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      Pelosi Backs Rep. Mondaire Jones in Crowded Open-Seat Race in New York

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      House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will on Monday endorse Representative Mondaire Jones, a first-term upstate congressman who is facing a stiff battle in his bid to capture an open seat in New York City.Following an unusually messy redistricting process, Mr. Jones opted not to run again in his current district, which encompasses Rockland County and parts of Westchester County, or in a neighboring one to the south. Either would have required him to compete against incumbents, one of whom is the powerful chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.When that chair, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, announced he would run in Mr. Jones’s reconstituted 17th District — drawing outcries from Mr. Jones and his allies — Ms. Pelosi supported Mr. Maloney.With her endorsement on Monday, Ms. Pelosi will be making some amends, hoping that her backing may help Mr. Jones get more traction in a district where he only recently moved.“Mondaire Jones has gotten real results for New Yorkers,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement provided to The New York Times. The speaker credited Mr. Jones for playing a “vital role in passing life-changing legislation that has lifted up working families, helped deliver expanded access to health care and invested in affordable housing.”New York’s 2022 ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.N.Y. Governor’s Race: This year, for the first time in over 75 years, the state ballot appears destined to offer only two choices: Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican. Here is why.10th Congressional District: Half a century after she became one of the youngest women ever to serve in Congress, Elizabeth Holtzman is running once again for a seat in the House of Representatives.12th Congressional District: As Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, two titans of New York politics, battle it out, Suraj Patel is trying to eke out his own path to victory.New York’s messy redistricting process created new maps that jumbled primary contests across the state, but had a particularly chaotic effect in New York City.Representative Jerrold Nadler represents the existing 10th District through the end of the year. But after reapportionment drastically altered the district contours, he opted to instead compete against Representative Carolyn Maloney for the 12th District, which now envelops his Upper West Side political base.His decision created a rare open seat in the 10th District, a safely Democratic stronghold that now encompasses Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, including Sunset Park and Park Slope. That has sparked a political gold rush, with roughly a dozen candidates on the ballot for the Aug. 23 primary.Late-summer turnout is likely to be low, as many voters are expected to be on vacation or unaware of the unusually timed contest. Its outcome is likely to turn heavily on voter outreach and absentee ballot operations; endorsements may also play a small factor.Mr. Jones’s first term in Congress has been active. His eagerness to sponsor and co-sponsor bills put him at the top of Axios’s 2021 list of “the most legislatively active freshmen in Congress.” More recently, he co-sponsored legislation to enshrine marriage equality into federal law and another bill that would provide monthly payments to families with children.“Whether it was passing monumental voting rights protections or securing billions of dollars in new investments in New York City’s housing, health care and schools, I’ve worked closely with Speaker Pelosi to deliver real results for New York’s working families, and I’m proud to have her support,” Mr. Jones said in a statement. Mr. Jones has secured the support of several other House colleagues, including Representative Pramila Jayapal, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But recent polls suggest Mr. Jones’s campaign is struggling to stay in the top tier, and Nydia Velázquez, the congresswoman who represents much of the existing district, has endorsed one of Mr. Jones’s rivals, Carlina Rivera, a New York City councilwoman.It is unclear how much influence Ms. Pelosi’s endorsement will yield, or if will come with any financial support from the House Majority PAC or the Democratic funding arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But it may help in other ways.“Obviously it will be helpful, in that it will bring more attention to what has been arguably a struggling campaign out of the box,” said Neal Kwatra, a Democratic strategist who worked on former mayor Bill de Blasio’s abortive run for the same seat.But Mr. Kwatra cautioned that the voters who do turn out to vote out will be unusually well-informed about the election, and will have strong opinions about the candidates that are not likely to be swayed by a political endorsement.“The ones that do end up voting in this election, they’re going to be very sophisticated and very clear about why they’re voting and who they’re voting for,” he said. More

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      US faces new era of political violence as threats against lawmakers rise

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      US faces new era of political violence as threats against lawmakers riseMembers of the House will now get up to $10,000 to upgrade their home security as experts warn such threats endanger the health of US democracy Members of the US House of Representatives will now receive up to $10,000 to upgrade security at their homes in the face of rising threats against lawmakers, the House sergeant at arms announced last week, in yet another sign that American politics has entered a dangerous, violent new phase.Pro-Israel group pours millions into primary to defeat Jewish candidateRead moreAs support for political violence appears to be on the rise in the US, experts warn that such threats endanger the health of America’s democracy. But they say the country still has time to tamp down violent rhetoric if political leaders, particularly those in the Republican party, stand up and condemn this alarming behavior.The announcement over increasing security for people in Congress came days after a man attacked Lee Zeldin, a New York congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate, with a sharp object during a campaign event.Two weeks before that, a man was arrested outside the home of Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, for allegedly shouting racist obscenities and threatening to kill her. Last month, authorities filed federal charges against a man who they say traveled from California to Maryland with the intent of murdering the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh.Public service has clearly become an increasingly dangerous endeavor in America.Recent polls show an increasing number of Americans are comfortable with political violence, although there is a wide range of opinions on the type of violence that is acceptable.According to a mega-survey conducted by researchers at University of California, Davis, and released this month, one in five US adults say political violence is justified at least in some circumstances. A much smaller portion of survey respondents, 3%, believe that political violence is usually or always justified.Liliana Mason, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy, said the phrasing of survey questions on political violence can drastically affect results. But having studied such polling since 2017, Mason said it is clear that support for political violence is indeed on the rise in the US.“I think of it as pretty low numbers of people who actually approve of violence at all,” Mason said. “The problem is that, if you go from 7% to 20%, that means that there are certain social spaces where the norms around anti-violence are eroding.”The impact of that trend can be seen at every level of American government, from the halls of Capitol Hill to local polling places.The US Capitol police reported 9,625 threats and directions of interest (meaning concerning actions or statements) against members of Congress last year, compared to 3,939 such instances in 2017.The members of the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection have frequently been the targets of violent threats, requiring them to get personal security details.One member of the committee, Republican Adam Kinzinger, recently shared a threatening letter sent to his wife last month. The sender vowed to execute Kinzinger, his wife and their newborn son. He is not seeking re-election in 2022.Even those who help administer elections in the US have reported an increase in threats against them. According to a poll conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice this year, one in six elec­tion offi­cials have received threats because of their job, and 77% believe threats against them have increased in recent years.Jennifer McCoy, a political science professor at Georgia State University whose research focuses on polarized democracies, said: “The kinds of threats and intimidation to … election administration officials and poll workers is very concerning and is also new.”The apparent increase in threats against public servants has sparked broader concerns about the health of American democracy, particularly in the wake of the January 6 insurrection.“There is simply no place for political violence in a healthy democracy. The increase in threats and harassment being leveled at people across our government is deeply concerning,” said Jennifer Dresden, policy advocate for the group Protect Democracy.