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      Activists surprised and relieved at Manchin’s decision to back climate bill

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      Activists surprised and relieved at Manchin’s decision to back climate billBut the senator’s insistence on more fossil fuel drilling was called a ‘climate suicide pact’ by one expert Climate advocates reacted with surprise and delight to Joe Manchin’s decision to back a sweeping bill to combat the climate crisis, with analysts predicting the legislation will bring the US close to its target of slashing planet-heating emissions.Joe Manchin makes U-turn on tax and climate bill as US edges closer to recession – liveRead moreThe West Virginia senator, who has made millions from his ownership of a coal-trading company, had seemingly thwarted Joe Biden’s hopes of passing meaningful climate legislation – only to reveal on Wednesday his support for a $369bn package to support renewable energy and electric vehicle rollout.The move by the centrist Democrat shocked many of Manchin’s colleagues, who despaired after more than 18 months of seemingly fruitless negotiations with the lawmaker, a crucial vote in an evenly divided Senate.“Holy shit,” tweeted Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota. “Stunned, but in a good way.”Should the bill pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by Biden, it will be the biggest and arguably first piece of climate legislation ever enacted by the US. The world’s largest historical carbon polluter has repeatedly failed to act on the climate crisis due to missed opportunities, staunch Republican opposition and the machinations of the fossil fuel lobby.The climate spending, part of a broader bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, “has the potential to be a historic turning point” said Al Gore, the former vice-president.“It represents the single largest investment in climate solutions and environmental justice in US history. Decades of tireless work by climate advocates across the country led to this moment.”The bulk of the bill includes hefty tax credits to unleash clean energy projects such as wind and solar as well as a rebate of up to $7,500 for Americans who want to buy new electric vehicles. There is $9bn to retrofit houses to make them more energy efficient, tax credits for heat pumps and rooftop solar and a $27bn “clean energy technology accelerator” to help deploy new renewable technology.A further $60bn would go towards environmental justice projects and there is a new program to reduce leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas drilling.“This will be, by far, the biggest climate action in human history,” said Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii. “The planet is on fire. Emissions reductions are the main thing. This is enormous progress. Let’s get it done.”The authors of the bill predict it will cut US emissions by 40% by 2030, based on 2005 levels, a claim guardedly backed by independent experts. Scientists have said global emissions must be halved this decade then zeroed out by 2050 if the world is to avoid catastrophic heatwaves, droughts, floods and other climate impacts. Biden has set US emissions targets along these lines.The bill would “bring clean energy jobs to America and lower energy bills for American families”, tweeted Leah Stokes, a climate policy expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara.“It would get us 80% of the way to President Biden’s climate goal. This is a gamechanger.”However, Manchin has said the legislation “does not arbitrarily shut off our abundant fossil fuels” and has extracted guarantees of new offshore and onshore drilling, including a stipulation that millions more acres of public lands be opened for fossil fuel companies before new solar or wind energy projects can do the same.The West Virginia senator is a keen backer of a large proposed gas pipeline in his home state and has called for greater domestic oil production, citing fears over inflation.The requirement for more drilling leases amounts to a “climate suicide pact”, according to Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.“The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country,” Hartl said, lamenting “a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels”.Should the bill pass, it will almost certainly do so without a single Republican vote, with the party still almost uniformly opposed to any significant action to address the climate crisis or impinge on the fossil fuel industry.Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, said he could not believe that Manchin “is agreeing to a massive tax increase in the name of climate change when our economy is in a recession. I hope that common sense will eventually win the day.”TopicsClimate crisisJoe ManchinUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Six staffers arrested after climate sit-in at Chuck Schumer’s office

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      Six staffers arrested after climate sit-in at Chuck Schumer’s officeOn Monday, 17 people sat in the Senate majority leader’s office to demand he reopen climate negotiations Six staffers were reportedly arrested in Congress on Monday afternoon for staging a sit-in at Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office and protesting about a lack of legislative action on the environment.Biden under pressure to declare climate emergency after Manchin torpedoes billRead moreThe congressional staffers and activists had started the demonstration earlier Monday, with 17 staffers sitting in Schumer’s office to demand that he reopen climate negotiations, according to Saul Levin, a policy adviser for progressive congresswoman Cori Bush.“Right now, we Hill staffers are peacefully protesting Dem leaders INSIDE. To my knowledge, this has never been done,” he wrote.HAPPENING NOW: We’re asking Senator Schumer to negotiate like this is the coldest summer of the rest of our lives (it is). pic.twitter.com/wjXnHfTQqn— Saul (@saaaauuull) July 25, 2022
      Some also protested outside the building.Schumer, Senate majority leader, had been under pressure to negotiate a climate deal, especially after the supreme court struck down a key protection of the Environmental Protection Agency.But Schumer, and Joe Biden’s, efforts to advance climate legislation have been thwarted largely because of the opposition of the Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who has been called a “modern day villain” for his ties to the fossil fuel industry and killing off the president’s environmental proposals.Later in the day the sit-in at Schumer’s office seemed to turn more contentious.A tweet posted by NBC News reporter Julia Jester features a short video purporting to show one of the staff members in handcuffs, explaining why the group jeopardized their careers to take the action.The reporter asked the male staffer what they were demanding of the senior Democrat. He replied: “to reopen negotiations on the climate reconciliation package … and pass climate legislation”.Christian Hall, a congressional reporter for Punchbowl News, also tweeted that Philip Bennet, president of the Congressional Workers Union, had been taken away in handcuffs.Philip Bennet, President of the Congressional Workers Union is among one of the arrested protesters. pic.twitter.com/JG1oNKgHbg— Christian Hall (@christianjhall) July 25, 2022
      The reporter asked why the group had chosen Schumer’s office, and not that of Manchin. (Earlier today, Manchin announced he had tested positive for Covid-19 and was working remotely).The staffer replied cryptically: “Because there’s always going to be a sheep that strays away from the herd.”TopicsChuck SchumerClimate crisisUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      If Biden isn’t willing to really fight the climate crisis, he shouldn’t run in 2024 | Daniel Sherrell

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      If Biden isn’t willing to really fight the climate crisis, he shouldn’t run in 2024Daniel SherrellHis latest climate defeat has affirmed what we’ve long feared: that he just isn’t the man for the moment On Friday, 15 July, Joe Biden acknowledged the death of his signature climate bill, conceding defeat in a war he never truly seemed willing to wage. He did it from a hastily prepared briefing room in Jeddah, where he had spent the previous day shilling for increased Saudi oil production.It was painful to watch. The fossil fuel oligarchs had him right where they wanted him: his climate ambitions foiled, his rhetoric defanged, his hat in his hand. For their part, they had never been under any illusions that they were waging a war. Over the course of his presidency, they had deployed every weapon at their disposal to protect their profit margins from the public’s desire for a dignified life on a habitable planet.Their final blow was delivered on Thursday by US senator Joe Manchin, puppet to the plutocrats, a man capable of patting his grandchildren on the head while selling their future to the highest bidder. With a fickleness bordering on sadism, Manchin killed our last chance at federal climate action for years, effectively completing the corporate capture of our nation’s climate policy.Biden’s failure to prevent this capture has confirmed, with