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      Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projects

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      Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would expedite federal energy projectsThe centrist Democrat believes he has votes to pass the measure, which has met with resistance from the left The US senator Joe Manchin released an energy permitting bill on Wednesday to speed up fossil fuel and clean energy projects.The bill is expected to be attached to a measure to temporarily fund the government that Congress must pass before 1 October. The legislation would require the federal government to issue permits for Equitrans Midstream Corp’s long-delayed $6.6bn Mountain Valley Pipeline to take natural gas between West Virginia, Manchin’s home state, and Virginia.The wider funding bill needs approval of the House and Senate and to be signed by Joe Biden to become law. Manchin’s staff told reporters that he believed the funding bill will would get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate with the permitting measure attached.The permitting measure from Manchin, a centrist Democrat and an important swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, would require Biden to designate 25 energy projects of strategic national importance for speedy federal review.The USelectricity grid needs expansion and fixes as some of its major transmission lines are 50 years old. Improving transmission lines would help renewable projects like wind and solar farms in rural areas get clean power to cities.Biden’s landmark climate and spending bill – what’s in it, and what got cut?Read moreThe bill also sets a two-year target for environmental reviews on energy projects that need to be completed by more than one federal agency.Progressive lawmakers and environmental groups have been concerned that the bill would speed fossil fuel projects while undermining US environmental laws. In the House of Representatives, 77 Democrats this month asked the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to keep the side deal out of the funding bill.Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, said after the bill was released he could not support its “highly unusual provisions” regarding Mountain Valley pipeline.Kaine said they “eliminate any judicial review” for key parts of the pipeline approval process and strip jurisdiction away from a US court of appeals for cases involving it. He said he had not been included in talks about the measure, even though 100 miles (160 km) of the pipeline would run through his state.While the bill would speed up the processes required by a bedrock US green law called the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates reviews of major projects, “it doesn’t amend the underlying statutes”, a member of Manchin’s staff told reporters in a call. Getting at least 10 Republican senators to support the measure could be complicated after Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from Manchin’s state, issued her own bill this month more favorable to fossil fuels.Some Republicans were also concerned because Manchin voted for Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which contained $369 bn for climate and energy security.Speaking about the unwillingness of some Republicans to support permitting, Manchin said on Tuesday: “If they’re willing to say they’re going to shut down the government because of a personal attack on me, or by not looking at the good of the country, that is what makes people sick about politics.”TopicsJoe ManchinUS SenateEnergyJoe BidenFossil fuelsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      New York attorney general says ‘no one is above’ the law as Trump sued for fraud – as it happened

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      The New York attorney general, Letitia James, just announced a lawsuit against Donald Trump and his family, accusing them of fraudulently inflating their net worth by billions of dollars to get better terms on bank loans and other financial benefits.Here’s more fromthe Guardian’s Martin Pengelly on the suit, which presents the latest in the many legal threats facing the former president:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The attorney general of New York state has filed a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and members of his family, the culmination of a years-long investigation of financial practices at the Trump Organization.
      Letitia James announced the suit in New York on Wednesday.
      In a statement, the attorney general said the suit was filed “against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, senior management and involved entities for engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits.
      “The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, and senior executives of the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and lower premiums, and to gain tax benefits, among other things.”New York attorney general announces civil lawsuit against Trump and familyRead moreDonald Trump is in even more legal trouble after the New York attorney general announced a civil suit against him and his children on fraud charges. Elsewhere in the Empire State, president Joe Biden spoke to the United Nations and accused Russia of trying to “erase a sovereign state from the map” by invading Ukraine, in a call for global unity against Moscow.Here’s what else happened today:
      The Federal Reserve made a big interest rate hike to fight inflation while trying to avoid putting the US economy into a recession.
      We could hear from Trump this evening on Fox News, according to CBS News, though he may opt to post on social media instead.
      Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell came close to voting to convict Trump following the January 6 insurrection, while calling the former president “crazy,” a new book said.
      A bill to amend America’s election law and prevent another January 6 is expected to pass the House today.
      Election officials nationwide are being deluged with public records requests, apparently at the behest of Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.
      The New York attorney general’s lawsuit isn’t the only one Trump is facing in the state. A writer plans to sue the former president under a recently signed law, accusing him of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.E Jean Carroll, the writer who accused Donald Trump of raping her more than two decades ago, plans to file a new lawsuit against the former US president.In a letter made public on Tuesday, a lawyer for the former Elle magazine columnist said she planned to sue Trump for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act.That law, recently signed by the governor, Kathy Hochul, gives adult accusers a one-year window to bring civil claims over alleged sexual misconduct regardless of how long ago it occurred.Trump has denied raping Carroll and accused her of concocting the rape claim to sell her book.Writer E Jean Carroll to file new lawsuit after accusing Trump of rapeRead moreThe House is currently debating the Presidential Election Reform Act, which would tweak the procedures for counting votes to prevent the type of legal schemes that occurred around of the time of the January 6 insurrection from taking place again.A vote to approve the measure could come later today, but the Democrats controlling the chamber have plans for more bills in the weeks before the midterms. The Associated Press reports that a deal between the party’s progressive and centrist faction has been reached to increase funding for police departments:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The breakthrough came after intense negotiations in recent days between Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a leader of the centrist coalition, and Rep. Ilhan Omar D-Minn., one of the leaders of the progressive faction. Their deal, reached with little time to spare on the House calendar, could help unite the party on a public safety platform more than two years after the police killing of George Floyd.
