House of Representatives

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Bill de Blasio Knows He Isn’t Loved

      by

      New York’s former mayor is running for Congress in a newly drawn district, where distaste for him is epic. He’s sure he can change that.A few days after Bill de Blasio announced that he was running for Congress — a comparatively humble ambition when you think about his attempt at the presidency and his flirtation with the idea that he might govern the state of New York — I sat down for breakfast with him, mostly to ask: Why?We were in a nearly empty diner in Park Slope, where the former mayor has lived since the early 1990s and where theoretically affections for him should run high. Not too long into our conversation, a guy who appeared to be in his 30s, wearing a knit cap, walked passed a few feet away and took out his phone to get a picture. It seemed as if he was about to voice admiration or maybe ask for a photo. Instead he looked directly at Mr. de Blasio, informing him that he was “the worst mayor New York has ever had.”The moment all too perfectly distilled the problem that Mr. de Blasio faces: He seems to have little understanding of how he is perceived, even in a neighborhood he knows intimately, where he once served on the local school board and the City Council. But in fact, he has every understanding.“When it comes to being unpopular, I’m unfortunately somewhat of an expert,” he wrote in an essay earlier this month. The man who served two terms as the mayor of the nation’s biggest city, proudly indifferent to what you thought of him, now wants you to know that the bubble of City Hall was oppressive, that he found it hard to be his authentic self and that, as he put it to me, “the person you’re seeing right now is the person I am.”The person I was seeing was lighthearted and amiable. Bill de Blasio 2.0 is a rapid-response politician, a man seemingly engaged in self-reflection and comfortable with regret. Could we talk about his latest political gambit? “Sure,” he quickly wrote back, when I got in touch. We could meet in person — in fact that was his preference — and we could share a meal. Subsequent texts included exclamation points.While a journalist and a political candidate sitting down to egg-white omelets is not ordinarily noteworthy, the previous version of Bill de Blasio, the one we last checked in with at the end of the year when he was polling behind even the disgraced Andrew Cuomo, was as likely to offer himself to the press as Anna Wintour would be to mow your lawn.Despite the success of Mr. de Blasio’s major initiatives — universal prekindergarten, paid sick leave — the hallmark of his mayoralty was his talent for alienating people who were inclined to like him and largely agreed with his policymaking. His defining imperiousness bred distaste across constituencies. Almost nowhere was that distaste felt more viscerally than in brownstone Brooklyn, which, in addition to much of downtown Manhattan, makes up a large swath of the newly outlined 10th District, lending a kind of masochism to his current effort.On the way home from our breakfast, a few miles away but still within the territory he would represent, I ran into a neighbor in Brooklyn Heights who delivered a more measured appraisal than the one I witnessed two hours earlier at the diner, an evaluation that included the prospect that she would “almost vote for a Republican over Bill de Blasio.”Like so many others in the area, she had been an early supporter. We stood on a corner for about 10 minutes as she went through her grievances, beginning with Mr. de Blasio’s abandonment of a campaign promise to save Long Island College Hospital from real-estate developers and ending with his drive to incentivize Covid vaccinations in low-income neighborhoods — where resistance was a matter of entrenched distrust — with the promise of free Shake Shack French fries.Mr. de Blasio believes his last year in office was his most successful, and that his administration’s management of the pandemic, one that became a model for other cites, will matter to voters. Leaving aside that parents of schoolchildren who were stuck at home with them for much of last year may well feel differently, in the current news cycle, eight or 10 months ago can feel like a quarter-century; emotion can stick forever. “I came across as aloof,” the former mayor told me, understating things. “I needed to help people see me.”In many ways, Mr. de Blasio has spent the past five months since he left office living the creative-class Brooklynite fantasy — renovating a townhouse, writing, delivering commentary on “Morning Joe.” He thought about teaching. But none of this called to him for the long term. Then on Monday, May 16, after lunch with a friend in Greenwich Village — you don’t get to linger over a meal when you are governing eight million people — he arrived home to find emails about the newly created district, and he knew what he would do next. Little deliberation was necessary. “It was sweet to be connected to family,’’ he said of his brief reprieve from politics. “The writing was rewarding, but it pales in comparison to public service.”In the past, a seat in the House of Representatives has been a steppingstone to the mayoralty of New York and not an Act II. John Lindsay and Ed Koch both served in Congress before they managed City Hall. The precedent for going in the other direction is not glorious. Fernando Wood returned to Congress after his three-term tenure as mayor in the mid-19th century; he was known as a corrupt autocrat and Confederate sympathizer.The idea of Bill de Blasio, at 61, having held one of the most prestigious and challenging political offices available to mankind, then going to Washington as a freshman congressman, living with fellow representatives a generation younger in a three-bedroom rental in Dupont Circle, wondering whose turn it is to bring home a half-gallon of oat milk, is absurd enough to leave you wondering if a reality show isn’t the actual play. It is not. He wants to provide a voice for an urban agenda otherwise lacking in the federal government.That he believes he can build a winning coalition, which he has successfully done before, to get there overlooks certain difficult truths. In addition to all the disgruntled white professional-class voters he would represent, the new district also includes Chinatown and Sunset Park, where predominantly Asian voters, many low-income, did not take well to the former mayor’s position on ending the entrance exam for specialized high schools and his wish to phase out gifted and talented programs.When I asked him about this, he said that he did not fully realize the special place these schools and classes held in the culture. “I should have engaged leaders from the Asian community,” he told me. “I’m upset because I naïvely assumed there would be consensus.”It is hard to imagine living in New York for decades, driving past so many test-prep centers in Queens and not fully appreciating the vaunted status schools like Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech — which Mr. de Blasio’s son, Dante, attended — hold in these communities.There is also the matter of who else will be entering the race, in a constellation of neighborhoods where voter-information levels are unusually high and name recognition might not matter much. Mondaire Jones, who serves in another district, grew up in Section 8 housing and made his way to Stanford and Harvard, has also announced his candidacy. Should Daniel Goldman enter the field, he is likely to raise a lot of money based on his popularity as the House Democrats’ lead counsel during the first Trump impeachment proceedings and the fact that he lives in TriBeCa. Mr. de Blasio is energized for a summer of knocking on doors. More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Rudy Giuliani stonewalls Capitol attack investigators during lengthy deposition