almost eerie precision, the worries that dogged him on the campaign trail. That he was too milquetoast, too norm-bound, too nostalgic for the 1970s. Young people have waited in vain for the administration to evince a fiery, existential urgency around climate, a willingness to start twisting arms and cracking skulls. But Biden has shown himself either unwilling or unable to don the same brass knuckles as his opponents. His latest defeat has affirmed what we’ve long feared: that he just isn’t the man for the moment.There are still ways that he could flip this script. He could declare a climate emergency and leverage the Defense Production Act and the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to circumvent a Congress corrupted by corporate polluters. He could wage rhetorical and political war on Manchin, stripping him of his committee chairmanship, and parading his naked corruption in front of the American people. He could appeal privately to Mitt Romney, perhaps the last Senate Republican with any integrity, who just last month bemoaned our nation’s lack of progress on climate. He could say the truth out loud, at the top of his lungs: that the fossil fuel industry has declared war on the American people. That we are fighting for the soul of our democracy and the future of our planet.If he’s unwilling to do even that, he shouldn’t run for president in 2024. What young voter in their right mind would nominate him again? Why would we trust him to succeed without a congressional majority when he’s failed so abjectly with one? His entire theory of governance will have been disproved: his “decades of experience”, his purported “knowledge of the Senate”, his reputation as a “deal maker” – if he couldn’t land a climate bill, what good were they?Surrounded by a suffocating gauze of Beltway consultants, he made mistake after mistake. He failed to use his bully pulpit to rally the public around the dangers of climate change. He almost never named – let alone declaimed – that those dangers were the direct result of burning oil, coal and natural gas. He held up executive climate regulations and approved fossil fuel projects, miscalculating that it was carrots and not sticks that would win Manchin’s approval. Over the remonstrations of the Squad, he decoupled his own climate agenda from Manchin’s beloved infrastructure package, promising everyone that he could get Manchin’s vote on the former.Was that a lie, or just deeply naive? I’ll still be agonizing over this question in 2024, when I pull the lever for his primary opponent.I want to emphasize that Biden is not the villain here. It is Republicans – and Joe Manchin – who are making the sociopathic choice to further enrich the already-super-rich at the expense of all life on earth. I have no doubt that Biden wants sincerely to address the climate crisis. But presidents are not judged on their intentions. They are judged on their results. And on climate especially, the results of the Biden administration – of the entire, gerontocratic leadership of the Democratic party – have fallen dangerously short of what’s needed.With summer heatwaves intensifying and federal climate legislation wilting, young people are rightfully desperate. There are only so many losses we will accept before taking our chances on a different formula: the charismatic fire of an AOC, the crossover appeal of a John Fetterman, the judicious futurism of a Ro Khanna.Joe Biden may be a “decent man”, as his defenders constantly contend. But what does my generation care about decency, when the planet’s going up in flames? If he really wants a second term in office, he should show us why he deserves one. He needs to realize he’s at war with the oligarchs. And then he needs to start winning.
      Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (Penguin Books) and a climate activist
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      No Republican senator supported a climate plan – where is the party on the issue?

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      No Republican senator supported a climate plan – where is the party on the issue?The party has largely abandoned its past climate denialism, but experts and activists say the ideas Republicans have proposed are insufficient or misguided When Joe Manchin announced an abrupt end to Senate negotiations over major climate legislation last week, activists and even fellow Democrats expressed outrage against the West Virginia lawmaker. Manchin was attacked as a “modern-day villain” who had delivered “nothing short of a death sentence” to a rapidly heating planet.Some Democratic leaders, however, including Joe Biden, have since attempted to redirect that anger toward congressional Republicans instead.“Not a single Republican in Congress stepped up to support my climate plan. Not one,” Biden said, speaking at a coal turned wind power plant in Massachusetts on Wednesday. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency.”Although congressional Republicans have refused to embrace Biden’s policy ideas, the party has largely abandoned its past climate denialism. But climate experts and activists say the ideas Republicans have proposed are insufficient or misguided and fail to address the magnitude and urgency of this crisis.Republicans have not generally been viewed as champions when it comes to combating the climate crisis at the federal level. Donald Trump famously withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement, and his administration rolled back nearly 100 environmental rules during his presidency, eliminating important regulations for the fossil fuel industry.More recently, the conservative-dominated supreme court handed down a decision, in West Virginia v the Environmental Protection Agency, that will severely hamper that government agency’s ability to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.There have, however, been some modest signs of change among Republicans when it comes to climate policy. While it was once quite common to hear Republican lawmakers reject the very idea of climate change, many members of the party are now at least willing to discuss the issue.“I think there’s been a really significant narrative shift over the last five years,” said Quill Robinson, vice-president of government affairs for the American Conservation Coalition, a right-leaning environmental advocacy group. “A lot of elected Republicans and also the broader conservative movement is a lot more comfortable, willing and honestly interested in engaging on this issue of climate change.”Signs of that change are visible in Congress. Last year, Republican congressman John Curtis announced the formation of the Conservative Climate Caucus, which counts more than 70 Republicans as members.The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, has released his own climate platform. The proposal, unveiled last month, outlines how Republicans would work to address environmental and energy issues if they regain control of the House, as they are expected to do after the midterm elections this November.Critics say McCarthy’s platform is a perfect example of Republicans’ failure to grasp the enormity of the climate crisis. The plan calls for increasing domestic fossil fuel production and boosting exports of US natural gas. In the past several months, Republicans’ demands to boost US oil production have grown louder, as the war in Ukraine drives gas prices to record highs.Environmental experts have said that global reliance on fossil fuels needs to be drastically reduced in order to substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions and avoid disastrous climate breakdown. Republicans’ proposals threaten to accelerate this looming calamity, Democrats argue.“This House Republican proposal simply recycles old, bad ideas that amount to little more than handouts to oil companies,” Democrat Frank Pallone, chair of the House energy and commerce committee, said last month. “It is a stunning display of insincerity to admit climate change is a problem but to propose policies that make it worse.”Republicans have also called for taking additional steps to protect American wildlife, but climate activists have again criticized those proposals as too incremental to meet the moment. In contrast, the Biden administration has set a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.Kidus Girma, a spokesperson for the youth-led climate group Sunrise Movement, said even Biden’s policy objectives fall far short of the changes necessary to help protect the planet.“We fundamentally don’t have that timeline,” Girma said of Republicans’ incremental approach. “Emissions cut by 2030 is incrementalism in itself. So I don’t know how much more incremental we could get.”Robinson argued that Democrats’ failure to pass Build Back Better and the supreme court’s decision to limit the EPA’s regulatory power demonstrate the urgent need for bipartisan compromise on this issue – even if the end product falls short of what climate activists have demanded.“You can’t rely on nine justices of the supreme court, one man in the White House, and one single party in Congress to pass durable, lasting climate policy,” Robinson said. “This has to be done on a bipartisan basis in Congress.”TopicsRepublicansClimate crisisUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night?