      “I’m proud to have worked closely with Republicans, Democrats, and a broad spectrum of stakeholders to make real progress for public safety,” Gottheimer said in a statement Wednesday.
      The package includes reforms to ensure police funding is used to support smaller police departments, along with investments in de-escalation training and mental health resources for officers to reduce fatal encounters between police and people with mental illness.
      “With this package, House Democrats have the opportunity to model a holistic, inclusive approach to public safety, and keep our promise to families across the country to address this issue at the federal level,” Omar and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement.The bills have the backing of policing groups, but it’s unclear if they will be able to clear the much higher bar for passage in the Senate, where the Democratic majority would need the support of at least 10 Republicans.Last year, Julie Rikelman argued on behalf of abortion rights in front of the supreme court. This year, she has pledged to uphold the court’s decision overturning abortion rights nationwide if confirmed as a federal appellate judge.Bloomberg Law reports on the exchange that took place during Rikelman’s confirmation hearing for the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which covers the northeastern United States. Rikelman argued before the supreme court on behalf of the Center for Reproductive Rights as they considered Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. When it decided that case, the conservative-dominated court not only upheld a Mississippi law curbing abortion access, it also overturned Roe v Wade entirely, allowing states to ban the procedure.“Our legal system and the rule of law itself depends on lower courts following Supreme Court precedent and as you said Dobbs is now the law of the land and I will follow it as I will follow all Supreme Court precedent,” Rikelman said in her confirmation hearing before the Senate judiciary committee.A candidate embellishing their background isn’t unheard of on the campaign trail, but CNN has a story today on something unique and far more troubling going on at election offices across the country.Administrators nationwide are being hit with a deluge of public records requests for massive amounts of election data, CNN reports, including the little-known cast vote records generated by voting machines. The concern is that the requests will complicate the work of voting officials nationwide ahead of the November midterms. The requests appear to be traced back to Mike Lindell, a prominent Trump ally and conspiracy theorist who encouraged people to make such requests a month ago:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In a telephone interview with CNN, Lindell said he first learned of the cast vote records in June and views them as a way to “detect machine manipulation” of the 2020 election.
      Asked how they would, he said: “You’d have to talk to a cyber guy… It’s the sequence and the patterns.”
      Lindell has spent nearly two years spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election. Dominion Voting Systems, the frequent target of his attacks, has sued Lindell and his company for defamation.
      Lindell said the records would bolster his effort to rid the election system of machines. Some of the requesters, he said, are taking what they found to local county officials and sheriffs to demand the removal of machines in their counties.
      “I want computers and voting machines gone,” he said.Voting officials have had to bring on new staff to handle them, but according to CNN, many people making the requests act as if they are just following orders. “‘I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what it does. I just know I’m supposed to ask for it,’” is what one official said the requesters often say.The pitch to voters made by J.R. Majewski, who is running to unseat a long-serving Democrat in an Ohio district redrawn in the GOP’s favor, is this: elect a Donald Trump-backed conservative who served his country in Afghanistan.The only problem being that the last part isn’t true, according to an investigation just released by the Associated Press.The article says it all:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower.
      Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story.
      They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.
      Majewski’s account of his time in the military is just one aspect of his biography that is suspect. His post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress.The Federal Reserve made yet another aggressive interest rate hike at the conclusion of its meeting today as it looks to cut into the rapid price growth that’s beset the US economy without causing a recession.The three-quarter percentage point increase in the central bank’s funds rate approved by the Federal Open Market Committee is the third straight hike of that size, and comes after data released earlier this month showed inflation declining by less than expected in August.Led by Jerome Powell, a Republican whom president Joe Biden nominated for a second term last year, the American central bank ended the easy money policies it rolled out during the Covid-19 pandemic and earlier this year started raising rates and running down its massive holdings of debt. The catalyst was price pressures that rose throughout 2021, prompting the Fed to abruptly pivot from a strategy of spurring growth by keeping borrowing costs low to rapidly increasing rates as inflation hit levels not seen since the 1980s.However, analysts say the Fed waited too long to begin hiking, allowing inflation to get far worse than necessary as it was being driven higher by factors like Russia’s war in Ukraine and supply shocks caused by the pandemic. The concern now is that the central bank – which uses interest rates as a powerful but blunt tool to stabilize employment and prices in the world’s largest economy – could cause a recession that undermines the recovery made by American workers and businesses over the past two years.Liberal pundits and Twitter accounts are cheering the investigation into Donald Trump for holding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. What they may not know is that they are also throwing their support behind one of the most pernicious and terrible laws that exists: the Espionage Act. Holding Trump accountable doesn’t mean we should all become cheerleaders for an often-abused law primarily used to prosecute whistleblowers and threaten journalists.Ever since the 100-year old Espionage Act was cited in the warrant for the search of Trump’s Florida residence, Twitter and cable news have been rife with misinformation about the law and what it means. Those clamoring for Trump to be prosecuted under the act are spreading a ton of misleading statements in the process.First, let’s get this out of the way: just because the law is called “the Espionage Act” doesn’t mean there is any evidence Trump committed “espionage”. MSNBC hosts and their former CIA guests are even baselessly speculating that because Trump had these documents at his house, it is connected to the spate of deaths of CIA assets around the world.What a convenient excuse for the CIA! There’s not one hint of evidence that Trump having some