      by

      Rudy Giuliani stonewalls Capitol attack investigators during lengthy depositionTrump lawyer testified to panel Friday but declined to discuss involvement of Republicans in bid to overturn election Donald Trump’s onetime attorney Rudy Giuliani testified to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack at length on Friday but declined to discuss the involvement of congressional Republicans in efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, according to sources familiar with the matter.The move by Giuliani to refuse to give insight into Republican involvement could mean his appearance only marginally advanced the inquiry into his ploy to have the then vice-president, Mike Pence, unlawfully keep Trump in office after he lost to Joe Biden.However, he did potentially pique the committee’s interest by discussing two notable meetings at the White House involving Trump that took place just weeks before the Capitol insurrection.‘You are a jackass’: video of Rudy Giuliani rant at Israel parade goes viralRead moreGiuliani asserted privilege and the work-product doctrine to decline to respond when asked to detail the roles played by House and Senate Republicans in the scheme to stop Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory on 6 January 2021, the sources said.The panel was not expecting Giuliani to divulge damning information against Trump, since committee counsel had agreed with Giuliani in advance that he should not have to violate legitimate claims of privilege he might have as the former president’s attorney.But Giuliani’s refusal to engage with questions about House and Senate Republicans frustrated the select committee, the sources said, not least because Giuliani personally urged them to object to Biden’s victory to delay its certification.One thing that the former president’s attorney did discuss – at length – was a contentious Oval Office meeting on 18 December 2020, the sources said, when the former Trump campaign lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell lobbied Trump to authorize the seizure of voting machines and appoint her special counsel to investigate election fraud.The former president did not advance Powell’s proposal, the Guardian has previously reported, after Giuliani cut off her access to Trump and instead proposed at a separate White House meeting with congressional Republicans on 21 December 2020 to have Pence help return Trump to office.Giuliani spent the remainder of the virtual deposition – conducted by investigative counsel and the select committee members Peter Aguilar, Jamie Raskin and Zoe Lofgren – arguing about the debunked claims of election fraud which underpinned Trump’s allies’ push to return him to power, the sources said.The extended back-and-forth via Cisco Webex video conference centered on the select committee’s lawyers investigating whether Giuliani could truly believe the claims of election fraud even though the justice department found no such evidence, the sources said.Giuliani told the select committee that he disagreed with the justice department and that the evidence for election fraud was incontrovertible, the sources said, seemingly making the case that his belief meant he could not have acted with criminal intent to obstruct Congress.The question of what Giuliani truly believed extends to Trump, former US attorney Joyce Vance said.As Vance put it: “What prosecutors are driving at here is proof Trump knew or should have known he had lost the election. His state of mind is where a prosecution would rise or fall.”Giuliani’s lawyer declined to comment on the deposition.Rudy Giuliani backs out of interview with Capitol attack committeeRead moreGiuliani’s transcribed deposition, which was conducted under oath and bisected by a break during which he hosted his hour-long afternoon radio show, came a fortnight after he abruptly pulled out of a scheduled interview because the panel refused to allow him to video the session.He later dropped his objection and rescheduled his appearance after the select committee implicitly threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued earlier this year demanding documents and testimony, an order which he immediately denounced as illegal.Giuliani made a formal complaint at the start of the deposition challenging the legality of the panel and the subpoena, the sources said. Earlier, he shared some documents with House investigators but did not create a “privilege log” of documents he was withholding, as is standard, the sources said.TopicsRudy GiulianiUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Giuliani Meets With Jan. 6 Committee for Over 7 Hours