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      Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night?This shocking documentary series reveals the lies oil lobbyists told to undercut democracy, prevent action against global heating – and bring our planet to the brink Al Gore described it as “in many ways the most serious crime of the post-world war two era, whose consequences are almost unimaginable”. Can you guess which one the former vice-president meant? Genocide in the former Yugoslavia? Genocide in Rwanda? The attack on the twin towers? The oxymoronic “war on terror” that produced – rather than eliminated – terrorism? The nuclear arms race? The invasion of Ukraine? The crimes of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot? Or other ones I haven’t the space to cite?Gore is in fact referring to a very specific moment that occurred on 25 July 1997. That day, the US Senate voted by 95-0 for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, ruling that the US should not sign a climate treaty that would become known as the Kyoto protocol – despite the Clinton administration’s desire for the US to be a world leader in the fight to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It meant that Clinton would only be allowed to take action when developing countries – particularly India and China – were bound by the same strictures.‘What we now know … they lied’: how big oil companies betrayed us allRead moreThe worry, touted by purported experts (many of whom were briefed and funded by US oil companies), was that Kyoto would be a disaster for the US. Imposing strict emission controls on the US – while industrialising nations such as India and China were not similarly constrained – would cost the US upwards of 5,000 jobs, put more than 50 cents on a tank of gas, whack up electricity bills 25% to 50% and put the struggling US economy at a competitive disadvantage in international markets. Or so it was claimed.Jane McMullen’s excellent and shocking first instalment of a three-part series, Big Oil V The World (BBC Two) reveals another reason for senators Robert Byrd and Chuck Hagel’s resolution. For many years, the big oil lobby had poured scorn on the growing scientific orthodoxy that humanity is hurtling towards a climate catastrophe and that the leading reason is the rise in emissions of greenhouse gases.What I didn’t know, and this documentary helpfully explains, is that the US’s largest oil company, Exxon, had labs filled with researchers who had produced detailed reports showing the reality of the climate crisis. That research, though, was suppressed.The bitter irony, clinched by one of the company’s former climate scientists, Ed Garvey, was that Exxon could have been part of the solution rather than the problem. Garvey worked on Exxon’s carbon dioxide research programme from 1978 to 1983, when it was closed because falling gas prices made it seem an expendable luxury.Garvey also recalls that there were scientists at Exxon developing alternatives to fossil fuels such as solar power and lithium batteries. But their work was shelved. The future of the planet, Garvey suggests, was deemed less important than Exxon’s short-term profit.Although the Clinton administration in which Gore served had from the outset committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by 2000, and leaders of industrial nations such as the British prime minister, John Major, called for even deeper cuts, the Senate resolution effectively destroyed the president and his vice-president’s hopes of the US leading the world. Instead, the US, through its inaction, helped hasten the climate catastrophe we now live in.To clinch this rhetorical point, the programme repeatedly cuts from talking heads to scenes more hellish than those imagined by Dante or Milton. Floods in China, a fiery hellscape in California, storms lashing Louisiana and, in one shot, battering an Exxon gas station.After seeing such images, I wonder how Hagel, who sponsored that 1997 Senate resolution and went on to become defence secretary, sleeps at night. He was among the climate crisis deniers this documentary catches up with to hear them repent. Off-screen, the excellent interviewer asks Hagel if he feels he was misled, given that Exxon, whose execs lobbied him before the Senate vote, was making a concerted effort throughout the 1990s to cast doubt on the reality of the climate emergency and the role of human activity in increasing global temperatures – even though their own scientists were telling them that the science was sound.“We now know about some of these large oil companies … they lied,” says Hagel. “Yes I was misled. Others were misled. When they had evidence in their own institutions that countered what they were saying publicly – they lied.” If the truth had been told to Hagel and other climate crisis-denying senators, would the situation be different? “Oh absolutely,” says Hagel. “I think it would have changed the average citizen’s appreciation of climate change and mine. It would have put the United States and the world on a different track. It has cost this country and it’s cost the world.”Last August, the UN secretary general António Guterres said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group’s report confirming the link between human activity and rising greenhouse emissions is “a code red for humanity”. That Senate resolution, McMullen’s film argues, contributed to our climate emergency.No one in this programme explores the hideous political ramifications of this terrible state of affairs, namely that the virus of capitalism (in the form of big oil) undercut democracy through a sustained campaign of disinformation. How easy it proved for corporations to sucker politicians such as Hagel to subvert not just the will of the people but the wellbeing of the planet. If McMullen’s film has a moral, it’s that democracy must be healthy enough to resist commercial lobbying, so that we don’t get fooled again. In 2022, that seems an unlikely scenario.TopicsTelevision & radioTV reviewTelevisionDocumentaryClimate crisisFactual TVOilOil and gas companiesreviewsReuse this content More

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      ‘The world is counting on us’: Biden vows to tackle climate ‘emergency’ – as it happened

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      Biden has concluded his remarks in Massachusetts, where he spoke at the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset that will be turned into a cable manufacturing facility for the offshore wind industry. “This Congress, not withstanding the leadership of that men and women that are here today has, failed in its duty,” Biden said. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government actions for the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that the president possesses.”“Again, it sounds like hyperbole, our children and grandchildren are counting on us,” he continued. “If we don’t keep it below 1.5 degrees centigrade, we lose it all. You don’t get to turn it around. And the world is counting on us.”Declaring “the world is counting on us,” President Joe Biden announced actions to address climate change and blamed Republicans in Congress for not doing their part to keep temperatures from rising to even more disastrous levels. At the Capitol, lawmakers heard an address from Ukraine’s first lady asking for more weapons to fight off the Russians, while senators are weighing a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights.Here are some of the highlights from today:
      A bipartisan group of senators announced a deal on reforming loopholes in the electoral college that Donald Trump tried to exploit in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection.
