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    DeSantis struggles to shake Hurricane Idalia’s dark clouds after snub to Biden

    One reality of Florida politics is that a bad hurricane for the state traditionally blows good fortune for its governor. It was true for Rick Scott, elected a senator in November 2018, one month after guiding Florida through category 5 Hurricane Michael; and again for Ron DeSantis, whose landslide re-election last year followed his much-praised handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.This year, however, DeSantis is struggling to shake the dark clouds of Hurricane Idalia, as his return to the national stage to try to rescue his flailing presidential campaign after an 11-day break has been further scarred by his “petty and small” snub of Joe Biden’s visit to Florida last weekend to survey the storm’s damage.Opponents seized on it as a partisan politicization of a climate disaster, contrasting the Republican Florida governor’s approach to a year ago after Ian, when DeSantis and Biden put their differences aside to praise each other and tour the worst-affected areas with their respective first ladies.“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and a rival for the Republican presidential nomination, told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade.“You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job,” added Christie, who was applauded by Democrats and savaged by Republicans for working closely with Barack Obama after Superstorm Sandy mauled his state in 2012.It was left to Scott, now Florida’s Republican junior senator, to graciously welcome the president to the state, and the bitter political rivals spoke warmly of each other as they surveyed the storm damage together.DeSantis’s office insisted there was nothing political in the decision to skip a meeting with Biden, which aides said would have disrupted essential recovery work. “In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts,” Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s press secretary said.But gaining political capital from the hurricane was clearly uppermost in the minds of his campaign advisers. Talking points about how to spin DeSantis’s handling of the storm were contained in a memo entitled “strong leadership in a time of crisis”, authored by communications director Andrew Romeo, obtained by Politico.And analysts say DeSantis would have been keen to avoid the potential pitfall of being seen to be too cozy with Biden. In last month’s first Republican presidential primary debate, he looked on as Vivek Ramaswamy tore into Christie, effectively accusing the then-governor’s post-Sandy metaphorical hug of Obama for the president’s re-election one week later.“Christie had taken heat about embracing Obama, and that was not a good look for Republicans who are going to be voting in the primary,” said Susan MacManus, distinguished professor emeritus of political science at the University of Florida.“I’m sure that, without it being said, the DeSantis campaign was mindful of the impacts of such an embrace [with Biden] during a presidential race.”MacManus also believes DeSantis was probably trying to ensure voters’ lasting memory of him countrywide from Hurricane Idalia was positive.“Any time a hurricane heads for Florida it gains massive national attention. There’s hardly a voter that hasn’t been to Florida, wants to come to Florida, or has relatives who live here or lived here,” she said.“The net gain for him was to be off the trail. It gave him time to regroup, and it gave him time to reach audiences or opportunities to reach audiences that he would not have reached. A lot of people don’t know much about him, in spite of the fact that people who follow politics every single day are well aware of him.”Unsurprisingly, political opponents see it as another messy contribution to a series of missteps on DeSantis’s increasingly unlikely path to the White House, as he continues to sink in the polls, and major donors desert him.“It is a really unfortunate time for Ron DeSantis to choose to be small and petty. This is a moment where people are hurting, they want to see their leaders, they want to hear from them. It’s a moment to put partisanship aside,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s former White House press secretary, told CNN.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic party, was even more blunt. “Ron keeps showing us what divisive leadership looks like. In times of crisis, the American people expect our leaders to put aside their differences and find strength in unity,” she said in a statement.“By refusing to meet with President Biden, he’s proving again what we’ve known for years: Ron will always put politics over people. I hope his fundraisers in Iowa are worth it.”By Thursday, DeSantis was back on more familiar ground, railing against the “medical authoritarianism” of Covid-19 mandates at a press conference in Jacksonville, and pledging to keep Florida mask-free as a resurgence of the virus threatens to sweep the nation this fall.The notoriously prickly governor also found time for a public shouting match with a Black voter who questioned his policies in the wake of racist killings in the city.DeSantis returns to the presidential trail weaker, in popularity terms at least, and attempting a “reset” with a new campaign manager. A CNN/SSRS poll this week showed him continuing his decline among Republican or Republican-leaning primary voters, down four points to 18% (Donald Trump leads a large field at 52%, with everybody else in single digits).And he has suffered setbacks in Florida itself, such as a federal judge striking down his “unconstitutional” dismantling of majority-Black voting districts (DeSantis is appealing); his lingering feud with Disney over LGBTQ+ rights that continues to turn off voters; and progress of a constitutional amendment measure that could enshrine abortion rights regardless of the state supreme court’s imminent ruling on the legality of its current 15-week ban.MacManus sees abortion, rather than Disney, voting districts or even the hurricane, as more of a “trouble spot” for DeSantis, both in Florida and nationally.“It’s an issue we know is resonating with a lot of people on both sides, and there’s the possibility of an amendment before the public in the November election. To me, that’s going to be a more consequential issue for him,” she said. More