“To be clear, we’re not yet at a point where political violence has fundamentally undermined our democracy. But when violence is connected to other authoritarian tactics, like disinformation and efforts to corrupt elections, that sets a dangerous path for our democracy that we cannot ignore.”While threats and harassment against lawmakers and political candidates appear to have increased across many government institutions, they are not evenly distributed.One study of online messages sent to 2020 congressional candidates found that women, particularly women of color, were more likely to be the target of abusive content. Of all the candidates reviewed, the progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Somali American, received the highest proportion of abusive messages on Twitter. Fellow progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is Puerto Rican American, saw the most abusive comments on Facebook.Women of color serving in Congress have spoken publicly about the threats they face, which have become a regular part of their lives on Capitol Hill.Congresswoman Jahana Hayes, who is Black, told PBS Newshour last year: “I remember, at the beginning of the 116th Congress [in 2019], when we were just spotlighting and highlighting the beautiful diversity of this incoming Congress, but then, on every caucus call, we had members who were getting death threats on a daily basis.”The acts of political violence carried out in the US are also unevenly distributed across the ideological spectrum. According to a study conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, rightwing extremists have committed about 75% of the 450 political murders that occurred in the US over the past decade. In comparison, Islamic extremists were responsible for about 20% of the murders, while leftwing extremists were blamed for 4% of the killings.Expert argue the frequency of rightwing violence compared with leftwing violence can be partly explained by Republican leaders’ failure to condemn threatening rhetoric.“We see justifications for violence that are similar on the left and right,” said Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies political conflict. “But we see incidents of violence that are vastly higher on the right and that has to do with all of the normalization of violence from leaders on the right.”That normalization has been on vivid display over the past couple of years in the US. Donald Trump infamously referred to his supporters who carried out the deadly January 6 insurrection as “very special”, telling them: “We love you.” Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House for his role in the 6 January riot, but acquitted in the Senate.Last year, House Democrats, over near-unanimous Republican opposition, voted to strip the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, after it was discovered that she had previously expressed support for assassinating Barack Obama and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.In November, Congressman Paul Gosar received the same punishment, as well as a House censure, after he shared an animated video depicting violence against Joe Biden and Ocasio-Cortez. Only two Republicans supported the censure.Most recently, the Senate candidate Eric Greitens was widely criticized for airing a campaign ad that appeared to encourage violence against more moderate Republicans. In the ad, Greitens, who resigned as Missouri governor over allegations of sexual harassment, is seen carrying a shotgun and bursting into homes as he urges the “hunting” of Rinos, meaning Republicans in Name Only.Research indicates that the messages supporters receive from their political leaders have a large impact on whether they actually carry out violent acts, several experts said. In experiments conducted by Mason and her colleagues, some participants were asked to read a quote from Biden or Trump condemning violence while others read nothing. Those who had read the quote were significantly less approving of violence.“Leaders are actually uniquely powerful in being able to tamp down violence,” Mason said. “Republicans in particular are not using that power. And they could, but they’re not.”Although political leaders are particularly powerful when it comes to reducing violent rhetoric, Mason’s research indicates that average people may have some leverage of their own. Mason’s team saw some positive results when they asked participants to read messages from random Twitter users condemning political violence. For the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose such violence, the findings could offer some hope.“For Americans in general, I think it’s sort of empowering to know that every single one of us has the potential to reduce violence by simply rejecting it,” Mason said. “We can all do that. All the 80% of us who don’t think violence is acceptable have a real voice, and it’s important to use it.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      House-passed assault weapons ban appears to be doomed in the Senate

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      House-passed assault weapons ban appears to be doomed in the SenateBill would require support from at least 10 Senate Republicans, and it isn’t certain that all 50 Democratic senators are onboard The assault weapons ban in America passed by the House appears set to be doomed in the Senate amid implacable Republican opposition to gun reform, even in the wake of a series of mass shootings in the US.The legislation in the House, which would ban assault weapons for the first time since 2004, is interpreted as a sign that Democrats plan more aggressive gun violence prevention after a series of mass shootings using the military-derived weapons, including in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.It was passed 217-213, with two Republicans voting in favor and five Democrats opposing. The legislation would criminalize the knowing sale, manufacture, transfer, possession or importation of many types of semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines.“Our nation has watched in unspeakable horror as assault weapons have been used in massacre after massacre in communities across the country,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Friday before the vote. “We know that an assault weapons ban can work because it has worked before.”The Democrat-controlled House judiciary committee estimated last week that the five major gun manufacturers have collected more than $1bn from the sale of assault rifles in the past decade.New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney said that gun manufacturers use “dangerous selling tactics to sell assault weapons to the public”, including “marketing to children, preying on young men’s insecurities and even appealing to violent white supremacists.”.Cogressman Brad Schneider, who represents Highland Park in Illinois where a mass shooter recently disrupted a Fourth of July parade with a hail of gunfire, killing seven, said at the hearing that “the shooter was able to fire off his bullets so fast that they couldn’t even identify where they were coming from”.But in the 50-50 evenly-split Senate, the bill is unlikely to pass despite a political breakthrough last month in bringing the bill forward. In that chamber, it would require support from at least 10 Republicans. Nor is it certain that all 50 Democrat senators are on board.Congressional Republicans argue that the legislation is unconstitutional and would result in the confiscation of firearms. “Today, they’re coming for your guns,” said rightwing Ohio congressman Jim Jordan, a senior member of the judiciary committee. “They want to take all guns from all people.”The last time the legislature passed an assault weapons ban was in 1994. A 2019 study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery showed the number of mass shooting deaths declined while the law, which expired in 2004, was in effect.Since then, the number of assault-style weapons in private hands has proliferated to 19.8m, according to a November 2020 statement by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, with mass-shooting growing in frequency alongside.The legislation has not yet been scheduled in the senate for before or after the August recess. On Friday, Joe Biden said he welcomed the House vote, saying a majority of Americans “agree with this common sense action”.“There can be no greater responsibility than to do all we can to ensure the safety of our families, our children, our homes, our communities and our nation”, he added in a statement issued by the White House.TopicsUS SenateUS gun controlHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      US House votes to ban assault weapons as Republicans criticize ‘gun grab’

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      US House votes to ban assault weapons as Republicans criticize ‘gun grab’Restrictions that expired 10 years after 1994 vote revived as bill passes 217-213, but effort likely to fail in US Senate The House has passed legislation to revive a ban on semi-automatic guns, the first vote of its kind in years and a direct response to the firearms often used in the crush of mass shootings ripping through communities nationwide.Once banned in the US, the high-powered firearms are now widely blamed as the weapon of choice among young men responsible for many of the most devastating mass shootings. But Congress allowed the restrictions first put in place in 1994 on the manufacture and sales of the weapons to expire a decade later, unable to muster the political support to counter the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the weapons ban.Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the vote toward passage in the Democratic-run House, saying the earlier ban had “saved lives”.California governor signs gun control law modeled after Texas anti-abortion measureRead moreThe House legislation is shunned by Republicans, who dismissed it as an election-year strategy by Democrats. Almost all Republicans voted against the bill, which passed 217-213. It will probably stall in the 50-50 Senate.The bill comes at a time of intensifying concerns about gun violence and shootings – the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York; massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas; and the Fourth of July shooting of revelers in Highland Park, Illinois.Voters seem to be taking such election-year votes seriously as Congress splits along party lines and lawmakers are forced to go on the record with their views. A recent vote to protect same-sex marriages from potential supreme court legal challenges won a surprising amount of bipartisan support.Joe Biden, who was instrumental in helping secure the first semi-automatic weapons ban as a senator in 1994, encouraged passage, promising to sign the bill if it reached his desk. In a statement before the vote, his administration said: “We know an assault weapons and large-capacity magazine ban will save lives.”02:03The Biden administration said for 10 years while the ban was in place, mass shootings declined. “When the ban expired in 2004, mass shootings tripled,” the statement said.Republicans stood firmly against limits on ownership of the high-powered firearms during an at times emotional debate ahead of voting.