      Rudy Giuliani, an attorney to Trump, has lost his appeal against a subpoena from a Georgia grand jury.
      Trump called a top Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin recently and pressed him to decertify the results of the 2020 election in the state.
      Rusty Bowers, the speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives who testified before the January 6 committee last month, has been kicked out of the Republican party.
      John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, gave his first interview since suffering a stroke.
      As he described his experience with pollution during the speech in Massachusetts, Biden made a surprising allusion to having cancer, which he hasn’t mentioned in the past.Biden was describing growing up near petroleum refineries, and how his mother would have to use her car’s wipers to get oil off the windshield when the weather would get cold. “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer”, Biden said. At 79 years old, questions about Biden’s fitness to serve as president are not new, and he’s followed his predecessors’ practice in sharing health updates from his doctor. In the most recent summary from November of last year, there was no indication Biden had cancer or any other major health issues. The closest it came was noting that “several localized non-melanoma skin cancers” were removed before he became president.The White House has outlined the steps Biden plans to take to fight climate change, which do not include the emergency declaration some of his Democratic allies have called on him to make.These include the creation of the first-ever Wind Energy Area in the Gulf of Mexico, which would cover 700,000 acres and generate enough electricity for three million homes, as well as steps to spur further wind developments off the Atlantic coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will also spend $2.3 billion on infrastructure to make Americans more resilient to heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and other climate-driven disasters. There are also plans to help people pay for cooling costs.Biden has concluded his remarks in Massachusetts, where he spoke at the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset that will be turned into a cable manufacturing facility for the offshore wind industry. “This Congress, not withstanding the leadership of that men and women that are here today has, failed in its duty,” Biden said. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government actions for the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that the president possesses.”“Again, it sounds like hyperbole, our children and grandchildren are counting on us,” he continued. “If we don’t keep it below 1.5 degrees centigrade, we lose it all. You don’t get to turn it around. And the world is counting on us.”Biden has taken Republicans in Congress to task for failing to pass legislation to fight climate change.“My message today is this: since Congress is not acting as as it should, and these guys here are,” he said, gesturing to Democratic lawmakers in attendance, before continuing, “We’re not getting many Republican votes. This is an emergency, an emergency, and I will look at it that way.”He repeated his pledge to “use my executive power to combat climate crisis in the absence of congressional action.”Republicans have indeed been unreceptive to his administration’s attempts to fight climate change and spur investment in green technology. However, Democrats were hoping to use their dominance in the House and the Senate’s reconciliation procedure to pass some proposals fighting climate change unilaterally – until Joe Manchin said last week he wouldn’t support them.President Joe Biden has started his speech in Massachusetts, where he’s set to announce measures to fight climate change after his legislative agenda to address US emissions stalled.“I come here today with a message,” Biden said as his speech began. “As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger. The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.”The January 6 committee will hold its last scheduled hearing tomorrow, though its investigation continues. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports on the latest development in the Secret Service’s allegedly accidental deletion of text messages from the time of the attack:The Secret Service turned over just one text message to the House January 6 committee on Tuesday, in response to a subpoena compelling the production of all communications from the day before and the day of the US Capitol attack, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The Secret Service told the panel the single text was the only message responsive to the subpoena, the sources said, and while the agency vowed to conduct a forensic search for any other text or phone records, it indicated such messages were likely to prove irrecoverable.House investigators also learned that the texts were seemingly lost as part of an agency-wide reset of phones on 27 January 2021, the sources said – 11 days after Congress first requested the communications and two days after agents were reminded to back up their phones.Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources sayRead moreA bipartisan group of senators has just announced a deal to reform the procedure for counting electoral votes in order to prevent the sort of meddling that former president Donald Trump tried to pull off on January 6.The lawmakers have agreed to two bills that would reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs how electoral votes are counted following a presidential election. Citing ambiguities in the law, Trump and his attorneys pushed his vice president Mike Pence to disrupt the counting of electoral votes that showed he lost the 2020 election, sparking calls for the 135-year-old law to be reformed.“Through numerous meetings and debates among our colleagues as well as conversations with a wide variety of election experts and legal scholars, we have developed legislation that establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President. We urge our colleagues in both parties to support these simple, commonsense reforms,” the group of 16 senators said in a joint statement.The first bill is called the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, and would fix ambiguities in the existing law while clarifying when an incoming administration can access federal resources.The Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act is the second proposal, and would up criminal penalties against people convicted of intimidating or threatening candidates, voters and poll workers, require election records to be preserved, help the US Postal Service deal with mail-in ballots and reauthorize for five years a commission that works with states to improve their voting practices.“The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” warns a new study that looks into the chances of political violence. Ed Pilkington digs into it:One in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances, a new mega-survey has found.A team of medical and public health scientists at the University of California, Davis enlisted the opinions of almost 9,000 people across the country to explore how far willingness to engage in political violence now goes.They discovered that mistrust and alienation from democratic institutions have reached such a peak that substantial minorities of the American people now endorse violence as a means towards political ends. “The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” the scientists warn.A hardcore rump of the US population, the survey recorded – amounting to 3% or by extrapolation 7 million people – believe that political violence is usually or always justified. Almost one in four of the respondents – equivalent to more than 60 million Americans – could conceive of violence being justified “to preserve an American way of life based on western European traditions”.Most alarmingly, 7.1% said they would be willing to kill a person to advance an important political goal. The UC Davis team points out that, extrapolated to US society at large, that is the equivalent of 18 million Americans.One in five US adults condone ‘justified’ political violence, mega-survey findsRead moreJohn Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and Democratic candidate for US Senate, has said he has “nothing to hide” about his health after suffering a stroke, and expressed confidence he can beat the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in a race key to deciding control of the chamber in November.