classified docs at this compound led to any deaths, and it lets the CIA completely off the hook for continually getting people killed, which – by the way – has been happening for decades. There was a New York Times investigation from several years ago about CIA asset networks in China and Iran being rounded up and executed, which dated back to 2010. Or go read Tim Weiner’s classic history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes, which details how that has happened over and over again throughout the agency’s history, with little or no public accountability.Read more:Don’t cheer for the Espionage Act being used against Donald Trump. It will backfire | Trevor TimmRead moreThe Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, warned last month that there would be “pain” ahead as the US central bank struggles to contain a surge in inflation unseen in 40 years. Powell will offer some indication of how much pain he expects at 2pm today.The Fed is expected to announce another sharp rise in interest rates after the conclusion of its latest meeting. It will also update its economic forecasts for the US economy.Economists are predicting the Fed will raise its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage points, the third such rise in a row, and signal plans to raise rates again in the coming months.Full preview:Federal Reserve warns of ‘pain’ ahead as inflation surges Read moreThe Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted the network to withdraw its famous call of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in 2020, citing pressure from Donald Trump’s campaign and saying the swing state should be “put back in his column”, a new book says.The news is contained in The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, published in the US on Tuesday.The authors, Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of the New Yorker, call Baier’s request “stunning”, as Arizona “was never in Trump’s column. While the margin of his defeat in the state had narrowed since election night, he still trailed by more than 10,000 votes.”In a statement emailed to the Guardian by a Fox News spokesperson, Baier responded to the report.He said: “The full context of the e-mail is not reported in this book.“I never said the Trump campaign ‘was really pissed’ – that was from an external email that I referenced within my note. This was an email sent after election night.“In the immediate days following the election, the vote margins in Arizona narrowed significantly and I communicated these changes to our team along with what people on the ground were saying and predicting district by district. I wanted to analyse at what point (what vote margin) would we have to consider pulling the call for Biden. I also noted that I fully supported our Decision Desk’s call and would defend it on air.”Full story:Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted Arizona ‘put back’ in Trump’s column, book saysRead more More

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      White House rejects ‘sham referendums’ in occupied Ukraine – as it happened

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      National security adviser Jake Sullivan says the Biden administration will be “unequivocal” in rejecting the “sham referendums” in four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.Speaking at a White House press briefing, Sullivan said the announcement of the votes in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which analysts say is a likely forerunner to the Kremlin formally annexing the provinces, is “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that underpin the international system”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We know that these referenda will be manipulated. We know that Russia will use the sham referenda as a basis to purportedly annex these territories, either now or in the future.
      Let me be clear, if this does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine. We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine. We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.Sullivan also addressed reports of new Russian mobilization measures, including the calling up of prisoners to shore up depleted troop numbers:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is reflective of Russia’s struggles in Ukraine. [Russian president Vladimir Putin] may be resorting to partial mobilization, forcing even more Russians to go fight his brutal war in Ukraine, in part because they simply need more personnel and manpower given the success that Ukraine has had on the battlefield, particularly in the north east but even pushing into other parts of previously occupied territory.
      The bottom line is that Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days’ notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders distance themselves from Russia on the public stage.
      Russia is scraping for personnel to throw into this fight. These are not the actions of the competent country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite.That’s a wrap on Tuesday’s US politics blog. Thanks for joining us.It was a brutal afternoon for Donald Trump, whose lawyers were excoriated by the “special master” in his document-hoarding case for having no proof to back up the former president’s vocal proclamations he declassified the papers before he left office.Judge Raymond Dearie, who was the Trump team’s nomination to act as independent arbiter in the justice department’s criminal investigation, told his attorneys at a hearing in New York: “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”Here’s what else we followed:
      Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis refused to confirm reports he was behind another planeload of migrants reportedly sent on Tuesday to Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware. The White House decried as “a political stunt” DeSantis’s action to dump about 50 Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week.
      The flow of so-called “dark money” in politics is damaging democracy in the US and eroding public trust, Joe Biden said at an afternoon briefing in which he called on Congress to pass the Disclose Act requiring sizeable campaign donations to be declared.
      The White House says the US will never accept Russia attempting to annex occupied areas of Ukraine through “sham” referendums, the Biden administration’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a press briefing at the White House.
      Sullivan offered a preview of Joe Biden’s address to the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday, saying the president will offer a strong rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and make “significant new announcements” about his government’s investments to address global food insecurity.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was “closely monitoring” the devastating impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground, including Fema administrator Deanne Criswell.
      Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell says he is now “cautiously optimistic” about his party’s chances of winning back control of the chamber in November’s midterm elections, Axios reports. The former Senate leader had previously expressed doubt about a Republican majority.