“It’s a gun-grab, pure and simple,” said Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania.Said Andrew Clyde of Georgia: “An armed America is a safe and free America.”Democrats argued that the ban on the weapons makes sense, portraying Republicans as extreme and out of step with Americans.Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said the weapons ban was not about taking away Americans’ second amendment rights but ensuring that children also had the right “to not get shot in school”.National gun violence prevention organizations are describing the House’s actions as a promising step toward getting future restrictions passed at the federal level.“Just a few years ago this would have been unthinkable,” said Trevon Bosley, a board member of March for Our Lives. The organization was born after a young gunman shot and killed 17 students and staff of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. “This bill won’t save lives yet, but it does send a powerful message to the millions of young people who are growing up fighting for our lives: change is possible.”The bill would make it unlawful to import, sell or manufacture a long list of semi-automatic weapons. Jerry Nadler, chair of the judiciary committee, said it exempts those already in possession.Since the previous ban expired nearly two decades ago, Democrats had been reluctant to revisit the issue and confront the gun lobby. But voter opinions appear to be shifting and Democrats dared to act before the fall election. The outcome will also make candidates’ stance on gun legislation clear ahead of the midterm elections.Congress passed a modest gun violence prevention package just last month in the aftermath of the tragic shooting of 19 school children and two teachers in Uvalde. That bipartisan bill was the first of its kind after years of failed efforts to confront the gun lobby, including after a similar 2012 mass tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.That law provides for expanded background checks on young adults buying firearms, allowing authorities to access certain juvenile records. It also closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by denying gun purchases for those convicted of domestic abuse outside of marriages.The new law also frees up federal funding to the states, including for “red flag” laws that enable authorities to remove guns from those who would harm themselves or others.But even that modest effort at halting gun violence came at time of grave uncertainty in the US over restrictions on firearms as the more conservative supreme court is tackling gun rights and other issues.Biden signed the measure two days after the supreme court’s ruling striking down a New York law that restricted people’s ability to carry concealed weapons.Abené Clayton contributed reportingTopicsUS gun controlHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      DoJ reportedly preparing court fight to get Trump insiders to testify – as it happened

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      Prosecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.We’re closing the blog now at the end of a momentous week in US politics, with the landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act set to become a big win for Joe Biden ahead of the midterm elections.Here’s what else we followed:
      The US will not allow any further Russian annexation in Ukraine to go “unchallenged or unpunished”, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, following secretary of state Antony Blinken’s conversation with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov earlier in which he pressed his Kremlin counterpart over negotiations to release jailed Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.
      Justice department prosecutors are readying for a likely court fight to get testimony from Donald Trump’s former White House officials over his illegitimate actions to overturn his 2020 election defeat. CNN reports they are preparing arguments if Trump invokes executive privilege to prevent those close to his Oval Office revealing what they know.
      Text messages of two of Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported.
      Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer had secret basement meetings in the Capitol building as they negotiated the Inflation Reduction Act, the AP said. The size and scope of the climate concessions Manchin, the rebel West Virginia Democrat, agreed to surprised the Senate majority leader.
      The treasury department has imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and four entities that support the Kremlin’s “global malign influence and election interference operations”. They “attempted to destabilize the US and its allies and partners, including Ukraine,” the department said.
      Nancy Pelosi said it was “sick” that children are learning to use assault weapons, amid a surge of deadly gun violence and mass shootings in the US. The House speaker announced a vote in the chamber this afternoon on gun controls, including an assault weapons ban.
      Joe Biden has nominated a lawyer who represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the supreme court’s decision to overturn abortion rights last month to become a federal appeals court judge, Reuters reports.Julie Rikelman, an abortion rights lawyer with the center for reproductive rights, was picked to serve on the Boston-based first circuit court of appeals, one of nine new judicial nominees announced by the president today.Rikelman argued for the Jackson women’s health organization – Mississippi’s only abortion clinic – in challenging a Republican-backed law that banned the procedure after 15 weeks. Republicans are likely to oppose her elevation in the equally divided Senate. Russian government officials asked that Vadim Krasikov, a spy and former army colonel convicted of murder in Germany last year, be added to the proposed prisoner swap for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, CNN reports. “Multiple sources” familiar with the situation told the network that Russia communicated the request to the US earlier this month through an informal backchannel used by the spy agency, known as the FSB.The request was problematic because Krasikov remains in German custody, the sources said, and because the request was not communicated formally the US government did not view it as a legitimate counter to its initial offer of arms dealer Viktor Bout.Secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov earlier today and pressed for the release of Griner and Whelan, whom the US considers “wrongfully detained”. It is not certain if Russia’s reported request over Krasikov featured in the conversation.We promised you news of the Biden administration’s changing position on Covid-19 boosters as the Omicron variant BA.5 continues to grip the nation. Here’s my colleague Sam Levine’s report:Instead of expanding eligibility for a fourth Covid-19 booster shot now, the Biden administration will push this fall to get Americans to take another booster vaccination that is predicted to better protect against the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of the coronavirus.Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna are expected to start rolling out the reformulated boosters, which are expected to be authorized for anyone 12 and older, in September.The decision comes amid a surge in cases of the virus across the US – and Biden himself recently recovered from an infection.Some of the administration’s top health experts, including presidential adviser Anthony Fauci and White House Covid coordinator Ashish Jha, had advocated for expanding eligibility for a second dose of the current booster because of the latest spread.But public health officials worried that administering two different booster shots so close together could blunt their effectiveness.“You can’t get a vaccine shot August 1 and get another vaccine shot September 15 and expect the second shot to do anything,” Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, told the New York Times.“You’ve got so much antibody around, if you get another dose, it won’t do anything.”The decision means that adults over 50 and those who are immunocompromised remain the only ones authorized for a second booster, ie their fourth shot since the vaccine began being administered widely in 2021. Fewer than a third of people 50 and older who are eligible have gotten one, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Read the full story:US to hold push for Covid boosters until fall in order to better protect against BA.5Read moreA third candidate in a week has dropped out of the Wisconsin Democratic Senate primary, leaving Mandela Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, a clear favorite to challenge Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in November.Wisconsin treasurer Sarah Godlewski’s withdrawal followed those of former state assemblyman Tom Nelson on Monday and Barnes’ top rival, Alex Lasry, two days later.Democrats are hopeful of seizing Johnson’s seat in the fall in a state Joe Biden won narrowly in the 2020 presidential election, reversing Donald Trump’s victory there in 2016.Johsnon was quick to comment on Godlewski’s announcement. “Showing their lack of respect for voters and the democratic process, the power brokers of the Democrat party have now cleared the field for their most radical left candidate,” Johnson tweeted.Barnes, 35, would be the first Black senator from Wisconsin if elected. The US will not allow any further Russian annexation in Ukraine to go “unchallenged or unpunished,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said at an afternoon briefing.She is answering reporters’ questions about secretary of state Antony Blinken’s conversation with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov earlier, in which he pressed his Kremlin counterpart over negotiations to release jailed Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.Blinken “thought it was it was important to make clear where we and our global partners stand on several key issues,” Jean-Pierre said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He spoke about the importance of Russia allowing ships to depart Odessa and to adhere to their grain deals. He also emphasized how Russia’s plan to annex parts of Ukraine by force, which we warned about from here at the podium, would be a gross violation of the UN charter and we would not allow it to go unchallenged or unpunished.
