanctions for filing a lawsuit filled with false claims about that election.What’s next?Thursday The deadline for Trump’s team to file pretrial motions in his Florida classified documents case. Trump’s team has telegraphed that it will file a number of suppressive motions that seek to delay the case.Any day now The US supreme court could decide at any time whether or not they’ll take up the lower court ruling that denied Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in his Washington DC criminal trial.As early as next week The supreme court is expected to rule soon on whether the 14th amendment’s insurrection clause allows Colorado to remove Trump from its presidential ballot. During the court’s oral arguments two weeks ago, the justices indicated they’re highly unlikely to allow this to happen.1 March Scheduling conference in the Florida documents case to determine whether the 20 May trial date that Cannon previously scheduled will stick.17 March Deadline for Trump to appeal the civil fraud verdict.25 March New York hush money trial set to start.Have any questions about Trump’s trials? Please send them our way trumpontrial@theguardian.com More

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      Adam Kinzinger: second Trump term could be ‘devastating for world order’

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      A second Donald Trump presidency could spell the end of democracy in America and prove “devastating for the world order”, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican former congressman, has warned in an interview with the Guardian.Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, is vowing retribution against his political enemies in a second-term agenda more radical than his first, including mass deportations and a purge of the justice department. Kinzinger, one of the most prominent Trump critics in America, is sounding the alarm.“The best-case scenario is a completely inept, ineffective government,” he said by phone. “The worst-case scenario is look, in his four-year term, he did not understand what he was doing. He was just trying to survive and he actually listened to people around him until the end. Now he’s going to put people around him that share his views, that will only reaffirm his views and, frankly, some of these people are pretty smart and they know how to work around the constitution or around the law to bring these authoritarian measures in.”He added: “Is it going to be the end of the United States of America? I don’t think so but I’m going to stress: think. But it certainly will set us way back in the progress that we’ve made.”An air force veteran first elected to Congress in 2010, Kinzinger broke from his party after the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. He denounced the then president for inciting “an angry mob” with false claims of voter fraud and was among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him.He was later one of two Republicans, along with Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who joined the House of Representatives committee to investigate the January 6 attack. He also formed a political organisation, Country First, to support candidates who oppose Trump and see him as a threat to the constitution.View image in fullscreenHe announced he would not seek re-election after the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature approved new congressional maps that would have forced Kinzinger and a fellow Republican incumbent – Darin LaHood, a strong supporter of Trump – into a primary matchup.Since his departure House Republicans have become ever more dysfunctional, unproductive and wedded to Trump, who continues to sow distrust in institutions and lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Kinzinger, 45, fears that the ex-president’s return to Washington may signal the beginning of the end of American democracy.“Are we going to have an election four years after Trump? Probably. Is the person who gets the most votes going to win? Probably. But the only thing self-governance needs to survive – you don’t have to agree on jack squat except that you can vote, your vote counts and whoever gets the most votes wins – that’s the only contract you need among Americans.“He’s already convinced 30 to 40% of Americans that the system is rigged and so there’s nothing that makes me think for his four years in office he’s not going to continue to undermine faith in that system. And when that is permanently undermined, democracy’s over. It literally cannot survive that way.”On Sunday Kinzinger is due to speak at the Principles First Summit in Washington, billed as a gathering of more than 700 pro-democracy, anti-Trump conservatives and centrists. It will be taking place at the same time as – and in opposition to – the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), now an annual festival of far-right “Make America great again” (Maga) populism.Kinzinger has never been to CPAC. “It’s like the clown show of ‘conservatism’,” he said. “At the CPAC of old, there would always be some weird people there and now those weird people are the entire Republican party. So maybe I should put on a fake moustache and wander in and see where the party goes.”This year’s lineup of speakers at CPAC includes Trump, the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, ex-housing secretary Ben Carson, former British prime minister Liz Truss and ex-Brexit party leader Nigel Farage.Stefanik is the highest-ranking woman in the Republican congressional conference, one of the first members to endorse Trump for president and a strong contender to be his running mate in the presidential election. Yet the New York congresswoman used to be seen as a moderate.View image in fullscreenKinzinger said: “Elise Stefanik is still a huge surprise and disappointment to me. I knew her prior. I think she legitimately opposed the first impeachment of Trump and she made some speech and Trump praised her and all of a sudden, man, it’s like a hit of heroin. It feels great. I’ve been there, I’ve been where Trump has complimented me and said nice things and it feels great.