      Please join us again tomorrow.If Judge Raymond Dearie’s first meeting with Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday is anything to go by, the former president’s insistence on a “special master” for his classified documents case is backfiring spectacularly.According to reports of their meeting in New York this afternoon, which was also attended by attorneys for the justice department, Dearie was brutal in his dismissal of the Trump legal team’s assertions that papers marked “top secret” found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach last month were not classified.Trump has claimed, with no evidence whatsoever, that he declassified the documents before he left office. And now Dearie, who was proposed by Trump’s team to serve as the special master to independently vet the documents, is calling him on it, demanding to see proof from his lawyers that such an act took place.They had none.“You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Dearie said, according to Politico.NEW: Special master in Trump Mar-a-Lago docs case chides Trump lawyers for declining to produce evidence of declassification. Judge Dearie: ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.’ More from Brooklyn. w/@kyledcheneyhttps://t.co/urQaYOP1F7— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) September 20, 2022
      Dearie was appointed last week to the role of independent arbiter by Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, in a surprise ruling that halted the justice department’s criminal investigation into thousands of documents found in the FBI search.Trump had claimed he had earlier returned to the National Archives all the boxes of documents he took from the White House to Florida when he left office in January 2021.Cannon denied a request from the justice department to be allowed to resume their investigation last week, prompting an immediate appeal, and an indication from department lawyers on Tuesday they were prepared to take their argument to the supreme court.Dearie indicated that he considered closed the issue of whether the documents were classified or not.“What business is it of the court?” he said.“As far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of the matter.”I’d like to report a murder. https://t.co/XQue0soT9l— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) September 20, 2022
      The “special master” appointed to look into top secret documents seized by the FBI last month in a search of Donald Trump’s Florida home has met with lawyers for the former president and the justice department this afternoon.According to early accounts, Judge Raymond Dearie did not appear sympathetic to Trump’s assertions, which haven’t been repeated by his legal team on the record, that he declassified the documents before leaving office.The justice department has argued the papers are in fact classified, and it needs to be allowed to continue its investigation into Trump’s improper handling of them.We’ll have more details of the meeting as we learn them.BREAKING: Judge Dearie makes clear he is taking government’s position that the classified Mar-a-Lago documents are in fact classified.“What business is it of the court? … As far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it.”Trump’s insistence on a special master is NOT going well.— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) September 20, 2022
      Ron DeSantis is refusing to confirm reports that he’s sent another planeload of migrants that reports suggest will imminently touch down in Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware.The White House on Tuesday decried as “a political stunt” the Republican Florida governor’s action to dump about 50 Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week, and today’s reported flight from Texas of more to a small airport in Delaware.The Biden administration was “coordinating” with federal and local authorities in Delaware to aid those on the flight, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at her afternoon briefing.She said DeSantis had not attempted to contact the administration:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Alerting Fox News, and not city or state officials about a plan to abandon children fleeing communism on the side of the street is not burden sharing. It is a cruel, premeditated political stunt.DeSantis, speaking at a morning press conference in Bradenton, Florida, refused to say he was behind today’s reported flight of migrants to Delaware, WESH2 News said.“I cannot confirm that, I can’t,” DeSantis said when asked by reporters if he had arranged the flight.He also defended dropping off the Massachusetts migrants with no notice, blamed the government, and attempted to paint himself as their savior:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Those migrants were being treated horribly by Biden. They were hungry, homeless, had no opportunity at all.DeSantis’s asylum flights, meanwhile, are now the subject of a criminal inquiry in Texas:Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flightsRead moreThe flow of so-called “dark money” in politics is damaging democracy in the US and eroding public trust, Joe Biden has said at an afternoon briefing in which he called on Congress to pass the Disclose Act requiring sizeable campaign donations to be declared.In the address from the White House, the president highlighted a recent example of an anonymous donor who secretly transferred $1.6bn to a Republican political group as one reason for needing to curb the “influence on our elections” of undeclared streams of cash.Biden called on Republicans to join congressional Democrats to sign the act, which would require the disclosure of individual donations of $10,000 and above during an election cycle, and ban foreign money outright:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A conservative activist who spent decades working to put enough conservative justices on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade now has access to $1.6bn in dark money to do more damage and, from our perspective, restrict more freedoms.
      Dark money erodes public trust. Republicans should join Democrats to pass the Disclose Act and to get it on my desk right away.
      Dark money has become so common in our politics, I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. Biden said Republicans had so far shown little interest in “more openness and accountability” other than “Republican governors and state legislatures in Tennessee and Wyoming that have passed disclosure laws”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let’s remember, getting dark money out of our politics has been a bipartisan issue in the past. My deceased friend [Republican former Arizona senator] John McCain spent a lot of time fighting for campaign finance reform.
      For him, it was a matter of fundamental fairness. And he was 100% right about that.Here’s where things stand midway through a busy day in US politics:
      The White House says the US will never accept Russia attempting to annex occupied areas of Ukraine through “sham” referendums, the Biden administration’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a press briefing at the White House.
      Sullivan offered a preview of Joe Biden’s address to the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday, saying the president will offer a strong rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and make “significant new announcements” about his government’s investments to address global food insecurity.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was “closely monitoring” the devastating impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground, including Fema administrator Deanne Criswell.
      Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell says he is now “cautiously optimistic” about his party’s chances of winning back control of the chamber in November’s midterm elections, Axios reports. The former Senate leader had previously expressed doubt about a Republican majority.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan says the Biden administration will be “unequivocal” in rejecting the “sham referendums” in four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.Speaking at a White House press briefing, Sullivan said the announcement of the votes in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which analysts say is a likely forerunner to the Kremlin formally annexing the provinces, is “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that underpin the international system”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We know that these referenda will be manipulated. We know that Russia will use the sham referenda as a basis to purportedly annex these territories, either now or in the future.
      Let me be clear, if this does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine. We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine. We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.Sullivan also addressed reports of new Russian mobilization measures, including the calling up of prisoners to shore up depleted troop numbers:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is reflective of Russia’s struggles in Ukraine. [Russian president Vladimir Putin] may be resorting to partial mobilization, forcing even more Russians to go fight his brutal war in Ukraine, in part because they simply need more personnel and manpower given the success that Ukraine has had on the battlefield, particularly in the north east but even pushing into other parts of previously occupied territory.