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    The US should not normalize Modi’s autocratic and illiberal India at the G20 | Jason Stanley

    In December 2021, President Joe Biden hosted an event billed as a “Summit for Democracy”. Biden opened his address to the summit by describing his motivation for holding it: “in the face of sustained and alarming challenges … democracy needs champions”.Since that time Biden has embraced, as allies, autocrats and would-be autocrats all over the world, including the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who US intelligence has said was responsible for the brutal murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. More recently, Biden invited Benjamin Netanyahu, who is presiding over the destruction of Israel’s democracy by targeting its judicial system, for an official visit to the United States.Biden is right that there is an ever-larger club of backsliding democracies, with the US among them. And the American president is not the only openly hypocritical leader in this club. In fact, he is not even close to the worst offender.This September, India is hosting G20 leaders under the banner of “One Earth, One Family, One Future”. As a part of the transition to India’s assumption of this position, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has leaned heavily on these themes in promoting India as an inclusive, emerging global power.Yet behind these lofty ideals lies a very different, and dangerous, reality.Those in Modi’s ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), are hardline Hindu nationalists. Their ideology holds that India was originally a pure Hindu state, with minorities, such as India’s large Muslim population, the supposed result of colonization by outside forces.The hallmarks of fascism are everywhere. School textbooks are being rewritten to reinforce the fake history behind BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda. Topics like the theory of evolution and the periodic table have been replaced with traditional Hindu theories, and academics have been silenced for calling out the BJP’s election malpractices. The government has weaponized education in the manner typical of fascist regimes such as Russia. There are other clear indications of India’s slide towards fascism. On press freedom, India ranks 161st out of 180 countries, sandwiched between Venezuela (at 159) and Russia (at 164).Modi and the BJP have proven themselves to be fluent hypocrites on the world stage. Under the banner of anticolonialism, the party is replicating Britain’s colonial practices.In 2005 Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat, was denied entry to the US because of his role in ethnic violence that left over 1,000 people dead, the vast majority of them Muslims. According to a recently declassified report from the British Foreign Office, the Hindu mobs’ “systematic campaign of violence has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing” and “Narendra Modi is directly responsible.”He’s much more powerful now, but the playbook remains the same. India’s minorities face lynchings and the bulldozing of their homes, among other abuses. Ten percent of the world’s Muslims live in India, over 200 million in all; as Gregory Stanton, the founder and director of Genocide Watch, has warned in a US congressional briefing, we are seeing in India the beginning of what would be by far the largest genocide in history.And it’s not just Muslims who are at risk. In Manipur, over 150 people have been killed since May 2023 in a vicious ethnic conflict pitting Hindus against Christians. More broadly, since Modi took over in 2014, hate crimes against minorities have increased by 300%.History tells us that this is how it works. Fascism grants the dominant majority special status, targeting national minorities by threatening their equal citizenship. In 2019, India passed a Citizenship Amendment Act that granted a fast track to citizenship for non-Muslims who lack documentation as citizens. The National Registry Act, already implemented in the Indian state of Assam, is a seemingly contradictory effort to expel illegal immigrants. It demands that residents provide proof of their citizenship in India, essentially a birth certificate, or face expulsion. Yet 38% of Indian children under five lack a birth certificate.This tangle of laws exemplifies the blatant hypocrisy of India’s ruling party, leaving India poised to disenfranchise much of its Muslim population.Nor is the problem only domestic. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, India has become one of the world’s largest importers of Russian oil – essentially propping up Russia’s occupation and genocide of its peaceful neighbor. Genocidal regimes support one another, in an alliance of evil, and the rest of the world must stand against them.So, has the US been listening? The answer is clearly no. In June, Biden gave Modi’s visit a red-carpet treatment. Jack Kirby, a US national security official, has made light of objections to Modi, declaring that “India is a vibrant democracy. Anybody that, you know, happens to go to New Delhi can see that for themselves.” With America’s help, the G20 platforms BJP’s transparently hypocritical embrace of humanitarian and liberal ideals.The US public and their leaders are paying attention, at least somewhat, to Russia’s genocide in Ukraine. But the collective shrug at a potentially vast genocide in India (as well as the ongoing genocide in Sudan) raises an obvious concern: is the US public’s standard for this crime much higher when black and brown people face the threat?
    Jason Stanley is a professor of philosophy at Yale University, and the author, most recently, of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them More