      by

      The onetime Trump lawyer was central to the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, who helped lead President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election as his personal lawyer, sat on Friday for a lengthy interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to people familiar with the closed-door interview.Mr. Giuliani’s interview, which was virtual, lasted for more than seven hours, the people said. The interview was transcribed, and he was under oath. He took a break in the middle of it to host his hourlong afternoon radio show.It was unclear what Mr. Giuliani told the committee, but his centrality to Mr. Trump’s various attempts to subvert the election made him a potentially pivotal witness for the panel, with knowledge of details about interactions with members of Congress and others involved in the plans.Mr. Giuliani, whose interview was reported earlier by CNN, had negotiated with the panel about testifying for months, and he reached an agreement to speak about matters other than his conversations with Mr. Trump or any other topic he believed was covered by attorney-client privilege.Earlier this month, he abruptly pulled out of a scheduled interview with the committee after the panel refused to let him record the session. He later dropped that objection and agreed to testify after the panel threatened to use its “enforcement options,” an implied referral to the Justice Department for criminal contempt of Congress, the people said.The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and has recommended criminal contempt of Congress charges against four of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, who have refused to cooperate fully.Mr. Giuliani was one of the last major witnesses the committee had pressed to interview in the final weeks before it begins holding public hearings in June. Others include more than a half-dozen Republican members of Congress, such as Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader.The panel has not yet made final decisions about whether to call Mr. Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence or Virginia Thomas, a right-wing activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election and who is the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. The chairman of the panel, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, recently indicated the committee might not ultimately summon any of the three.Mr. Giuliani was a key figure in Mr. Trump’s attempts to stave off electoral defeat and was involved in plans to disrupt the normal workings of the Electoral College by persuading lawmakers in contested swing states to draw up alternate slates of electors showing Mr. Trump as victorious in states actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Mr. Giuliani was also instrumental in vetting a plan to use the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines and examine the data housed inside them for supposed evidence of fraud. At Mr. Trump’s direction, Mr. Giuliani asked a top homeland security official if the department could legally take control of the machines — a notion the official shot down. Mr. Giuliani later opposed an even more explosive proposal to have the military seize the machines.Mr. Giuliani was subpoenaed with other members of a legal team that billed itself as an “elite strike force” and pursued a set of lawsuits on behalf of Mr. Trump in which they promulgated conspiracy theories and made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the election.The committee’s subpoena sought all documents that Mr. Giuliani had detailing the pressure campaign that he and other Trump allies initiated targeting state officials, the seizure of voting machines, contact with members of Congress, any evidence to support the conspiracy theories he pushed and any arrangements for his fees.On Jan. 6, speaking to a crowd of Trump supporters before a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol, Mr. Giuliani called for “trial by combat.” Later, after the building was under siege, both he and Mr. Trump called lawmakers in an attempt to delay the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Congress members led ‘reconnaissance tours’ of Capitol before attack, evidence suggests