      The bottom line is that Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days’ notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders distance themselves from Russia on the public stage.
      Russia is scraping for personnel to throw into this fight. These are not the actions of the competent country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite.Joe Biden is heading for the United Nations summit in New York “with the wind at his back”, and will deliver a firm rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan is telling reporters at the White House.He’s speaking at the daily press briefing and outlining what the president will be talking about in his address to the UN general assembly on Wednesday morning, as well as taking a dig at world leaders who won’t be there:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re making historic investments at home; our alliances are stronger than they’ve been in modern memory; our robust, united support for Ukraine has helped the Ukrainians push back against Russian aggression; and we’re leading the world in response to the most significant transnational challenges that the world faces from global health to global food security to global supply chains to tackling the climate crisis.
      Meanwhile, our competitors are facing increasingly strong headwinds, and neither President Xi [Jinping of China] nor [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin are even showing up to this global gathering.Sullivan says Biden will concentrate on foreign policy in his address on Wednesday morning:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He’ll offer a firm rebuke of Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine and make a call to the world to continue to stand against the naked aggression that we’ve seen these past several months.
      He will underscore the importance of strengthening the UN and reaffirm core tenets of its charter at a time when a permanent member of the security council has struck at the very heart of the charter by challenging the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty.Sullivan adds Biden will also make “significant new announcements” about the US government’s investments to address global food insecurity, and hold a number of meetings with other world leaders, including his discussions with new UK prime minister Liz Truss.An afternoon “pledging session” hosted by Biden for the global fund to fight HIV, Aids, tuberculosis and malaria is expected to “produce a historic outcome in terms of the financial commitments made by our partners and by the US”, Sullivan adds.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says the Biden administration is “closely monitoring” the impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground in the island.She opened up her daily press briefing at the White House with some words of comfort:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As the president has said, we are keeping the people of Puerto Rico in our prayers. Before the hurricane made landfall, President Biden issued an emergency disaster declaration to ensure the federal government was ready to surge resources and emergency assistance to Puerto Rico.
      The President called Governor [Pedro] Pierluisi from Air Force One to discuss Puerto Rico’s immediate needs as the storm made landfall. Today, Fema [Federal Emergency Management Agency] administrator Deanne Criswell will be on the ground to assess the emergency response.
      Hundreds of Fema and federal responders are on the ground in Puerto Rico, including US army corps of engineer power restoration experts. And urban search and rescue teams. More federal responders are arriving in the coming days.
      President Biden is receiving regular updates on the storm and these emergency efforts.Mary Peltota’s election as the first Native Alaskan to represent the state in Congress had even more historical significance.As NPR notes today, it means that for the first time, spanning back more than 230 years, Indigenous people are fully represented with a Native American, a Native Alaskan and a Native Hawaiian all in the House of Representatives.Congressman Kaiali’i Kahele of Hawaii tweeted a photo of himself with Peltota, and Sharice Davids of Kansas, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation.It has taken 233 years for the U.S. Congress to be fully represented by this country’s indigenous peoples. Tonight, a Native American, a Native Alaskan & a Native Hawaiian are sitting members of the people’s House. Welcome U.S. Representative Peltola to the 117th Congress! 🤙🏽 pic.twitter.com/AxJ8MH7aLQ— Congressman Kaiali‘i Kahele (@RepKahele) September 14, 2022
      The House press gallery notes all six Indigenous Americans who are members here.Democrat Peltota, also the first woman elected to represent Alaska in the House, beat off a challenge from the state’s former governor and Republican former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to capture the seat last month.Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar is seizing on the occasion of National Voter Registration Day to make a new, likely quixotic, bid to make it easier to go to the polls nationwide.The Minnesota lawmaker has introduced two bills containing ideas included in a major voting rights proposal that died earlier this year. First is the Same Day Voter Registration Act, which is intended to expand Americans’ ability to register to vote at the same time as they cast ballots. The second, the Save Voters Act, would clamp down on states’ ability to kick people off voting rolls, while offering new flexibility to Americans who have recently moved and are looking to cast ballots.Don’t expect either measure to pass the chamber. Not only are senators really busy, the bills would probably need at least 10 Republican votes in addition to all Democrats to overcome a filibuster, and the GOP has showed few signs of changing its mind about such laws.Democrats fail to advance voting rights law as Senate holdouts defend filibusterRead moreOn another note, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe is now at the reigns of the blog, and will take you through the afternoon, including Joe Biden’s speech on a proposal to require more disclosure from the super PACs that have become influential in American politics.The gears of justice continue turning in the case of the alleged government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago, with lawyers for Donald Trump facing a deadline today to file their latest response in the case. Here’s the latest from Ramon Antonio Vargas on the saga:Donald Trump’s legal team has acknowledged the possibility that the former president could be indicted amid the investigation into his retention of government secrets at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Despite claiming days earlier that Trump couldn’t imagine being charged, his lawyers made the stark admission in a court filing on Monday proposing how to conduct an outside review of documents that were seized by the FBI in August.A special court official appointed to help administer the review process, the federal judge Raymond Dearie, had previously asked Trump to detail any materials stored at Mar-a-Lago that he may have decided to declassify. In the court filing, Trump’s lawyers said that requiring him to do so could hurt any possible defense should he later be charged, and that he should not have to “fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident” during the review.Trump legal team admits possibility that ex-president could be chargedRead more More