“I would never be in this if we were not absolutely, 100% able to run fully and to win — and we believe that we are,” Fetterman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in his first interview since suffering the stroke in May.The Post-Gazette reports: “Mr Fetterman, 52, said he has ‘no physical limits’, walks four to five miles every day in 90-degree heat, understands words properly and hasn’t lost any of his memory. He struggles with hearing sometimes, he said, and may ‘miss a word’ or ‘slur two together’, but he said it doesn’t happen often and that he’s working with a speech therapist.”Fetterman enjoys consistent poll leads over Oz and has dramatically outraised him, despite Oz attracting the endorsement of Donald Trump.You can read the interview here.Pete Buttigieg fended off a Republican who used a transportation hearing to ask if Joe Biden’s cabinet had discussed using the 25th amendment to remove the president from office, saying: “I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle.”The transportation secretary was appearing in front of the House transportation committee on Tuesday. Amid discussion of policy, the Texas representative Troy Nehls decided to go in a more partisan direction.“We now see the mainstream media questioning President Biden’s mental state, and for good reason,” Nehls said. “Sadly, he shakes hands with ghosts and imaginary people, and he falls off bicycles. Even at the White House Easter celebration, the Easter Bunny had to guide him back into his safe place.”Aides stood behind Nehls, showing blown-up pictures.Biden, 79, fell off his bike in Delaware last month, to considerable glee on the right.He told reporters: “I’m good.”But with the president beset by domestic and international crises, some compared his awkward moment with one in 1979, when Jimmy Carter, who would turn out to be a one-term Democratic president, was attacked by a rabbit while fishing from a boat.Nehls asked: “Have you spoken to cabinet members about implementing the 25th amendment on President Biden?”Buttigieg, a keen cyclist himself, said: “First of all, I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle. And, I will look beyond the insulting nature of that question and make clear to you that the president of the United States …”Nehls interrupted.Buttigieg said, “Of course not,” then said Biden was “as vigorous a colleague or boss as I have ever had the pleasure of working with”.‘Glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle’: Buttigieg dismisses Republican claims about Biden’s healthRead moreWe’re expecting a major speech from Joe Biden soon on his efforts to fight climate change, which Congress lacks the votes to deal with. That doesn’t mean lawmakers aren’t busy; they’ve heard an address from Ukraine’s first lady asking for more weapons to fight off the Russians, and senators are weighing a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights.Here’s what has happened today so far:
      Rudy Giuliani, an attorney to former president Donald Trump, has lost his appeal against a subpoena from a Georgia grand jury.
      Trump called a top Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin recently and pressed him to decertify the results of the 2020 election in the state.
      Rusty Bowers, the speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives who spoke to the January 6 committee last month, has been kicked out of the Republican party.
      Former president Donald Trump’s legal adviser Rudy Giuliani will have to talk to a Georgia grand jury sometime next month after his legal challenge against a subpoena failed, the Associated Press reports.Earlier this month, the grand jury in Fulton county, which includes Atlanta, subpoenaed Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal team as part of their probe into his campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, where voters chose Joe Biden.Giuliani challenged the subpoena, but as the AP reports, he didn’t seem to put much effort into the appeal, failing to show up for a court hearing where he could explain why he shouldn’t have to testify.The grand jury has also summoned Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, who has been challenging his subpoena.Georgia grand jury subpoenas Trump lawyers over effort to overturn electionRead moreGetting the Respect for Marriage Act through the Democratic-led House of Representatives is one thing, but could it pass the Senate? From what reporters on Capitol Hill are saying today, it doesn’t seem impossible.The bill won the votes of all Democrats as well as 47 Republicans when it passed Congress’s lower chamber yesterday. Assuming Democrats unanimously support it in the Senate, it would need the support of 10 Republicans to overcome the inevitable filibuster blocking its passage. According to CNN, several Republican senators have already said they’d vote for it:Thom Tillis, GOP senator from NC, told me he “probably will” support bill to codify same-sex marriage. Bill might get 60 votes, GOP senators say. Vote timing in Senate is unclear.— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
      Thune told me he will take a “hard look” at bill“But if and when (Schumer) brings a bill to the floor we’ll take a hard look at it. As you saw there was pretty good bipartisan support in the House yesterday and I expect there’d probably be the same thing you’d see” in Senate— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
      Asked about some of his fellow Republicans saying a vote on same-sex marriage is just a messaging exercise, Rob Portman told me: It’s an “important message,” and said: “I think this is an issue that many Americans, regardless of political affiliation, feel has been resolved.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
      Congress is working on a lot of bills at the moment as the Democratic majority tries to make the most of the time remaining before November’s midterm elections, in which they could lose control of one or both chambers. Yesterday, Lois Beckett reports that the House passed a measure to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights – which are currently protected by a supreme court ruling that could be overturned:The US House has passed a bill protecting the right to same-sex and interracial marriages, a vote that comes amid concerns that the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade could jeopardize other rights.Forty-seven House Republicans supported the legislation, called the Respect for Marriage Act, including some who have publicly apologized for their past opposition to gay marriage. But more than three-quarters of House Republicans voted against the bill, with some claiming it was a “political charade”.All 220 House Democrats supported the bill, which is expected to be blocked by Republican opposition in a politically divided Senate.US House passes bill to protect right to same-sex and interracial marriageRead more More

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      Biden unveils extreme heat plan – but doesn’t declare climate emergency