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    Ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro found guilty of contempt of Congress – live

    From 2h agoFormer Trump White House official Peter Navarro has been found guilty of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after he ignored a subpoena issued last year by the House January 6 committee during the investigation into the Capitol attack.Much will be riding on Donald Trump’s ability to remove the case to federal court.The racketeering charge filed against Trump carries a sentence of five to 20 years in prison. If Trump were convicted in Georgia, he could not pardoned by a sympathetic president because the charges were filed at the state level. In Georgia, the governor does not even have the power to issue pardons, as that duty lies with the state’s board of pardons and paroles.According to Ronald Carlson, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, Trump could not even apply for a pardon until he has been convicted and served five years in a Georgia prison. He said:
    The stakes for the Trump team are really high in Georgia, so I expect a full-fledged defense by President Trump. Probably a lot of that will verge on political bias.
    Trump has already offered a preview of that politically driven strategy. In a statement issued last month, Trump’s presidential campaign attacked Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis as a “radical Democrat” and “rabid partisan”. Despite those personal attacks, Willis appeared undaunted as she spoke to reporters shortly after the indictment was unsealed.Eric Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, believes Trump may succeed at removing the case to federal court, but he expressed hope that a group of Georgians will eventually have the opportunity to issue a verdict on the former president’s election subversion efforts. He said:
    I’m talking as a citizen more than as a law professor, but I think Donald Trump is an existential threat to our country. And I think a Georgia jury should decide if he broke the law in Georgia.
    Florida governor Ron DeSantis vowed to fight recent efforts to respond to a rise in coronavirus cases across the US, while his state surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, warned against the latest Covid-19 vaccine.At a Jacksonville news conference on Thursday, DeSantis and Ladapo promised Florida would not join states, cities or school districts across the country in temporarily closing schools or mandating mask-wearing because of the recent uptick in Covid-19 cases, according to an AP report.“People are lurching toward this insanity again,” DeSantis said.
    As we see these things being orchestrated … there needs to be pushback.
    His remarks came on the same day his GOP presidential campaign sent out an email to supporters pledging to “fight back against every bogus attempt the Left makes to expand government control” in relation to Covid-19 measures.Lapado, whose previous warnings against Covid-19 vaccines have been criticized by federal health agencies who said his claims were harmful to the public, said there were no arguments for getting the latest vaccine. He added:
    There are a lot of red flags.
    South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is expected to endorse Donald Trump at a campaign rally in the state on Friday, sources told CNN, amid speculation the Republican governor could be potential running mate for the former president if he wins the GOP nomination.Trump is expected to join Noem in the South Dakota Republican party’s “Monumental Leaders Rally” in Rapid City on Friday, where she is slated to appear as the event’s special guest.Noem, who won re-election during the midterms with Trump’s endorsement, was once a potential 2024 candidate herself and in a November 2022 interview with the New York Times that she didn’t believe Trump offered “the best chance” for the Republican party in 2024.In August, she doubled down on her decision not to run for the GOP primary race, telling Fox News that “none of them can win as long as Trump’s in the race […] So why run if you can’t win?”The report writes:
    While she is expected Friday to formally throw her support behind Trump – a move most other Republican governors have been reluctant to make so far – Noem has demurred on questions about her interest in the nation’s second-highest office.
    ‘Of course, I would consider it,’ Noem told Fox News host Sean Hannity recently when asked if she would be Trump’s vice president.