      We are under no illusions that Moscow is prepared to engage meaningfully and constructively yet, so Secretary Blinken made clear that this was not about a return to business as usual.Joe Biden has “no plans” to call Russian president Vladimir Putin over that or any other issue, Jean-Pierre said.As for Griner and Whelan, she added: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}What the president is doing, the secretary and his national security team, is to make sure we keep our promise and [are] doing everything that we can in bringing home US nationals that are wrongfully detained.
      This is top of [Biden’s] mind, this is a priority. We are doing everything we can to bring Paul home, to bring Britney home. Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s former acting chief of staff, testified on Thursday before the House select committee investigating the insurrection on January 6, 2021, and the-then US president’s role in inciting it. And on Friday, Mulvaney spoke about it.He was asked questions by “four or five” lawyers for the committee, who interviewed him for about 2.5 hours behind closed doors, he told CNN on Friday morning.He said they were courteous and there was “no animosity”. he said the questions were “designed to find out stuff that might make President Trump look bad” and pointed out there was no-one there asking “the other side of the questions” [note: it is a bipartisan committee co-chaired by Republican Liz Cheney] “that might have made President Trump look good”, but he added that that was “fine” and it was not a fight, it was a free-flowing discussion.“I would have given the exact same answers, obviously, if there had been folks there from the other side of the political spectrum, so it just reaffirms in my mind that the committee is politically-biased, there is no question about that, the structure is politically biased.“But the information that you are getting is from Republicans, like myself, who are testifying – you are not under oath but you still can’t lie to Congress anyway, that’s still a crime, and I think the information they are getting is good and sound information.”Mulvaney said the lawyers were at the meeting in person while some members of the committee, who are all members of Congress, attended remotely, and Cheney questioned him.He also acknowledged that the separate Department of Justice investigation into events surrounding January 6 last year, when supporters of Trump stormed the US Capitol to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory over him, was now “moving closer and closer to the [Trump] White House”. CNN reported that federal prosecutors want to force Trump officials to testify.“They are starting to talk to people inside the Trump orbit as opposed to just the rioters themselves, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers,” he said.It’s lunchtime, so time to take stock of where we’re at today in US politics:
      Justice department prosecutors are readying for a likely court fight to get testimony from Donald Trump’s former White House officials over his illegitimate actions to overturn his 2020 election defeat. CNN reports they are preparing arguments if Trump invokes executive privilege to prevent those close to his Oval Office revealing what they know.
      Text messages of two of Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported.
      Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer had secret basement meetings in the Capitol building as they negotiated the Inflation Reduction Act, the AP said. The size and scope of the climate concessions Manchin, the rebel West Virginia Democrat, agreed to surprised the Senate majority leader.
      The treasury department has imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and four entities that support the Kremlin’s “global malign influence and election interference operations”. They “attempted to destabilize the US and its allies and partners, including Ukraine,” the department said.
      Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he pressed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to accept a US proposal for the release of detained Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan. Blinken said he had a “frank and direct” conversation with Lavrov earlier today.
      Nancy Pelosi said it was “sick” that children are learning to use assault weapons, amid a surge of deadly gun violence and mass shootings in the US. The House speaker announced a vote in the chamber this afternoon on gun controls, including an assault weapons ban.
      Please stick with us. There’s more to come this afternoon, including White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s daily briefing.Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday he pressed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to accept a US proposal for the release of detained Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.Blinken said he had a “frank and direct” conversation with Lavrov earlier on Friday, and told his counterpart that Russia must fulfill commitments it made as part of deal on the export of grain from Ukraine, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, and that the world would not accept Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory.Blinken and Lavrov spoke on the phone a few hours after Lavrov indicated some interest in Blinken’s offer.Griner’s trial resumes in Moscow on Monday.The White House has issued a statement encouraging the House to pass an assault weapons ban later today.The statement reminds the public that 40,000 Americans die from gunshot wounds every year and guns have “become the top killer of children” in the US.It notes that Joe Biden played a leading role when he was a US senator in the 1994 assault weapons ban, which stood for 10 years before the administration of George W Bush declined to extend it.The White House further notes that “when the ban expired, mass shootings tripled”.White House issues statement in support of assault weapons bill to be voted on later today in the House. pic.twitter.com/f7coJRwcXh— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) July 29, 2022
      Earlier this month, the US president called once again for a ban on such rifles, saying the US was “awash in weapons of war” and decrying how such weapons have become more and more powerful so that when hitting human flesh, people are ripped apart and parents have to supply DNA samples after school shootings, such as in Uvalde, Texas, recently, because their children are so damaged from the bullets that they cannot otherwise be certainly identified.Buffalo, in upstate New York, is still grieving mightily after a racist mass shooting there, as well as the less-documented, everyday urban gun violence blighting life in many American neighborhoods, and the valiant attempts by some community leaders to tamp it.Meanwhile, ICYMI, here’s our Joanie Greve on what gun executives had to say at a congressional hearing earlier this week.Gun executives tell Congress: don’t blame us for deadly shootingsRead moreAnd here’s our Abené Clayton’s reporting as part of the Guardian’s Guns and Lies series.Can lessons of community violence interrupters prevent mass shootings?Read moreNancy Pelosi says it’s “sick” that children are learning to use assault weapons, amid a surge of deadly gun violence in the US that has claimed numerous lives in recent weeks in a series of mass shootings.The House speaker was talking at a lunchtime press briefing at which she announced a vote in the chamber this afternoon on gun controls, including an assault weapons ban:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When I talk about it on the floor this afternoon I’m going to show a presentation of what some totally irresponsible people are putting out there about little children, toddlers, learning how to use an assault weapon.
      Smaller assault weapons, but a gun like mommy and daddy’s, small assault weapons for getting their muscles ready to be able to use it. Is that sick?Pelosi said there was an “outcry” for an assault weapons ban:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re hopeful [over the] vote for the assault weapons ban. I think the best, most important thing to do is to have background checks, that probably saves the most lives on the ongoing.