      by

      Congress members led ‘reconnaissance tours’ of Capitol before attack, evidence suggestsThe revelation resurrects a line of inquiry into the involvement of House Republicans in the insurrection The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed on Thursday that it had evidence to suggest certain “reconnaissance tours” took place in the days before 6 January, potentially providing some rioters with a layout of the complex.The panel said in a letter requesting cooperation from Georgia Republican congressman Barry Loudermilk that he gave a tour the day before the Capitol attack. The startling disclosure resurrects a contentious line of inquiry that connects House Republicans to the insurrection.“Based on our review of evidence in the select committee’s possession, we believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on Jan 5, 2021,” said a letter from Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, and the vice chair Liz Cheney.House panel not planning to seek Trump’s testimony on Capitol attackRead moreThe select committee noted in the letter to Loudermilk that Republicans on the House administration committee that reviewed security camera footage of the Capitol before January 6 recently claimed there were no tours or large groups or anyone wearing Maga caps.“However, the select committee’s review of evidence directly contradicts that denial,” Thompson and Cheney wrote.The request for voluntary cooperation from Loudermilk indicates the panel has been quietly focused on one of the unexplained mysteries of 6 January: how certain supporters of Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol appeared to know in advance the layout of the Capitol complex.Some of the offices and ceremonial spaces in the Capitol – such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office – are marked and easy to locate. But Democrats raised concerns after 6 January that some rioters were able to locate hideaway offices and the underground tunnel network.The concerns led to 34 House Democrats seeking an investigation into the alleged reconnaissance tours that took place on 5 January 2021, which prompted a review of security camera footage by the House administration committee, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Democrats on the House administration committee turned over some of that footage to the US attorney for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting January 6 seditious conspiracy and obstruction of Congress cases, the sources said.But the top Republican on that committee said in February that some of his members had reviewed the footage and said in a separate letter that “it does not support these repeated Democrat accusations about so-called ‘reconnaissance’ tours”.In a twist, Loudermilk filed an ethics complaint last May against Democratic congresswoman Mikie Sherrill and other Democrats who alleged GOP members had given such tours.“No Republican member of Congress led any kind of ‘reconnaissance’ tours through the Capitol, proven by security footage captured by the US Capitol police,” Loudermilk said as part of his complaint that urged the House ethics committee to investigate Sherrill.The select committee investigating 6 January events reached a different conclusion, Thompson and Cheney wrote, and identified Loudermilk as among the members who provided tours the day before the Capitol attack – at a time when congressional Covid-19 rules prohibited such tours.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US House passes domestic terrorism bill in response to Buffalo shooting