    An impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden would be sure to enflame America’s bitter political divisions ahead of next year’s presidential election, a likely Biden-Trump rematch. Trump faces criminal and civil trials of his own.It would also collide with efforts to prevent a shutdown of the federal government. The House is scheduled to meet for just 11 days before the fiscal year ends on 30 September. Members are under pressure to come up with short-term funding to keep government offices functioning and provide emergency funding for Ukraine and disaster relief.House speaker Kevin McCarthy faces resistance from fellow Republicans, including far-right members who have threatened to shut the government unless they get the impeachment they crave. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video, declaring she “will not vote to fund the government” unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry.Some have threatened to oust McCarthy if he stands in the way. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, admitted last week:
    Honestly, it’s a pretty big mess.
    Vice-President Kamala Harris has dismissed questions about Joe Biden’s age, telling a television interviewer she is prepared to be commander in chief, but that it won’t be necessary, Reuters writes.
    Joe Biden is going to be just fine,” Harris said, when asked about concerns that Biden is too old to run again.
    Biden, who will turn 81 in November and would be 82 at the start of a prospective second four-year term in January 2025, faces skeptical American voters who will decide whether to elect the Democrat for another four years in November 2024.
    His leading opponent, Republican Donald Trump, is 77. American voters tell pollsters they’d like to see younger candidates for president.
    Some Republican presidential candidates, including former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, have said a vote for Biden would end up being a vote for Harris, who had a 40% approval rating in an average of polls compiled by politics website Five Thirty Eight.
    Harris, on a trip to an Asian leaders summit meeting in Jakarta, told CBS News, when asked if she was prepared to take over the presidency, “Yes, I am, if necessary. But Joe Biden is going to be fine. Let me tell you something: I work with Joe Biden every day.”
    Harris also rejected criticism by Republicans who said electing her would be risky.“They feel the need to attack because they’re scared that we will win based on the merit of the work that Joe Biden and I, and our administration has done,” she said.
    The verdict on Peter Navarro in court in Washington DC this afternoon was unanimous.Reuters has more on this:
    The 12-member jury found Navarro guilty of two counts of contempt after he refused to testify or turn over documents to the Democratic-led House panel that investigated the Januaruy 6, 2021 riot by Trump supporters and broader attempts by Trump, a Republican, to reverse his 2020 election defeat.
    Navarro, wearing a dark suit and red tie, showed no visible reaction when the verdict was read aloud.
    “The defendant chose allegiance to former President Trump over compliance with the subpoena,” federal prosecutor Elizabeth Aloi told the jurors during closing arguments earlier on Thursday. “That is contempt. That is a crime.”
    The charges carry a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for January 12, 2024.
    Navarro is a hawk on China policy who advised Trump on trade issues during his presidency and also served on the Covid-19 task force.
    The verdict in Navarro’s case in federal court in Washington came after a trial that featured just one day of testimony from three prosecution witnesses, former staff members of the select committee. The defense did not call any witnesses or present any evidence.
    Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser during Donald Trump’s presidency, is the second Trump aide to be convicted on contempt of Congress charges after former White House adviser Steve Bannon. Navarro has been charged with two counts of contempt of Congress, both punishable by up to a year behind bars. Bannon is appealing his own conviction.Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro has been found guilty of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after he ignored a subpoena issued last year by the House January 6 committee during the investigation into the Capitol attack.Former Donald Trump White House aide Peter Navarro, who is facing contempt of Congress charges for not complying with a subpoena from the January 6 committee, has returned to the Washington DC courtroom to hear the verdict for his trial.A federal jury began deliberating the criminal contempt of Congress charges against Navarro earlier this afternoon. Navarro faces two counts stemming from his failure to comply with the committee’s demands to produce documents and testimony. Each charge carries a maximum of one year in prison.The former Trump adviser has long insisted he could not comply with the subpoena because Trump had asserted executive privilege and he was obliged to protect his confidential discussions with Trump when he was the president.The White House warned House speaker Kevin McCarthy to “honor” commitments he made to the American people and to approve its request to tie aid for Ukraine with increased disaster relief funding.McCarthy has been considering tying approval for aid to Ukraine to controversial immigration and asylum policies strongly opposed by Democrats.A statement from White House spokesperson Andrew Bates reads:
    Lives are at stake across a wide range of urgent, bipartisan priorities for the American people that are addressed in President Biden’s supplemental funding request – a request that honors the funding commitments he and both parties in both chambers made to the American people.
    Like Senate Republicans, Speaker McCarthy should keep his word about government funding. And he should do so in a way that acts on these pressing issues – including fentanyl, national security, and disaster response – rather than break his promise and cave to the most extreme members of his conference agitating for a baseless impeachment stunt and shutdown.
    The White House said Joe Biden tested negative for Covid-19 again, ahead of his scheduled departure for India and Vietnam.The first lady, Jill Biden, tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday.Biden is expected to depart for New Delhi on Thursday evening to attend a G20 summit and a stop in Vietnam designed to further cement US influence in Asia.Hunter Biden’s case has become a political lightning rod. Republicans accused the justice department of concocting a “sweetheart deal” and raised the prospect of impeaching the president over unsubstantiated claims that he played a role in his son’s foreign business affairs during his time as vice-president.Hunter has been the target of congressional investigations since Republicans gained control of the House in January. Three committees are pursuing lines of inquiry. They have obtained thousands of pages of financial records from members of the Biden family through subpoenas to the treasury department and financial institutions.But Republicans have failed to produce evidence that Biden directly participated in his son’s work, though he sometimes had dinner with clients or greeted them on calls.Although Senate Republicans have voiced scepticism, the momentum behind an impeachment inquiry in the House may prove unstoppable. The speaker, Kevin McCarthy, told Fox News recently:
    If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry.
    Donald Trump – the clear frontrunner for the presidential nomination in 2024 despite facing 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions and civil lawsuits too – is urging Republicans to move quickly. He told Real America’s Voice:
    I don’t know actually how a Republican could not do it. I think a Republican would be primaried and lose immediately, no matter what district you’re in.
    The White House is bracing for political trench warfare after prosecutors pursuing Joe Biden’s son on a gun possession charge said they would seek a criminal indictment by the end of September.The prospect of Hunter Biden standing trial is likely to energise Republicans preparing to launch an impeachment inquiry into the president even as Congress tries to avert a government shutdown.The White House has reportedly set up a “war room” of two dozen lawyers and aides to combat the Republican effort, partly by studying how Bill Clinton turned his 1998 impeachment to his political advantage.Long a political liability for his father, Hunter Biden bought a pistol in 2018 and allegedly lied on a federal form by stating he was not a drug user at the time. In a Wednesday court filing, the special counsel David Weiss said the government would seek a grand jury indictment before 29 September.The development followed the collapse of a plea deal under which Hunter Biden would have entered into a deferred prosecution agreement over the gun charge and pleaded guilty to tax charges too. The younger Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, insists the deal is still in effect.
    We believe the signed and filed diversion agreement remains valid and prevents any additional charges from being filed against Mr Biden, who has been abiding by the conditions of release under that agreement for the last several weeks.
    Donald Trump has filed notice in Fulton County that he “may” seek to have his 2020 election subversion case removed to federal court.I’m told by people familiar that Trump’s legal team is waiting to see what happens with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his arguments before taking that step.The unusual notice appears to have been aimed mainly for presiding Fulton County superior court judge Scott McAfee. Trump has 30 days from the day of his arraignment – or when he filed his not guilty plea and arraignment waiver on 31 August – to file for removal to federal court. Removal could upend things and McAfee noted the potential logistical headache at a hearing yesterday.If Meadows wins his removal motion, then the case goes to US district court. If Meadows loses but the US court of appeals for the 11th Circuit reverses, then McAfee could face problem of having started a trial with no jurisdiction. More