      But with that it’s very important is to reinstate [the assault weapons ban], we like to say reinstate because we did pass this before. And it did save lives.Even if passed by the House, an assault weapons ban faces next to no chance of clearing the 50-50 divided Senate, where 60 votes would be needed for its passage.Such a measure would be unlikely to attract any Republican support.The treasury department said Friday it had imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and four entities that support the Kremlin’s “global malign influence and election interference operations”, according to Reuters.“The individuals and entities designated today played various roles in Russia’s attempts to manipulate and destabilize the United States and its allies and partners, including Ukraine,” the department said in a statement.Brian E Nelson, undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said: “Free and fair elections form a pillar of American democracy that must be protected from outside influence.“The Kremlin has repeatedly sought to threaten and undermine our democratic processes and institutions. The US will continue our extensive work to counter these efforts and safeguard our democracy from Russia’s interference.” The Russian citizens sanctioned are Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov and Natalya Valeryevna Burlinova .Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a press conference for noon, at which we’re likely to learn of her plans for a House vote on the landmark Inflation Reduction Act announced yesterday, and whether she’s heading to Taiwan as early as tonight on a controversial trip.We’ll bring you her comments when she speaks. You can watch the speaker’s press conference on her YouTube channel here:Secret meetings in a dingy Capitol building basement, a “virtual handshake” across the miles to seal the deal… the Associated Press has published an extraordinary account of how the climate bill agreement between Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer that has set Washington abuzz this week came to be.The size and scope of what Manchin, the rebel West Virginia Democrat who had stalled almost the entirety of Joe Biden’s ambitious first term agenda, was willing to accept to form the Inflation Reduction Act surprised Schumer, the Senate majority leader, the AP says.The news agency account suggests it was partly Manchin’s fears about losing his gavel as chair of the Senate energy committee (he has made millions from the coal industry) that led to his reversal, and willingness to accept climate change provisions he had previously fiercely resisted.“The coal state conservative was being publicly singled out, shamed even, as the sole figure stopping help for a planet in peril,” the AP said, noting the barrage of criticism directed at Manchin from progressive Democrats and climate crisis activists after he blocked Biden’s flagship Build Back Better project. According to the report, compiled with the help several people familiar with private conversations, and granted anonymity to discuss them, Manchin met Schumer secretly in a Capitol basement to get the conversation going.“What a beautiful office,” Schumer reportedly said. “Is it mine?”Over several sessions, the two men and their staffs thrashed out the details of what would become the $739bn Inflation Reduction Act, hailed yesterday by Biden as “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis.”They sealed the deal on Wednesday afternoon with a “virtual handshake” on a Zoom call, with Manchin isolating after testing positive for Covid-19.Whether the bill becomes law remains to be seen. Democrats will need every one of their votes in the 50-50 divided Senate, while there will also be Republican opposition in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’ll bring members back from their summer break to vote on the bill next week.Regardless of the outcome, just getting to this point was a remarkable achievement in itself, the AP says.Meanwhile, Fortune has this intriguing account of the role of former treasury secretary and Biden critic Larry Summers in the saga, suggesting he may just have “saved Biden’s presidency”.Read more:What’s in the climate bill that Joe Manchin supports – and what isn’t Read moreAn impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.Addressing the West Virginia house of delegates, Gardner, among about 90 other speakers, was given 45 seconds to plead her case.“My education is very important to me and I plan on doing great things in life. If a man decides that I’m an object and does unspeakable and tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child?” Gardner said.Read more here:‘What about my life?’ West Virginia girl, 12, speaks out against anti-abortion bill Read moreText messages of two of Donald Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the former president’s January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported Friday.It follows news that secret service texts from about the same time had been mysteriously erased, hampering the House panel’s inquiry into the deadly Capitol riot and Trump’s illegitimate efforts to remain in office.The previously unreported discovery of missing records for the most senior homeland security officials increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack, the Post says.🚨🔎🚨BREAKING POGO INVESTIGATION: yet another story of missing text messages at #DHS. This time, text messages to and from three top Trump-era officials at the dept. from early January 2021 are missing. Read the investigation now: https://t.co/AkWxoUu65Z— Project On Government Oversight (@POGOwatchdog) July 29, 2022
      The homeland security department told the agency’s inspector general in February that texts of Wolf and Cuccinelli were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, the newspaper adds.The Post says its source is an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, whose own report on the disappearance of the messages can be found here.Messages of a third senior department official, the undersecretary of management Randolph “Tex” Alles, a former Secret Service director, are also no longer available because of the reset, according to the Post.In his forthcoming memoir, the former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort describes his travels through the US prison system after being convicted on tax charges – including a stay in a Manhattan facility alongside the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Mexican drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.Manafort also writes that during one transfer between facilities, at a private airfield “somewhere in Ohio”, the sight of “prisoners … being herded in long lines and then separated into other buses and on to … transport planes … reminded me of movies about the Holocaust”.Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced, will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Manafort’s book is not all quite so startling. But he does make the surprise admission that in 2020, he indirectly advised Trump’s campaign while in home confinement as part of a seven-year sentence – advice he kept secret as he hoped for a presidential pardon.“I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the president’s re-election or, importantly, a potential pardon,” Manafort writes.He got the pardon.Here’s more:Paul Manafort admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 but keeping it secret in wait for pardon Read moreProsecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.Good morning blog readers, we’ve made it to the end of an extraordinary week in US politics, but we’re not through quite yet. There’s news today of more legal peril for Donald Trump over his efforts to illegitimately reverse his 2020 election defeat.Justice department prosecutors, according to CNN, are preparing a court fight to force Trump insiders to testify over the former president’s conversations and actions around January 6. They expect Trump to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his former White House officials telling what they know.We’ll have more on that coming up, and will also be looking at the following:
      Washington is still abuzz with Senator Joe Manchin’s stunning reversal, leading to the surprise announcement of the Inflation Reduction Act and the chance for Joe Biden to achieve some of his signature climate policy goals.
      Text messages around the time of the January 6 Capitol riot “vanished” from the the phones of Trump’s senior homeland security officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the Washington Post reports.
      The Biden administration reportedly has a new plan for Covid-19 boosters, scrapping advice for a summer shot and concentrating instead on pushing next-generation vaccines in the fall.
      It could be a busy day in the House with possible votes on gun controls and police funding, before members head off for a six-week break. But the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, could call them back next week for a vote on the Inflation Reduction Act.