      by

      US House passes domestic terrorism bill in response to Buffalo shootingAdam Kinzinger was the lone Republican to vote in favor of the measure that faces an uphill climb to pass the Senate The US House of Representatives has passed legislation that would bolster federal resources to prevent domestic terrorism in response to the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York – but the bill faces the increasingly familiar burden of an uphill climb to pass the Senate.The 222-203, nearly party-line House vote was an answer to the growing pressure Congress faces to address gun violence and white supremacist attacks – a crisis that escalated following two mass shootings over the weekend.New York governor unveils ‘comprehensive’ plan to fight domestic terror and gun violenceRead moreAdam Kinzinger of Illinois, a member of the congressional committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, was the lone Republican to vote in favor of the measure.But the legislative effort by Democrats is not new. The House passed a similar measure in 2020 only to have it languish in the Senate.And since lawmakers lack the support in the Senate to move forward with any sort of gun control legislation they see as necessary to stop mass shootings, Democrats are instead putting their efforts into a broader federal focus on domestic terrorism.“We in Congress can’t stop the likes of [Fox News host] Tucker Carlson from spewing hateful, dangerous replacement theory ideology across the airwaves. Congress hasn’t been able to ban the sale of assault weapons. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act is what Congress can do this week to try to prevent future Buffalo shootings,” the Illinois Democrat Brad Schneider, who first introduced the measure in 2017, said on the House floor late on Wednesday night.“Replacement” theory is a set of racist and antisemitic lies and socio-political arguments that has cropped up around the world in the past decade.In the US it is expressed as the false idea that a cabal of Jews and Democrats is “replacing” the shrinking white American majority race with Black, Hispanic and other people of color by encouraging immigration and interracial marriage – with the goal of threatening the ruling elite and eventually engineering the extinction of the white race.It is being investigated as a key motivating factor in Saturday’s supermarket shooting that killed 10 people and wounded three others in Buffalo, New York, 11 of them Black.Police say an 18-year-old white man drove three hours to carry out a racist, live-streamed shooting rampage in a crowded supermarket. He appeared to have carefully planned the attack and written white supremacist screeds online, also following influences from other mass shootings and self-declaring as a racist anti-migration far-right believer known as an “eco-fascist”.Supporters of the House bill say it will fill the gaps in intelligence-sharing among the justice department, Department of Homeland Security and the FBI so that officials can better track and respond to the growing threat of white extremist terrorism.Under current law, the three federal agencies already work to investigate, prevent and prosecute acts of domestic terrorism.But the bill would require each agency to open offices specifically dedicated to those tasks and create an interagency taskforce to combat the infiltration of white supremacy in the military.Senate Democrats are pledging to bring up the bill for a vote next week. But its prospects are uncertain, with Republicans opposed to bolstering the power of the justice department in domestic surveillance.Under the bill, agencies would be required to produce a joint report every six months that assesses and quantifies domestic terrorism threats nationally, including threats posed by white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups. For decades, terrorism has been consistently tied with attacks from foreign actors, but as homegrown terrorism, often perpetrated by white men, has flourished over the past two decades, Democratic lawmakers have sought to clarify it in federal statute.“We’ve seen it before in American history. The only thing missing between these organizations and the past are the white robes … it’s time for us to take a stand,” the Illinois Democratic senator Dick Durbin said, nodding to the Ku Klux Klan.Also on Wednesday, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, unveiled what she called a “comprehensive plan to combat domestic terrorism and prevent gun violence” for the state.TopicsBuffalo shootingHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

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

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Madison Cawthorn, pro-Trump firebrand who faced political stumbles, concedes in House race

      by

      Madison Cawthorn, pro-Trump firebrand who faced political stumbles, concedes in House raceThe 26-year-old congressman who failed to beat back a challenge from Chuck Edwards had lost Republican support Madison Cawthorn, the first-term congressman and pro-Donald Trump firebrand, has lost his seat in the US House after failing to beat back a challenge from state legislator Chuck Edwards in the North Carolina Republican primary.Luke Ball, a spokesperson for Cawthorn’s campaign, told the Associated Press late Tuesday that Cawthorn had conceded the race.Republican Madison Cawthorn cited for carrying gun in his bag at airportRead moreThe race came to be seen as a test of whether voters would grant Cawthorn another term despite his personal and political stumbles. Several Republican leaders have turned away from the 26-year-old congressman, with some citing a series of errors, such as calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a “thug” after Russia invaded his country. Cawthorn also infuriated fellow Republicans in Congress when he alleged on a podcast that he had been invited to an orgy in Washington.Cawthorn has banked on his successful fundraising, social media presence and vocal support for the former president to help him win the 11th congressional district nomination again.Edwards, an owner of McDonald’s franchises, received endorsements from Senator Thom Tillis and the state’s top GOP legislative leaders. A Super ac allied with Tillis ran ads against Cawthorn, one of which called him a “reckless embarrassment” and “dishonest disaster”.Edwards now advances to the November election against Democrat Jasmine Beach-Ferrara.Cawthorn’s term in the the House was marked by controversy from the outset. Within days of taking office in early 2021, Cawthorn spoke at the “Save America” rally, questioning Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, that preceded the Capitol insurrection. Cawthorn soon became a leading spokesperson for Trump’s “America First” policies and conservatives in the culture wars. Trump has endorsed him.Besides the remark about being invited to an orgy, Cawthron said he had seen leaders in the movement to end drug addiction use cocaine. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy reprimanded him publicly for the remarks.Cawthorn has been stopped by police on driving citations three times since October and caught with guns at airport checkpoints twice since last year, including last month. And videos released in the campaign’s final weeks showed Cawthorn in sexually suggestive poses.Cawthorn acknowledged speeding and gun citations as failings, but said the videos were part of a “drip campaign” by his political enemies, of which he has included some Republicans, to flood the district with negative stories.Cawthorn was seen as a rising star by many conservatives when in 2020 he won a primary runoff for the seat being vacated by Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair after being partially paralyzed from a car accident as a teenager, turned 25 – the constitutionally mandated minimum age to serve in the House – during the 2020 campaign.In an election-eve post on his social media site Truth Social, Trump asked primary voters to back him again: “Recently, he made some foolish mistakes, which I don’t believe he’ll make again … let’s give Madison a second chance!”His biggest political mistake may have occurred last fall, when he decided to run for a different US House seat that could have led to an easier reelection bid, only to return to the 11th district when redistricting litigation shifted the lines again. Edwards and others accuse Cawthorn of trying to walk away from his constituents for political convenience. TopicsNorth CarolinaHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Nancy Pelosi: supreme court ‘dangerous to families and to freedoms’