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      Republicans will try to impeach Biden ‘every week’, Adam Kinzinger says

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      Republicans will try to impeach Biden ‘every week’, Adam Kinzinger saysAnti-Trump January 6 committee member warns of likely aggressive tactics if GOP retakes House in midterms Republicans will try to impeach Joe Biden every week if they retake the House in November, a rare anti-Trump Republican congressman predicted.Remembering repeated attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act under Barack Obama, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said: “That’s going to look like child’s play in terms of what Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to demand of Kevin McCarthy.Kinzinger: Republicans ‘hypocritical’ for defending Trump over taking classified materialRead more“They’re going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week.”Kinzinger was speaking to David Axelrod, a former Obama adviser, on his Axe Files podcast.Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack Trump incited. He will retire in November. The other, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, lost her primary to a Trump-backed challenger.Greene, from Georgia, is among far-right Republicans who have already introduced or threatened impeachment articles against Biden, on issues including Covid, immigration, Afghanistan and the alleged misdemeanors of Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son.If McCarthy is to be speaker in a Republican House, the expected outcome of the midterms in November, he must corral his unruly party.Kinzinger said: “I think it’ll be a very difficult majority for him to govern unless he just chooses to go absolutely crazy with them. In which case you may see the rise of the silent, non-existent moderate Republican that may still exist out there, but I don’t know.”Democrats impeached Trump twice. Kinzinger voted against the first impeachment, over the blackmail of Ukraine for political purposes, but for the second, over the Capitol attack. He told Axelrod he regretted the first vote.“You can always look back 12 years, there’s different regrets, different votes. That’s my biggest.“At the time, I’ll say to my shame, you’re looking for a way out. It is tough to take on your party. It is tough to know you’re gonna get kicked out of the tribe. And it’s tough to make a decision that you know will cost you re-election.“And so I was looking for a reason out. There were moments where I was like, ‘I may end up voting for this first impeachment.’ And then I found a reason out.”At the time, he said: “Since the day President Trump was elected, many Democrats in Congress have been searching for any means by which to delegitimise and remove him from office.“And since then, we’ve seen them jump head first from one investigation to another hoping something so treacherous would be uncovered that we’d have no choice but to throw him out. And at that they’ve failed miserably.”Nine other House Republicans voted for Trump’s second impeachment, making it the most bipartisan in history. At trial in the Senate, seven Republicans found Trump guilty, not enough for conviction.Discussing Kinzinger’s work on the January 6 committee, Axelrod pointed to a recent poll which said 72% of Republican voters still back Trump’s lie about election fraud and say Biden is not the legitimate president.“Tribalism is deeply ingrained,” Kinzinger said, adding: “I think people, in many cases, more than they fear death, they fear being kicked out of the tribe.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      Poll shows Democrats and Republicans tied for control of Congress ahead of midterms – as it happened

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      Let’s dig deeper into the two polls that came out over the weekend and amount to a mixed bag for the Democratic party as they face losing control of potentially both house of Congress in the upcoming midterm.First, the headline: voters in the NBC News poll are split over which party they’d prefer to see in charge of Congress, with 46% each backing the GOP and Democrats. That, however, is an improvement from August, when Republicans had a slight edge. GOP voters do lead in terms of enthusiasm, but not by much, which is a reversal from the double-digit lead they had earlier this year.Consider those the silver linings for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, from a poll that otherwise confirms they will have to fight to keep their jobs. But there were also more disquieting signs from NBC’s data, such as the 47% of voters who say Biden’s policies have hurt the economy, versus the 23% who say they’ve helped and the 28% who say they’ve made no difference at all.The New York Times/Siena College poll of Hispanic voters is important because the demographic is considered a bulwark of Democratic support, with some analysts predicting that increasing numbers of Hispanic voters pose a long-term threat to the GOP’s support base. The former remains true, at least for now, with 56% percent of respondents to the poll saying they plan to vote for Democrats. Dig a little deeper and the news isn’t quite so good for Joe Biden’s party. Economic issues are the biggest motivator for Hispanic voters, but the data showed they are almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans on which party they agree with most on the economy.Polling released over the weekend confirms that Democrats will have to fight hard to keep their hold on Congress in the midterms, including with Hispanic voters, an important party bulwark. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has arrived back in Washington DC after paying his respects at the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II in London.Here’s what else happened today:
      Biden committed to providing Puerto Rico with federal support after Hurricane Fiona knocked out water and power across the island.
      The White House cheered the release of an America held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying it underscores its commitment to freeing jailed citizens worldwide.
      Congress may soon vote on a bill to stop the sorts of legal schemes that could have overturned the 2020 election results on January 6.
      As always, the legal wrangling in the Mar-a-Lago case continued.
      “Fighting zombies”. That’s how comedian Jon Stewart described the process of getting a bill through Congress in an interview.