      The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has her daily briefing scheduled for 1.30pm. Joe Biden has no public events listed. More

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      DoJ reportedly preparing court fight to get Trump insiders to testify – live

      by

      Prosecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.An impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.Addressing the West Virginia house of delegates, Gardner, among about 90 other speakers, was given 45 seconds to plead her case.“My education is very important to me and I plan on doing great things in life. If a man decides that I’m an object and does unspeakable and tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child?” Gardner said.Read more here:‘What about my life?’ West Virginia girl, 12, speaks out against anti-abortion bill Read moreText messages of two of Donald Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the former president’s January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported Friday.It follows news that secret service texts from about the same time had been mysteriously erased, hampering the House panel’s inquiry into the deadly Capitol riot and Trump’s illegitimate efforts to remain in office.The previously unreported discovery of missing records for the most senior homeland security officials increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack, the Post says.🚨🔎🚨BREAKING POGO INVESTIGATION: yet another story of missing text messages at #DHS. This time, text messages to and from three top Trump-era officials at the dept. from early January 2021 are missing. Read the investigation now: https://t.co/AkWxoUu65Z— Project On Government Oversight (@POGOwatchdog) July 29, 2022
      The homeland security department told the agency’s inspector general in February that texts of Wolf and Cuccinelli were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, the newspaper adds.The Post says its source is an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, whose own report on the disappearance of the messages can be found here.Messages of a third senior department official, the undersecretary of management Randolph “Tex” Alles, a former Secret Service director, are also no longer available because of the reset, according to the Post.In his forthcoming memoir, the former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort describes his travels through the US prison system after being convicted on tax charges – including a stay in a Manhattan facility alongside the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Mexican drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.Manafort also writes that during one transfer between facilities, at a private airfield “somewhere in Ohio”, the sight of “prisoners … being herded in long lines and then separated into other buses and on to … transport planes … reminded me of movies about the Holocaust”.Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced, will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Manafort’s book is not all quite so startling. But he does make the surprise admission that in 2020, he indirectly advised Trump’s campaign while in home confinement as part of a seven-year sentence – advice he kept secret as he hoped for a presidential pardon.“I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the president’s re-election or, importantly, a potential pardon,” Manafort writes.He got the pardon.Here’s more:Paul Manafort admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 but keeping it secret in wait for pardon Read moreProsecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.Good morning blog readers, we’ve made it to the end of an extraordinary week in US politics, but we’re not through quite yet. There’s news today of more legal peril for Donald Trump over his efforts to illegitimately reverse his 2020 election defeat.Justice department prosecutors, according to CNN, are preparing a court fight to force Trump insiders to testify over the former president’s conversations and actions around January 6. They expect Trump to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his former White House officials telling what they know.We’ll have more on that coming up, and will also be looking at the following:
      Washington is still abuzz with Senator Joe Manchin’s stunning reversal, leading to the surprise announcement of the Inflation Reduction Act and the chance for Joe Biden to achieve some of his signature climate policy goals.
      Text messages around the time of the January 6 Capitol riot “vanished” from the the phones of Trump’s senior homeland security officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the Washington Post reports.
      The Biden administration reportedly has a new plan for Covid-19 boosters, scrapping advice for a summer shot and concentrating instead on pushing next-generation vaccines in the fall.
      It could be a busy day in the House with possible votes on gun controls and police funding, before members head off for a six-week break. But the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, could call them back next week for a vote on the Inflation Reduction Act.
      The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has her daily briefing scheduled for 1.30pm. Joe Biden has no public events listed. More

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      in US Politics

      Gun executives tell Congress: don’t blame us for deadly shootings

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      Gun executives tell Congress: don’t blame us for deadly shootingsCEOs face aggressive questioning from lawmakers at hearing about their companies’ responsibility for recent attacks Executives from large American gun companies appeared before a House committee on Wednesday, facing aggressive questioning from lawmakers about their organizations’ responsibility for recent devastating mass shootings in the US.The hearing marked the first time in nearly two decades that the CEOs of leading gun manufacturers testified before Congress and comes after a wave of deadly attacks including at a Fourth of July parade in Illinois, a school in Texas and the racist massacre of Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.The witnesses included Christopher Killoy, president and CEO of Sturm, Ruger & Company, and Marty Daniel, CEO of Daniel Defense. Mark Smith, president and CEO of Smith & Wesson Brands, had been invited to appear but refused to do so.“Mr Smith promised he would testify, but then he went back on his word, perhaps because he did not want to take responsibility for the death and destruction his company has caused,” said Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House oversight committee.02:03Maloney announced that she would soon subpoena documents from Smith & Wesson’s CEO and other top executives to discover more about the gun industry’s business practices. According to a committee investigation, Smith & Wesson brought in more than $125m last year from the sale of assault weapons, which have been used in many mass shootings. In total, five gun manufacturers collected more than $1bn from the sale of assault rifles over the last decade, the investigation found.“The time for dodging accountability is over,” Maloney said.At the start of the hearing, the committee played a video of testimonials from families who had been affected by recent mass shootings, including the massacre at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the white supremacist attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Tracey Maciulewicz, who lost her fiance Andre Mackniel in the Buffalo shooting, tearfully pleaded with the gun companies to enact change in the face of so many families’ devastation.“What are you going to do to make sure that your products don’t get into the hands of a white supremacist mass shooter ever again, who will take a child’s father away?” Maciulewicz asked in the video.Rather than outlining corporate changes to prevent future tragedies like Buffalo, the gun company executives deflected responsibility for mass shootings, instead blaming individual bad actors and policy failures to prevent violent crime.“These acts are committed by murderers,” said Daniel, whose company sold the assault weapon used in the Uvalde shooting. “The murderers are responsible.”Killoy, the CEO of the largest manufacturer of rifles in the US, similarly argued it was wrong to blame the “inanimate object” of a firearm for deaths caused by gun violence.“We firmly believe that it is wrong to deprive citizens of their constitutional right to purchase a lawful firearm they desire because of the criminal acts of wicked people,” Killoy said. “A firearm, any firearm, can be used for good or for evil. The difference is in the intent of the individual possessing it, which we respectfully submit, should be the focus of any investigation into the root causes of criminal violence involving firearms.”Republicans on the committee echoed the executives’ argument, accusing Democrats of demonizing gun manufacturers while promoting “soft on crime” policies.“It’s absolutely disgusting to me and unthinkable, the height of irresponsibility and lack of accountability,” said Jody Hice, a Republican of Georgia. “My colleagues seem to forget that the American people have a right to own guns.”At one point, two committee members got into a heated exchange, as the Republican Clay Higgins accused Democrats of leaving average Americans more vulnerable to gun violence by pushing restrictions to firearm access.Higgins argued that law-abiding Americans would be more likely to get injured in a shooting if they were not armed as well, saying, “My colleagues in the Democratic party, when those gun fights happen, that blood will be on your hands.”The Democrat Gerry Connolly fiercely rejected that charge, telling Higgins, “We will not be threatened with violence and bloodshed because we want reasonable gun control.”The committee hearing came as House Democrats attempt to pass additional gun-control legislation, including a ban on assault weapons. A House committee advanced the assault weapons ban last week, but it remains unclear whether the full chamber will approve the proposal.Several House Democrats have indicated they do not support the ban, and the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, can afford to lose only four votes if every Republican opposes the bill. The House Democratic caucus chair, Hakeem Jeffries, expressed confidence that the ban would ultimately pass, although it does not appear the bill will come up for a vote this week.“I expect that, if the assault weapons ban hits the floor, that it will pass, and I personally and strongly support it,” Jeffries said Wednesday.Joe Biden has already signed one gun-control bill last month, in the wake of the tragedies in Uvalde and Buffalo. But many Democrats argued that the compromise bill, which expanded background checks for the youngest firearm buyers and provided more funding for mental health resources, did not go far enough to address gun violence.In addition to the assault weapons ban, House Democrats are considering a bill to strip gun manufacturers of civil liability protections. At the Wednesday hearing, Maloney indicated she would soon introduce more bills to regulate firearm manufacturers, saying lawmakers have a responsibility to the many families who have lost loved ones to gun violence.“Since it’s clear that the gun industry won’t protect Americans, Congress must act,” Maloney said in her closing statement. “This is a fight we must and will win.”TopicsUS gun controlUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingnewsReuse this content More