“She just made the decision at that point to grab on and go and it’s paid off for her. She keeps getting re-elected, she’s being considered for vice-president. I just couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I was her. But from raw political manoeuvring, she’s done a good job.”Another potential running mate – and case study in capitulation – is Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who abandoned his own presidential campaign last year and, in an act that many observers found humiliating, recently told Trump: “I just love you.”Kinzinger reflected: “Tim Scott, of all the people, is the one that really hurts me. I don’t mean that to sound like a gentle feud but I know Tim. I know his heart. He and I were close friends. I know he knows better.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is what kind of breaks my faith a little bit in humanity and, frankly, people that go into politics. I always thought that no matter how much people played the game – and I was good at playing the game – there was always a red line they couldn’t cross. When I saw Tim Scott cross that red line, it really was devastating to me personally.”Scott has downplayed Trump’s myriad legal troubles, which include 91 criminal charges across four jurisdictions, and refused to condemn the former president’s part in the January 6 riot. Stefanik has described the House January 6 panel as “illegitimate and unconstitutional” and echoed Trump’s rhetoric describing people convicted of crimes in the insurrection as “hostages”.Kinzinger is appalled.“I’m convinced that there’s not a single Trump supporter who in 10 years will ever admit they supported Donald Trump. He’s going to be seen eventually as a stain on this country. I don’t think there’s a single one of their kids that will ever be Trump supporters in 10 years. But that said, it means we have to win because if they win and they write the history books, they write the rules, then my prediction will be wrong.”When those history books are written, an important chapter will concern how the party of George HW Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney became the party of Trump, Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Kinzinger – author of Renegade: My Life in Faith, the Military, and Defending America from Trump’s Attack on Democracy – has thoughts.View image in fullscreen“When I got out I could look and say I think this stuff was under the surface. I felt a bit of it but the assumption in my mind was this authoritarian movement, a touch of racism, was the extreme. I always thought it was just in a part of the movement, a part of the party. But Donald Trump’s superpower is he taught people to not have shame and not be embarrassed and not worry about pushback.“That shame layer is what kept the party under wraps. When that was ripped off, you have among the base some of the worst instincts that come out. Leaders, instead of doing what they should do, which is lead people to a better place, are just harvesting that anger and that craziness for money and Donald Trump is the biggest part of that.”“Owning the libs” has become an article of faith for Donald Trump Jr and others in the Maga movement. Kinzinger said: “Now there’s this idea that if you can piss off the liberals and the left – it is a culture war in the depth of it. The left does a lot of stuff that drives me nuts too but, if they can drive the left nuts, that’s what they do.“So why do they love Vladimir Putin? Well, some people truly do but some people just love him because he pisses off the left. That’s no way to govern but it’s a hell of a good way to raise a bunch of money.”Trump’s admiration for Putin, the autocratic ruler of Russia, continues to dismay and disturb. He recently encouraged Russia to attack Nato allies who do not pay their bills, despite Nato’s common defence clause, known as Article 5. He remained silent for days after the death in prison of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.What would another Trump presidency mean for the western alliance? Kinzinger, who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, commented: “Sadly for Ukraine it could easily be the end of Nato. Nato will still exist but the idea that a ‘border incursion’ into Estonia, for instance, would trigger Article 5 – I don’t think you’d see Donald Trump stand up for Estonia at that time and that would be the effective end of Nato because Article 5 is the only thing that holds it together.“Ukraine will continue to fight and Europe has stepped up quite a bit but I don’t foresee a Ukrainian victory, at least under Donald Trump. Now, it’s possible that if Ukraine is facing a loss under Donald Trump’s watch that maybe he turns around; I’m not gonna say that could never happen. But it would be very devastating for the world order as we know it.” More