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    Majority of likely Democratic voters say party should ditch Biden, poll shows

    A majority of likely Democratic voters say the party should nominate someone other than Joe Biden for president next year, according to a poll released on Thursday.Two-thirds of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters surveyed by CNN and SSRS from 25 to 31 August said they would prefer someone other than Biden. Among those voters, 18% specified another candidate but the overwhelming majority – 82% – said they “just want to see someone besides” the current president.Among declared Democratic candidates, however, Biden is seen as the best-positioned to beat the clear Republican favorite, Donald Trump, CNN said. Other contenders include Robert F Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, and the self-help author Marianne Williamson, who also ran in 2020.Most observers say the US economy is strong, and note legislative successes for Biden, including the passage of ambitious infrastructure and domestic spending packages. In last year’s midterms, messaging about Republican extremism, particularly on abortion and voting rights, helped Democrats avoid the kind of heavy losses usually suffered by a president’s party.Polling now shows voters are split on partisan lines when it comes to the merits or otherwise of a likely impeachment effort driven by far-right House Republicans over business deals involving the president’s son, Hunter Biden.But Biden’s own poll numbers remain stubbornly low. In the new poll from CNN and SSRS, the president’s approval rating was just 39%. Nearly 60% of respondents said they thought Biden’s policies had made economic conditions worse, while 76% said they were seriously concerned that, at 80, the president was too old to serve a full term if re-elected.That echoed other recent polls, including a survey conducted during roughly the same period and released on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal. In that poll, 73% of voters said Biden was “too old to run for president” but just 47% of voters said the same about Trump, who is only three years younger than Biden.Despite widespread opposition to a second term for Biden, the CNN poll found that Nikki Haley was the only possible Republican nominee who voters said would conclusively beat Biden next year.Haley, 51 and a former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, enjoyed a clear lead over Biden in a notional general election, by 49% to 43%. On the campaign trail, Haley has repeatedly targeted Biden’s age, calling for mental competency tests for politicians over 75.Haley is, however, generally fourth in Republican polling averages, behind the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. All of them are way behind Trump, who has long dominated the race regardless of an extreme legal predicament that now features 91 criminal charges and civil suits including a defamation case in which he has been adjudicated a rapist.On Wednesday, in the strongest challenge yet to Trump’s eligibility to participate in the election, a watchdog group sued to remove him from the 2024 ballot in Colorado. The suit argues that Trump’s involvement in the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 – when supporters he told to “fight like hell” sought to block certification of Biden’s election win – disqualifies the former president because the US constitution bars from office any state or federal official who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion”.Trump did not take part in the first Republican debate in Wisconsin last month, a contest Haley was widely held to have won. But she has not seen a meaningful bump in support among Republican voters.Jim Messina, a former campaign chair for Barack Obama, to whom Biden was vice-president, this week called Democrats worried about Biden’s prospects “fucking bedwetters” and said electoral signs remained positive.But according to the CNN poll, match-ups between Biden and all other major Republican candidates returned ties or scores within the margin of error.Trump is set to face a series of criminal and civil trials in election year. Nonetheless, he led Biden by 47% to 46%. DeSantis and Biden were tied on 47%. Biden was one point ahead of Ramaswamy, 47% to 46%. The former vice-president Mike Pence, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a rare Trump critic, edged Biden out by two points each.Nearly half of respondents said any Republican would be a better choice than Biden. More

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    Federal prosecutors seek new indictment against Hunter Biden

    Federal prosecutors are seeking to bring a new indictment against Joe Biden’s son Hunter by the end of September, according to court documents filed on Wednesday.The exact charges the president’s son would face were not immediately clear, but he has been under investigation in Delaware on gun and tax charges.US attorney for Delaware David Weiss, newly named a special counsel in the case, referred to the new indictment in a status report required by Judge Maryellen Noreika.Defense attorneys have argued that an agreement sparing Hunter Biden from prosecution on a felony gun charge remains in place. It was part of a plea deal on misdemeanor tax offenses that fell apart during a court appearance in July. More