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      Biden unveils extreme heat plan – but doesn’t declare climate emergencyInitiatives are aimed at helping salvage the president’s tattered climate agenda after Joe Manchin delivered a major blow last week Facing the disintegration of his climate agenda as ferocious heatwaves hit large parts of the world, Joe Biden has unveiled a new plan to push billions of dollars to US cities and states to help them cope better with extreme heat.The president stopped short, however, of declaring a climate emergency.Biden outlined the new actions in a speech on Wednesday at a former coal plant in Massachusetts, which is now part of an offshore windfarm project.“As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger,” Biden said. “And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger. The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.”02:45The initiatives are aimed at helping salvage the president’s tattered climate agenda, which has endured a torrid month.Last week, Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democratic senator who owns a coal company, appeared to rule out supporting a new clean energy bill, seemingly dooming it in the evenly split Senate.The blow arrived just two weeks after the conservative-dominated supreme court restricted the ability of the federal government to curb emissions from power plants.Biden, speaking from a lectern set up on a rock pile to an audience that included Democratic legislators, said: “Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world. So my message today is this: since Congress is not acting as it should – and these guys here are, but we’re not getting many Republican votes – this is an emergency. An emergency. And I will look at it that way.”Alarm as fastest growing US cities risk becoming unlivable from climate crisisRead moreBiden’s actions include $2.3bn in funding to help communities prepare for heatwaves, droughts and floods, new guidance that allows the federal government to help provide cooling centers and air conditioning, and new planned offshore wind energy leases for the Gulf of Mexico coast.“Right now, there are millions of people suffering from extreme heat at home so my team is also working with the states to deploy $385m right now. For the first time, states will be able to use federal funds to pay for air conditioners in homes, set up community cooling centres in schools where people can get through these extreme heat crises.”The stakes of inaction on the climate crisis have been made starkly apparent this week, with more than 100 million Americans in grip of a dangerous heatwave that has pushed temperatures as high as 115F (46C) in parts of the country.Elsewhere, disastrous wildfires have strafed France, Spain and Portugal, and the UK has endured its first ever recorded day of 40C heat.The White House said the heatwaves showed the climate crisis is a “clear and present danger” to the US.Climate campaigners hoped Biden would declare a climate state of emergency. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said that wouldn’t happen on Wednesday but added that the option is “still on the table”.The lack of such a declaration, or any sweeping ban of oil and gas drilling on public lands, is unlikely to satisfy those who have called for more vigorous action.“Biden must declare a climate emergency, ban crude oil exports and halt new fossil fuel infrastructure, including pipelines and export terminals,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.“The clock is rapidly ticking towards inevitable, irreversible climate catastrophe. There is no more time to lose.”Some Democrats have urged the president to declare a national emergency, which would allow him to block crude oil imports or direct the military to work on renewable energy production.“For too long we have been waiting for a single piece of legislation, and a single Senate vote, to take bold action on our climate crisis,” a group of senators including the leading progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, wrote to Biden this week.“As a result, we urge you to put us on an emergency footing and aggressively use your executive powers to address the climate crisis.”But it is unclear whether such an extraordinary use of presidential powers, normally used in a military context, would survive if challenged in the rightwing-dominated supreme court, or if it would be enough to make a significant dent in planet-heating emissions.“Declaring a climate emergency doesn’t lower any emissions,” conceded Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island. “You have to move on to acting like it’s a climate emergency, and I’m looking forward to those steps.”Biden may take further action this week by directing new regulations to cut pollution from cars, trucks and power plants.But the window of opportunity to avoid disastrous climate change is rapidly closing.Scientists have said the world must slash emissions in half this decade, and phase them out entirely by 2050, if catastrophically worse heatwaves, floods, drought and other climate impacts are to be averted. The US will fall about halfway short of such a goal absent any significant congressional action, even with presidential orders, analysts have forecast.“President Biden cannot do it alone,” said Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association. “We urge Congress to get back to the table and come to a consensus on clean energy provisions that our country so desperately needs.”Biden’s remarks on Wednesday were attended by political allies including John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate; Massachusetts senators Warren and Ed Markey; Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Massachusetts congressmen Jake Auchincloss and Bill Keating.The president promised executive actions in the coming weeks. “When it comes to fighting climate change, I will not take no for an answer. I will do everything in my power to clean our air and water, protect our people’s health, to win the clean energy future.”In an unexpected digression, he also recalled growing up in Claymont, Delaware, near polluting oil refineries. “You had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer.”The White House released a health summary from Biden’s doctor last November that said: “He has had several localized, non-melanoma skin cancers removed with Mohs surgery before he started his presidency.”Climate activists applauded Biden’s pledge to do more to tackle global heating but some lamented the lack of an emergency declaration.“President Biden’s announcements, while welcome, don’t even scratch the surface of what’s needed and what communities suffering most are demanding,” said Collin Rees, US program manager at Oil Change International. “Biden’s climate legacy hangs in the balance – we’re in desperate need of bold leadership, not tinkering around the edges while the world burns.”Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, added: “Young people are tired of receiving scraps from our government. President Biden must immediately declare a climate emergency, and do everything in his executive power to confront the climate crisis.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsExtreme weatherClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden to make Wednesday climate address as dangerous heat grips US and world – as it happened

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      President Joe Biden will outline his next steps to tackle climate change in an address in Somerset, Massachusetts on Wednesday, the White House announced. “The president will deliver remarks on tackling the climate crisis and seizing the opportunity of a clean energy future to create jobs and lower costs for families,” according to a statement.The president may use the trip to declare the national climate emergency The Washington Post reports his administration has been mulling. Reuters quotes a White House official as saying, “We are considering all options and no decision has been made.”President Joe Biden plans an address on climate change tomorrow, where he may announce new executive orders to curb US emissions after his attempts to achieve reductions via legislation stalled in Congress. However, he won’t declare a climate emergency, at least not yet.Here’s what else happened today:
      The January 6 committee will continue with its hearing planned for the Thursday prime-time TV hour despite its chair Bennie Thompson testing positive for Covid-19.