      Senators will later this week vote on a measure that would require more disclosures from super PACS, but which could stumble in the face of Republican opposition.According to Politico, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer announced the renewed effort to pass the DISCLOSE Act:Schumer says the Senate will vote later this week on the DISCLOSE Act, requiring more donor transparency in politics. Unlikely to get much if any GOP support— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 19, 2022
      Democrats have been wanting to pass such legislation for a while, but have been unable to overcome GOP opposition, HuffPosts reports:Schumer announces Senate vote this week on the DISCLOSE Act— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 19, 2022
      DISCLOSE Act would require super PACs to disclose donors who have given $10k or more. “Republicans will have to choose whether they want to fight the power of dark money or allow this cancer to get worse,” Schumer says— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 19, 2022
      Last straight up or down vote on DISCLOSE Act was in 2012. GOP filibustered https://t.co/4oMriRFJLP— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 19, 2022
      President Joe Biden spoke with Puerto Rico’s governor Pedro Pierluisi and promised federal support to help the recovery from Hurricane Fiona, which knocked out power and water to the island.Here’s what the White House had to say about the call, which took place as Biden returned from Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}President Biden described the surge of Federal support to the island, where more than 300 Federal personnel are already working to assist with response and recovery. In the coming days, as damage assessments are conducted, the President said that number of support personnel will increase substantially.The President said that he will ensure that the Federal team remains on the job to get it done, especially given that Puerto Rico is still recovering from the damage of Hurricane Maria five years ago this week. Governor Pierluisi expressed his appreciation for the partnership and support that he is receiving already from the Biden Administration. Puerto Rico battles blackout and lack of safe water in wake of Hurricane FionaRead moreCase in point of the perilous moment America is in: Donald Trump continued his embrace of the extremist QAnon conspiracy theory at a weekend rally, The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe writes:Donald Trump made one of his highest-profile embraces to date of the extremist conspiracy group QAnon at a political rally in Ohio on Saturday, making the apparently deliberate choice to play music that is virtually indistinguishable from the cult organization’s adopted anthem.Dozens of the former president’s supporters in Youngstown engaged in raised-arm salutes as Trump delivered a fiery address to the background of a song his team insisted was a royalty-free tune from the internet, but to many ears it was nearly identical to the 2020 instrumental track Wwg1wga.Trump embraces QAnon at rally by playing music similar to its anthemRead more“I think we’re in the fourth and perhaps the most difficult crisis in the history of America.” That’s how acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns described where the United States is today in an interview with The Guardian’s David Smith. Read the interview here:Ken Burns is driving in heavy traffic, trying to get from New York, where he was born, to New Hampshire, where he lives and works in bucolic splendour. He made the move in 1979, not to service a grand masterplan but out of financial desperation.“I was making my first film and starving and rent was going up in New York City and I couldn’t afford it,” the documentarian recalls by phone. “I found the connection to nature incredibly important for this labour-intensive work that we do.”But when Burns’s debut film, Brooklyn Bridge, was nominated for an Oscar, friends and colleagues assumed that he would move back to New York or try Los Angeles. He surprised them. “I made the biggest, the most important professional decision, which was to stay.Ken Burns: ‘We’re in perhaps the most difficult crisis in the history of America’Read moreNegotiations over government spending bills in Congress are somewhat high risk, because if no agreement is reached, the government could be forced to shut down, as has happened repeatedly in recent years.These shutdowns – and there’s been a bunch of them – often come when one faction in Congress or another refuses to budge on a contentious issue, resulting in everything from embassies abroad to government offices at home closing their doors until an agreement is reached.Politico reports on an early sign of that spirit of intransigence remaining alive, at least in some corners of the House. Around 50 far-right Republican lawmakers say they will not vote for any funding measure approved in this Congress:Texas Rep. Chip Roy is leading a group of nearly 50 other House Rs — mostly House Freedom Caucus members or those who tend to vote w/the HFC — in a dear colleague letter saying they will oppose a CR /any approps package put fwd this Congress while Dems in power. pic.twitter.com/P2DamVlgPN— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) September 19, 2022
      Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing for another $12 billion in aid to be sent to Ukraine, and hope to get it into a bill to fund the government through mid-December, Punchbowl News reports.Administration officials will brief lawmakers tomorrow about how the aid could be used, which comes as Kyiv presses its offensive in Ukraine’s east that has retaken substantial territory from Russia.New: Bipartisan member briefing on Ukraine tomorrow at 8 AM pic.twitter.com/uxkJPTq5zP— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) September 19, 2022
      The aid is among several provisions of the spending bill – known as a continuing resolution – that is under negotiation in the final months of year. Congress members are also considering how much new Covid-19 aid to include, as well as provisions to reform the process for permitting energy projects, including both fossil fuel and renewables.The US territory of Puerto Rico appears to be in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis after a hurricane knocked out power to the island and cut off clean drinking water, with forecasts predicting more rain to come. Here’s the latest from Nina Lakhani:Most of Puerto Rico was still without power or safe drinking water on Monday, with remnants of a category 1 hurricane that struck there a day earlier forecast to bring more heavy rain and life-threatening flooding.Hundreds of people are trapped in emergency shelters across the Caribbean island, with major roads underwater and reports of numerous collapsed bridges. Crops have been washed away while flash floods, landslides and fallen trees have blocked roads, swept away vehicles and caused widespread damage to infrastructure.Two-thirds of the island’s almost 800,000 homes and businesses have no water after Hurricane Fiona caused a total blackout on Sunday and swollen rivers contaminated the filtration system. The storm was causing havoc in the Dominican Republic by early Monday.Puerto Rico battles blackout and lack of safe water in wake of Hurricane FionaRead moreTo its Democratic and Republican supporters, the Freedom to Marry Act does nothing more than ensure same-sex couples don’t have their rights rolled back by the conservative-dominated supreme court. But to rightwing GOP senator Ted Cruz, the yet-to-be passed bill is something else.“This bill is about empowering the Biden IRS to target every church and school and university and charity in America that refuses to knuckle under to their view of gay marriage,” is how the Texas lawmakers described it in a recent interview.Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) fear-mongers about bill codifying federal recognition of same-sex marriages:“This bill is about empowering the Biden IRS to target every church and school and university and charity in America that refuses to knuckle under to their view of gay marriage.” pic.twitter.com/EtgCVD3xV2— The Recount (@therecount) September 19, 2022