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    Democrats worried over Biden chances are ‘bedwetters’, ex-Obama adviser says

    Democrats worried about Joe Biden’s re-election prospects are “fucking bedwetters” and should not worry so much, the former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said.“Historically, we’re fucking bedwetters,” Messina told Politico. “We grew up in the 80s and 90s when Republicans won elections all the time. Democrats had their hearts deeply broken when Hillary [Clinton] lost [to Donald Trump in 2016] and people didn’t see that coming. And so, you know, we continually believe every bad thing people say.”Polling shows Trump is the clear leader in the Republican race to face Biden next year. Polling also shows Trump and Biden in a close race, and many more Americans are concerned about Biden, 80, being too old to be president, than about Trump, who is 77.Biden’s approval ratings remain stubbornly low, even regarding an economy most observers consider to be in good shape.Discussing “a new 22-slide presentation” that he shared with Politico, Messina said: “I thought it was important to say to my friends and clients and other people, ‘Let’s just take a step back and try to be really number-specific and really sort of who has what cards in their poker hand.“And you would just rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump.’”Outlining Biden’s strengths, Messina cited the strong economy, the success of messaging about rightwing threats to abortion rights and the stark contrast between Biden, a centrist Democrat, and Trump, the leader of an extremist Republican party.“It’s a choice between two parties, two ideologies, between two people,” Messina said. “And that choice matters … People didn’t see the Democratic turnout in 2022 coming.”For Democrats, the 2022 midterms turned out better than expected, with Republicans in control of the House – setting up what is now a looming Biden impeachment – but only by a slim majority and with Democrats holding the Senate.Now 53, Messina worked in congressional politics before becoming chief of staff to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008, defeating John McCain. Four years later, he managed Obama’s re-election victory over Mitt Romney.Messina has worked in other countries, including as a consultant to the Conservative party in the UK, helping David Cameron win an outright majority in the general election of 2015. He was less successful in 2017, when Theresa May was returned as prime minister but without a parliamentary majority.Speaking to Politico, Messina identified one major threat to Biden in a second presidential election against Trump: third-party candidates.“I don’t care what they do,” Messina said of efforts such as that mounted by No Labels, a big-money group threatening to run a centrist third-party pick, names in the frame including the Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan, a former Republican Maryland governor.“I don’t care how much money they spend. I don’t care who their nominee is. They’re going to get zero electoral votes. The question is who do they take the votes from?“You just can’t split away votes if you want to beat Donald Trump. And I just cannot overstate how crucial it is to make sure that we don’t create a vehicle that takes enough votes up to elect Donald Trump.” More

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    AOC, the change agent: inside the 8 September Guardian Weekly

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s explosive entrance on to the US political scene at the age of 29, as the youngest woman ever to be elected to the House of Representatives, was a beacon of hope for the progressive left during the dark days of the Trump presidency.Five years on, AOC is established as an influential figure in the Democratic party, known for her advocacy of green policies and efforts to engage marginalised groups. In a wide-ranging interview, she talks to Washington bureau chief David Smith about the climate crisis, misogyny in US politics and the potential – one day – for a presidential run of her own.For many school and college students, this time of year marks a new term. But in England, a major political row has been threatening to engulf the government as safety fears over a form of aerated concrete used in many public buildings have forced more than 100 schools to remain closed, as Peter Walker and Sally Weale report.For those with an eye farther afield, on the graduate jobs market, Hibaq Farah and Tom Ambrose consider the future careers most likely to withstand the coming onslaught of artificial intelligence.In Features, Matthew Bremner’s investigation into the massacre of migrants in the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla is a sobering but important read. Jay Owens changes the pace somewhat with an exploration of dust, and what it reveals about the world around us.Olivia Rodrigo is one of pop’s hottest properties – but much of the simple joys of her teenage years were lost in a previous life as a child TV actor. She opens up to Laura Snapes about her second album and trying to make sense of her life.To round off, our lifestyle pages have a Middle Eastern flavour this week, with a delicious recipe from Meera Sodha for herbed saffron rice with pistachios, and tips on how to make the perfect hummus.Get the magazine delivered to your home address More