      The second day of Steve Bannon’s trial got underway in Washington.
      The Secret Service has lost for good text messages from 5 and 6 January 2021, when the US Capitol was attacked. The National Archives is demanding an investigation.
      Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska is in Washington for meetings with the Biden administration and an address to Congress on Wednesday.
      Nancy Pelosi’s reported trip to Taiwan has prompted a warning from China.
      There are at least 120 Republicans election deniers running for office, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight.
      A small explosion and fire occurred at Hoover Dam, but was quickly contained.
      Following today’s revelation that the Secret Service deleted text messages from the January 6 attack and the day before, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that National Archives is now demanding an investigation:The US National Archives has asked the Secret Service to conduct an internal investigation over “erased” text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to the agency’s records management officer on Tuesday.The request marks the latest escalation of the matter after the watchdog for the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, notified Congress he had sought the texts only to be told they no longer existed.In the letter sent to the Secret Service records officer, reviewed by the Guardian, the National Archives requested the agency launch an internal review and report within 30 calendar days if it finds any texts were “improperly deleted”.Secret Service told to begin an inquiry into erased January 6 text messagesRead moreJackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic and the subject of the supreme court case that overturned Roe v. Wade last month, has given up its legal battle to continue operating.Reuters reports that the clinic was making a last-ditch legal effort before the state supreme court to get it to halt Mississippi’s almost total ban on abortions, but threw in the towel after the clinic’s owner sold the building. Its fate seemed sealed earlier this month after a judge rejected the clinic’s petition to halt the ban, which went into effect following last month’s ruling by the US supreme court in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Mississippi’s only abortion clinic to close after judge leaves state law in forceRead moreUkraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska is in Washington for meetings at the White House and an address to Congress. As you can see above, she’s already met Joe and Jill Biden.Here’s what Zelenska had to say about the visit after meeting with secretary of state Antony Blinken:Feels strange – not to hear any sirens. At the @FLOTUS invitation, I arrived to the USA to discuss our needs in the fight against the aggressor. It is also the topic of the meeting with @SecBlinken. His position remains the same: independent 🇺🇦 will exist much longer than Putin. pic.twitter.com/dTUA8QtFk9— Олена Зеленська (@ZelenskaUA) July 19, 2022
      Tomorrow, she will address senators and House representatives in the Capitol. In a letter to lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We hope that all Members will take advantage of this important and timely opportunity to hear directly from First Lady Zelenska, to learn more about the terrible toll of the Russian invasion and to express our gratitude to the people of Ukraine for their fight for Democracy.”Meanwhile in Washington, a group of House Democrats was arrested in front of the supreme court after staging a demonstration in support of abortion rights.Multiple members of Congress, including @AOC, being arrested by Capitol Police for blocking traffic outside the Supreme Court in abortion rights demonstration: pic.twitter.com/fysQN1oBAw— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 19, 2022
      Here’s where they’re being corralled. The group also includes the assistant House speaker, Katherine Clark. pic.twitter.com/2jNIRB2WtU— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 19, 2022
      Members arrested:Dean, Velasquez, Lee, Speier, Clark, Jacobs, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Andy Levin, Carolyn Maloney, Adams, Watson Coleman, Escobar, Bush, Schakowsky, Omar & Pressley.w/ @OrianaBeLike https://t.co/pR0b0sve5u— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 19, 2022
      Last week, the Democratic-led House approved legislation that protected abortion access nationwide, after the supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban the procedure. However, there’s no sign the legislation will be able to overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate.House approves legislation to protect abortion access across US Read moreA small explosion and fire broke out but was quickly extinguished at Hoover Dam, which is at the center of the western United States’s massive drought.touring the #hooverdam and heard an explosion #fire pic.twitter.com/1tjWuNWBaZ— Kristy Hairston (@kristynashville) July 19, 2022
      The embankment straddling the Nevada-Arizona border holds back Lake Mead, which has dropped to its lowest level since it was full 20 years ago due to drought and climate change. Reuters reports that the blaze at Hoover Dam had been extinguished before the local fire department arrived. It is unclear if the lake’s low water level played a role in the explosion, but authorities warn that the reservoir could soon hit “dead pool” levels, when water will no longer be able to flow downstream. Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has ended his bid for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 10th congressional district.It’s clear the people of #NY10 are looking for another option and I respect that. Time for me to leave electoral politics and focus on other ways to serve. I am really grateful for all the people I met, the stories I heard and the many good souls who helped out. Thank you all! pic.twitter.com/gpt6V6WLUf— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) July 19, 2022
      De Blasio, who led America’s largest city for eight years and left office with low approval ratings, was trailing in polls to represent the district that includes part of the city in the U.S. House of Representatives.The Secret Service will tell Congress it doesn’t have any new texts to give to the House subcommittee investigating the January 6 insurrection, according to Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig. MORE NEWWWS – @SecretService will tell Congress it doesn’t have any new texts from its agents around Jan 6 attack to provide. Anything not already turned over has been purged. Its gone.— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) July 19, 2022
      The House committee set a deadline for today for the Secret Service to hand over deleted texts that were sent among agents, Donald Trump and Mike Pence on the day before and the day of the riot. Last week, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security notified the committee that texts from those days had been deleted. The explanation from the Secret Service for the deletions have shifted several times, from software upgrades to device replacements. From the Guardian’s senior reporter Nina Lakhani, who reports on climate justice: As attention focuses on the extreme temperatures scorching large swathes of Europe and the US, its worth drawing attention to other parts of the world where dangerous heat and drought have also been causing misery.In Monterrey, Mexico’s third largest city where temperatures above 100F are the norm throughout the summer, residents are enduring a second month of water rationing as three dams which supply households are almost dry. Authorities are turning on taps for only six hours per day, though some residents have gone without any running water for long spells, and are forced to spend hours every day lining up at communal taps. The national water authority has declared a state of emergency across the country because of drought.According to the North American Drought Monitor, 56% of Mexico is experiencing some level of drought with northern states like Nuevo Leon (home to Monterrey), Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila particularly badly due to a combination of La Niña and global heating. Most of the country’s wheat is farmed in this northern belt, which is among three crops (along with maize and rice) that make up almost half the world’s calories. All three grains are vulnerable to extreme heat and drought, in large part because industrialised agriculture favors monocropping over crop diversity.This was a little reported consequence of the punishing spring extreme heatwave in India and Pakistan, where more than a billion people faced temperatures from 100 to 122F from late March to the end of June, a period of almost 100 days. As a result, wheat yields dropped by about 15%, compounding the shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Livestock died across the subcontinent.The number of deaths so far attributed directly to the extreme spring heat is surprisingly low, just 90, compared to more than 1100 so far in Spain and Portugal, though this is likely at least partly down to issues with counting and reporting heat deaths. (Recent floods in India and Bangladesh have led to high death tolls, but this could be because such deaths are easier to count.) It’s the monsoon now in India, so temperatures have dropped significantly – it’s only 90F in Delhi today – but the humidity is very high. Humid heat is far more dangerous than dry heat, so the death toll could rise across the Asian subcontinent without anyone paying much attention.Read more about crop scientists in Mexico developing heat and climate resilient wheat varieties here:The race against time to breed a wheat to survive the climate crisisRead moreJoe Biden is not going to declare a climate emergency when he delivers an address on climate change in Somerset, Massachusetts tomorrow, according to the Associated Press. A source told the AP that while Biden is planning to announce steps the White House is taking to address climate change, he will not declare a climate emergency. President Biden is not going to issue an emergency climate declaration this week, according to an @AP source. https://t.co/PWfms6Eq0R— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) July 19, 2022
      Earlier today, the Washington Post reported that Biden was floating the idea of declaring an emergency after senator Joe Manchin effectively blocked a spending package that would have allocated billions toward addressing the climate emergency. Manchin told Democratic leaders last week that he does not support the package, ultimately striking down its chance of passage.It’s day two of Steve Bannon’s federal trial in Washington DC as he faces charges of contempt for Congress, ignoring subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for Bannon has asked the judge to delay the trial by a month so the defense team can figure out what evidence they could offer. The judge, Carl J Nichols, denied his lawyer’s request, but said he may push back the start of opening arguments a day so both teams can organize themselves. Just in: Judge Carl Nichols denies Steve Bannon’s — latest — request to delay trial, this time by a month— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 19, 2022
      Bannon’s trial began yesterday with jury selection. Attorneys have narrowed the pool down to 22 prospective, with a final 12 needed, along with two alternatives.Ohio’s supreme court has struck down the state’s 15 congressional districts, saying they were so distorted in favor of Republicans that they violated the state constitution.In a 4-3 ruling, the court gave the state legislature 30 days to come up with a new map. If the legislature fails to come up with a new plan, a GOP-controlled commission would then have another 30 days. Any new map would be in effect for the 2024 elections. After striking down the initial map Republicans passed earlier this year, the Ohio supreme court declined to intervene again ahead of the state’s primary and block a revised map. The map they struck down Tuesday was that revised plan. The plan creates 10 Republican-leaning districts and five Democratic-leaning districts, the court noted. While all 10 GOP districts are solidly Republican, three of the five Democratic ones are highly competitive, meaning Republicans could win them in a strong year for the party. Projections show Democrats would most likely win four in the state’s congressional delegation, despite winning around 47% of the statewide vote.That split violates a provision in the state constitution that prohibits maps that “unduly favors or disfavors a political party or its incumbents.” Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved adding that language to the state constitution in 2018.“Comparative analyses and other metrics show that the March 2 plan allocates voters in ways that unnecessarily favor the Republican Party by packing Democratic voters into a few dense Democratic-leaning districts, thereby increasing the Republican vote share of the remaining districts,” the court’s majority wrote. “As a result, districts that would otherwise be strongly Democratic-leaning are now competitive or Republican-leaning districts.”The three judges who dissented argued that the majority opinion sought to use a system of proportional representation, which is not required under Ohio’s constitution.Tuesday’s ruling marks the seventh time the Ohio supreme court has struck down congressional and state legislative maps this cycle. Despite all of those rulings, all of the maps struck down passed by lawmakers will be in place for at least the 2022 elections.The Republican judge blocking her party from rigging electoral districtsRead morePresident Joe Biden plans an address on climate change tomorrow, during which he could declare a national climate emergency after his attempts to get legislation lowering America’s carbon emissions through Congress stalled.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      The January 6 committee will continue with its hearing planned for the Thursday prime-time TV hour despite its chair Bennie Thompson testing positive for Covid-19.
      The Secret Service will turn over texts to the January 6 committee that were said to have been deleted.
      Nancy Pelosi’s reported trip to Taiwan has prompted a warning from China.
      There are about 120 Republicans election deniers running for office – at least, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight.
      President Joe Biden will outline his next steps to tackle climate change in an address in Somerset, Massachusetts on Wednesday, the White House announced. “The president will deliver remarks on tackling the climate crisis and seizing the opportunity of a clean energy future to create jobs and lower costs for families,” according to a statement.The president may use the trip to declare the national climate emergency The Washington Post reports his administration has been mulling. Reuters quotes a White House official as saying, “We are considering all options and no decision has been made.”120. That’s the number of Republican candidates who deny the results of the 2020 election and will be on the ballot this fall, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, which notes that may not be the full count.Election denying is most common in House of Representatives and governorship races, and least in secretary of state and Senate contests, according to the analysis. It’s also hard to pin down the degree to which Republican politicians refuse to accept the validity of the results of the last presidential race, since many haven’t made their views known – which FiveThirtyEight concludes means some likely believe baseless theories about the outcome, but are keeping it to themselves.Finally, the analysis finds that election denying is no surefire path to victory. Candidates who rejected the theory have in fact won 54 percent of races against an election denier, versus 36 percent for the deniers themselves. Here’s what FiveThirtyEight has to say about that dynamic:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} In other words, questioning the results of the 2020 election might not be a surefire path to the nomination, but it hasn’t proven to be a dealbreaker for Republican voters, either. That speaks volumes as to the overall direction the Republican Party is moving in. More