      by

      Nancy Pelosi: supreme court ‘dangerous to families and to freedoms’House speaker rails against conservative judges appointed by Trump as justices prepare to finalize draft abortion ruling The supreme court is “dangerous to families and to freedoms in our country”, Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday, as justices prepare to finalize a draft ruling stripping almost have a century of abortion rights in the US.The House speaker railed against conservative judges appointed by former president Donald Trump in an interview Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, in which she urged Democrats to keep their “eye on the ball” to protect other freedoms she sees under threat.“Beware in terms of marriage equality, beware in terms of other aspects,” she said.“Understand this. This is not just about terminating a pregnancy. This is about contraception, family planning.“This is a place where freedom and the kitchen table, issues of America’s families, come together. What are the decisions that a family makes? What about contraception for young people? It’s beyond just a particular situation. It’s massive in terms of contraception, in vitro fertilization, a woman’s right to decide.”Speaking the day after hundreds of protest events took place nationwide, Pelosi insisted Democrats had done what they could in terms of protecting abortion rights through legislation. She pointed out the House had passed a bill before the women’s health protection act failed in the Senate on Wednesday, and she said she was still optimistic of a resolution with the support of pro-choice Republicans.But she said the 60-vote requirement in the Senate was “an obstacle to many good things”, and that Democrats needed to rally ahead of November’s midterm elections to “get rid of the damage” caused by conservative justices, including Trump’s three appointments, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.“Whoever suspected a creature like Donald Trump would become president, waving a list of judges he would appoint, therefore getting the support of the far right and appointing those anti-freedom justices to the court?” she said.“This is not about a long game. We played a long game, we won Roe v Wade a long time ago, we voted to protect it over time. Let’s not take our eye off the ball. The ball is this court, which is dangerous to families, to freedoms in our country.“The genius of our founders was to have a constitution that enabled freedom to expand. This is the first time the court has taken back a freedom that was defined by precedent and respect for privacy.”Independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, on NBC’s Meet the Press, said he remained hopeful that abortion rights legislation could be resurrected before the midterms.“Nobody should think this process is dead. We should bring those bills up again, and again and again,” he said.“People cannot believe you have a supreme court and Republicans who are prepared to overturn 50 years of precedent. What we should do is on this bill end the filibuster, do everything that we can to get 50 votes on the strongest possible bill to protect a woman’s right to control her own body.”An NBC News poll conducted after the leak of a draft opinion and reported by the network Sunday showed six out of 10 voters were in favor of abortion rights, and that 52% of voters were “less likely” to support a candidate who backed the supreme court’s draft ruling.But the poll found that inflation and the economy remained the biggest concerns for voters as the midterms approach.TopicsUS supreme courtNancy PelosiHouse of RepresentativesAbortionUS politicsLaw (US)newsReuse this content More