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      Red and Blue America Will Never Be the Same

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      Donald Trump’s dominance of the political stage for the past seven years galvanized what had been a slow-burning realignment, creating a profound upheaval in the electorate and in both the Democratic and Republican parties.The support Trump received in rural communities and the animosity he provoked among well-educated suburbanites accelerated the ongoing inversion — on measures of income, education and geographic region — of white Democratic and Republican voters. (White voters make up 67 percent of the electorate.)In 2018, according to ProximityOne, a website that analyzes the demographics of congressional districts, Democratic members of Congress represented 74 of the 100 most affluent districts, including 24 of the top 25. Conversely, Republican members of Congress represented 54 of the 100 districts with the lowest household income. The median household income in districts represented by Democrats was $66,829, which is $10,324 more than the median for districts represented by Republicans, at $56,505.The 2018 data stands in contrast to the income pattern a half-century ago. In 1973, Republicans held 63 of the 100 highest-income districts and Democrats held 73 of the 100 lowest-income districts.These trends prompted Nolan McCarty, a political scientist at Princeton, to comment in an email that the Democratsare mostly the party of the master’s degree — modestly advantaged economically but not exactly elite. On the flip side, the Republicans are the party of the associate degree (a two-year college degree), less educated than the Democrats but not exactly the proletariat.Richard Pildes, a law professor at N.Y.U., argued thatpolitics throughout the Western democracies is in recent years in the midst of the most dramatic reconfiguration of the political parties and their bases of support in seventy or so years. Since the New Deal in the United States and WWII in Western Europe, the base of the dominant parties of the left was less affluent, less highly educated voters; the dominant parties of the right drew their primary support from higher income, more highly educated voters.Now, Pildes continued, “we are witnessing the complete inversion of that pattern, and the question is whether this is a temporary or more enduring realignment of the political parties throughout the West.”In his email, Pildes noted that in the 1940sDemocratic candidates received twenty-two points less support from voters in the top ten percent of the income bracket than from those in the bottom ninety percent. By 2012, that gap had dropped to only an eight-point difference and in 2016, voters in the top ten percent had become eight points more likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Similarly, in the 1940s, those with university degrees in the United States were twenty points less likely to vote for Democrats, while in 2000 there was no difference and by 2016, they were thirteen points more likely to vote for Democrats.The ramifications of these developments, which predate Trump’s entry into presidential politics in 2015, “radiate throughout the electoral process in the United States,” Pildes argued:Take the Electoral College: for most of the time from the 1950s until 2016, it was actually biased toward the Democrats. But in 2016, it suddenly became strongly biased toward the Republicans, and 2020 added even more to that bias.At the same time, there are counter-developments more favorable to the left.Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard who focuses on redistricting and demographic trends, argued in an email that “the country’s political geography is now less pro-Republican.” While “the conventional wisdom has it that Democrats are disadvantaged in redistricting because of their inefficient over-concentration in cities,” he continued, “the Trump era seems to have changed the country’s political geography in ways that are beneficial to Democrats.”Trump, Stephanopoulos continued,modestly reduced the enormous Democratic edge in cities, thus undoing some of this packing of Democratic voters. Trump also did significantly better in rural areas, to the point that some of them are about as red (and so as packed with Republicans) as cities are blue. And Trump bled support in the suburbs, so that the country’s most populous and competitive areas now lean toward the Democrats instead of the Republicans.As a result, Stephanopoulos argued,the U.S. House will likely be close to unbiased in partisan terms in 2022. A group of scholars peg the likely bias at around 3 percent pro-Republican, while Nate Silver’s model, which incorporates additional variables like incumbency and polling, thinks the likely bias will be around 1 percent pro-Democratic.Republicans won 234 seats in 2012 despite the fact that Democrats won, by 2 percent, a majority of votes cast in House elections, according to Stephanopoulos, “but Nate Silver now thinks that Republicans will win the national House vote by 5 percent in 2022, yet only pick up the same 234 seats they got in 2012.”Robert M. Stein, a political scientist at Rice University, agrees with Stephanopolous and cites trends in Texas to show the pro-Democratic shift:Consider the Texas Republican Party’s redistricting plan in 2010 and its durability over the last decade. Beginning in 2010 Republicans held a 100 to 50 seat advantage in the Texas House of Representatives. By 2020, this margin had shrunk to 83-67. In each biennial election since 2010, Democrats picked up House seats, mostly in suburban and exurban areas of the state.The shift, Stein continued,was largely driven by the changing demography of the state. Another source of this shift can be laid at the feet of candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The result, at least in Texas, is that some of the most competitive areas (districts) in the state are not the big cities, but exurban and suburban counties including Collin, Denton, Fort Bend and Williamson. Prior to 2016 voters in these counties were trending Republican; now they are leaning Democratic or tossups.Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts, cited surveys conducted by the Cooperative Election Study from 2010 to 2020 showing that “one of the most significant shifts we see in our data is increasing Democratic strength in suburbs, especially since the early 2010s.”Schaffner provided data from the study showing that the Democratic share of the two-party vote rose from 54.5 to 63.5 percent in urban areas over the decade and remained low — 35.2 to 36.1 percent — in rural America. The biggest shift, 12.5 points, was in suburban areas, which went from 41.8 percent Democratic in 2010 to 54.3 percent in 2020.Nolan McCarty suggested that these trends may prove beneficial to the Democratic Party:The natural tilt of our single-member district system has shifted away from the Republicans as the rural vote moves toward the Republicans and the suburbs move toward the Democrats. But it is not clear what the aggregate effects of those shifts will be. It should help the House Democrats in November but it is not clear how much.The effects of these shifts on the Senate and Electoral College, McCarty continued, will be slower in the short term but could eventually become significant: “Once such changes push states like Georgia, Texas and North Carolina sufficiently toward the Democrats, they would be the party with the structural advantage in the Electoral College and Senate.”Jonathan Rodden, a political scientist at Stanford, noted in an email the possibility that very recent changes in suburban voting will hurt the future prospects of the Republican Party:The most noteworthy change to political geography in 2020 was the success of Biden in pivotal suburban areas. In the most recent round of redistricting, when examining proposed districting plans — whether drawn by computer simulations or humans — the number of Democratic-leaning districts in a state was often greater if one added up the votes of Biden and Trump in 2020 than if one used past presidential results, Senate results, gubernatorial results, or some other down-ballot elections.The geographic distribution of Biden votes, Rodden continued, “was more ‘efficient’ for the Democrats than that of other recent Democratic candidates.” But, he cautioned,what is unclear is whether this was a specific reaction to Donald Trump as a candidate in relatively educated suburbs, or a lasting trend in political geography that will outlive the Trump era. The latter is at least plausible, especially in the wake of the Dobbs decision, but it is too early to tell. Even in 2020, a non-trivial number of these suburban Biden voters split their tickets and voted for Republican House candidates.I asked Rodden what it means for statewide elections in contested states if these trends continue. He replied:This really depends on the numbers in each state, but in sun-belt states that are gaining educated and/or minority in-migrants, like Georgia and Arizona, we already have evidence that this was a pretty good trade for statewide Democrats, but in other states where in-migration is limited, like those in the Upper Midwest, this trade might work out better for statewide Republicans.Along similar lines, William Frey, a demographer and a senior fellow at Brookings, emphasized in an email that “Biden won the suburbs in 2020, I believe largely due to his gains among minorities and college whites.” Even if Republicans and Trump made marginal gains among minority voters, the support of these voters for Democrats remained overwhelming.In a 2021 Brookings paper, “Biden’s victory came from the suburbs,” Frey pointed to Georgia, whereDemographic shifts — including brisk growth in the state’s Democratic-leaning Black population, gains in Latino/Hispanic, and Asian Americans voters, and an increase in white college graduates, especially in the Atlanta metropolitan area — served to make the state competitive for Democrats this year.In a separate 2022 paper, “Today’s suburbs are symbolic of America’s rising diversity: A 2020 census portrait,” Frey focuses on the continuing stream of minorities moving into the suburbs. From 1990 to 2020, Frey found, the percentage of Asian Americans living in suburbs grew from 53.4 to 63.1 percent, of Hispanics from 49.5 to 61.4 percent and of African Americans, from 36.6 to 54.3 percent, the largest increase.Has geographic division, pitting a disproportionately rural Republican Party against an urban Democratic Party, added a new dimension to polarization making consensus and cooperation even more difficult?I posed a series of questions to an eclectic group of political scholars.Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, replied by email:Rather than claiming that the G.O.P. is becoming the party of the working class, what I see is a long-term trend away from a party system organized along class lines. Knowing that a person is wealthy (or low income) isn’t very predictive of what party that person will prefer. The parties are much better sorted by other factors — region, religion, race — than by social class.This isn’t a new phenomenon, Lee noted, but Trump intensified these divisions: “Trump’s candidacy and presidency accelerated pre-existing trends undercutting the class basis of the parties. For a Republican, Trump had unusual appeal to working-class voters and was unusually alienating to well-off suburbanites.”James Druckman, a political scientist at Northwestern University, draws an interesting distinction: “I do think the perception in the country is that Republicans are working class but not necessarily for economic reasons directly but rather because of diffuse feelings of injustice translated into rhetoric about mistreatment, unfairness and immigrants taking jobs.”At the same time, Druckman contended:Democrats are vulnerable to charges of being the party of the elite for two reasons — one is that a small strain of the party is made up of extreme progressives who offer rhetoric that can be alienating when too wrapped up in politically correct language. Second, the growing anti-intellectualism in parts of the Republican Party reflects the significant degree of education polarization we observe.Herbert Kitschelt, a political scientist at Duke, rejects some recent attempts at classification:Are the Democrats the party of the elites? Yes and no. It is the case that high-income high-education professionals in the last 20 years have moved increasingly to the Democratic Party but these are people most of whom are on the moderate wing of the party. That is to say, they embrace a mildly redistributive agenda on economic issues such as Social Security, universal health care, and support for families with children, and a mildly libertarian social agenda on questions of abortion, family relations, gender relations and ethnic relations.These moderate, mainstream Democrats arefar removed from the more radical, progressive wing and its agenda on identity, diversity, equity, and social transformation. The real driving force of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are occupational strata that are characterized by low- to middle-incomes and high education. These progressive voters primarily work in social and cultural services, in large urban areas.This progressive constituency, Kitschelt argued, isquantitatively more important for the Democratic electorate than the high-education high-income more moderate segment. By embracing the agenda of “defund the police” and cultural transformation of the schools, this progressive constituency puts itself at odds with many lower- and middle-income families across all ethnic groups.Insofar as the Democratic Party adopts the progressive agenda, Kitschelt wrote, it endangers “its electoral rainbow coalition,” noting that both African American and Hispanic families “are highly concerned about improving the police, not dismantling the police” and about “the quality of basic school instruction.”On the Republican side, Kitschelt argues thatthe core element is not “working class” in any conventional sense of the phrase at all: It is low education, but relatively high-income people. These voters are overwhelmingly white, and many are of the evangelical religious conviction. In occupational terms, they are concentrated in small business, both owners and core employees, in sectors such as construction, crafts, real estate, small retail, personal services and agriculture.Kitschelt continued: “Many of these citizens tend to live in suburban and rural areas. They are the true spearhead of Republican activism, and especially of the Trumpist persuasion.”Pildes addressed these issues in his October 2021 paper, “Political Fragmentation in Democracies of the West.”“The domination of the parties of the left by the more highly educated,” he wrote, “in combination with these cultural conflicts and policy differences, are an important element in the shift of the less educated, less affluent voters away from the parties of the left.”Pildes cites American National Elections Studies data on white voters in the 2016 election showing that Trump won among all income categories of whites making less than $175,000, while Hillary Clinton won only among whites who made in excess of $175,000.Pildes contended that defections from the Democratic Party among conservative and moderate minority voters pose a significant threat to the long-term viability of the party:Democratic support plunged from 49 percent to 27 percent among Hispanic conservatives between 2012 and 2020 and from 69 percent to 65 percent among Hispanic moderates. These changes suggest that ideology, rather than identity, is beginning to provide more of a voting basis among some Hispanics. If a marginally greater number of working-class Latino or Black voters start to vote the way that white working-class voters do, the ability of the Democratic Party to win national elections will be severely weakened.Bart Bonikowski, a professor of sociology and politics at N.Y.U., noted in an email that “the claim that the Republicans are becoming a party of the ‘working class’ is mistaken.” Not only are a majority of working class African Americans and Hispanics Democratic, but, “more accurately, the Republicans have become a party of disaffected white voters, many of whom hold resentments against ethnoracial minorities and a waning commitment to liberal democratic values.” Given “the built-in biases of the Electoral College and Senate — along with gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement — states with larger shares of noncollege whites will continue to exert outsized influence on U.S. politics, persistently disadvantaging Democrats even when their candidates and policies are broadly popular.”Robert Saldin, a political scientist at the University of Montana, argued by email that “Geographic polarization, or the urban-rural divide, is arguably the most defining feature of American politics.” Over the past 20 years, he continued, “the Democratic Party has hemorrhaged support in the countryside. They’ve got a five-alarm fire in rural America, but much of the party’s elite doesn’t even see the smoke.”For the Democrats, in Saldin’s view,trading the countryside for the cities has come at a political cost even if the party routinely wins many more total votes than the G.O.P. nationally. That’s because geography plays an outsized role in our political system, particularly in the Electoral College and the Senate.Consider the Dakotas, Saldin wrote:It wasn’t that long ago that their congressional delegations were packed with Democrats, but that’s inconceivable now. And to the extent that the same thing is happening in other low-population states, this presents a real problem for Democrats in the Senate.Saldin suggested:Here’s another way of conceptualizing it. Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming have less than 2 percent of the national population, but their ten senators have the same collective power in the Senate as those representing the five most populous states, California, Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania. If a party managed a clean sweep in those five big-box states in flyover country, that would comprise 20 percent of what you need for a Senate majority before you even look at the other 98 percent of the country. The G.O.P. is now very close to accomplishing that feat, with Montana’s Jon Tester the last Senate Democrat standing in those states.Barring an extraordinary economic turnaround or still more explosive disclosures of criminal malfeasance by Trump, these demographic trends may have a modest effect on the outcome on Election Day in November. They do, however, suggest that the balance of political power is more fluid than widely recognized. It should undermine the confidence of those predicting victory for either the left or the right in 2024.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More