      His comments weren’t much of surprise, since he has already declared he would not support the measure. But as for whether or not it would get the 60 votes it needs to pass the Senate, Cruz said he did not know – underscoring the mystery around the legislation, which will likely only be resolved when it comes up for a vote after the midterms.“You have to seal up every window, and every vent, and every door… you’re fighting zombies, and if there’s any way that they get in the house, you lose.”That’s how comedian and former host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, described his experience over the summer of pushing Congress to expand medical coverage for military veterans exposed to toxic substances.”You don’t come out of there feeling like this system has any connection to the needs of the people that it purports to serve. That’s for sure.”— Jon Stewart reflects on his political activism, saying it’s like “fighting zombies.” pic.twitter.com/cVOSsMrq7E— The Recount (@therecount) September 19, 2022
      The Pact Act, as the legislation was called, passed in August.Jon Stewart celebrates after Senate passes bill to assist veterans exposed to toxinsRead more More

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      Ruling the US supreme court isn’t enough. The right wants to amend the constitution | Russ Feingold

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      Ruling the US supreme court isn’t enough. The right wants to amend the constitutionRuss FeingoldA conservative movement to rewrite the US constitution is gaining momentum – potentially plunging the US into a vast legal unknown In a recent primetime address, President Joe Biden spoke about “the soul of the nation” – calling out rightwing forces for their numerous efforts to undermine, if not overthrow, our democracy. Biden’s speech was prescient, in more ways than one. In addition to many Republicans promoting the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen and working to fill elected offices with people ready to subvert the will of the people, there is a conservative movement underway to radically rewrite the US constitution.The right has already packed the supreme court and is reaping the rewards, with decisions from Dobbs to Bruen that radically reinterpret the constitution in defiance of precedent and sound legal reasoning. But factions of the right are not satisfied to wait for the court to reinterpret the constitution. Instead, they have set their sights on literally rewriting our foundational document.Why bother with constitutional interpretation when you can change the actual text? This strategy by factions of the right could carry far graver consequences for our country and our democracy than even the right’s packing of the court or the Capitol attack on January 6.Our founding fathers did not see the constitution as written in stone; they expected it to be revised and believed that revisions could help the document endure. As such, they included in Article V of the constitution two different mechanisms through which to amend the text.All 27 amendments to the constitution have been achieved through only one of those mechanisms: by having two-thirds of both chambers of Congress propose an amendment to the constitution and then having that amendment ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures.There is a second mechanism, however. The second option is to have two-thirds of all state legislatures (34 states or more) apply for a constitutional convention and then to have three-quarters of all state legislatures or state ratifying conventions ratify any amendments proposed by the convention.To be clear, a constitutional convention under Article V has never before been held. Moreover, the constitution provides no rules on how a constitutional convention would actually be run in practice. There is nothing in the constitution about how delegates would be selected, how they would be apportioned, or how amendments would be proposed or agreed to by delegates. And there is little useful historical precedent that lends insight to these important questions. This means that nearly any amendment could be proposed at such a convention, giving delegates enormous power to engage in political and constitutional redrafting.A convention would be a watershed moment in American history. And this is exactly what factions of the right are banking on. Rather than a deterrent, they see the constitution’s lack of clarity on how a convention should be run as an opportunity to pursue new theories of constitutional power and change.The Convention of States Project, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) and other rightwing organizations have spent more than a decade working to persuade state legislators to pass applications for an Article V convention. This effort has recently attracted a who’s-who roster of far-right supporters, including the Trumpist attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis, and financial support from conservative megadonors.As legislatures continue to trend conservative in many states, due in no small part to partisan and racial gerrymandering, factions of the right see an increasingly viable and potentially imminent path to securing the 34 applications necessary to call a convention. In recent months, some congresspeople have even claimed that the constitutional threshold has been satisfied and that Congress must call a convention. While their counting is dubious, the momentum that they could nonetheless achieve is deeply worrying.Those involved in this effort have made their radical aims quite clear: to disassemble modern government and the century-old New Deal consensus, returning the country to the troubling, splintered times when the federal government could do little to provide for national welfare or defense.A convention would also be an opportunity for the right to try to ban abortion in this country, to further whittle down voting rights and to enshrine their interpretation of the second amendment. Put simply, the opportunities for radical rewriting could be nearly endless, given the complete lack of restraint that the constitution puts on an Article V convention.Like recent attempts to overturn the 2020 election using anti-democratic theories, far-right activists are forging ahead into this vast constitutional unknown. They are already holding mock conventions with the aim of controlling the process and the outcome should an actual convention come to pass.The US constitution is by no means perfect. The inclusion of Article V is evidence that even the framers expected amendments. George Washington famously remarked that the constitution was not “free from imperfections”, but he nonetheless encouraged his fellow citizens to ratify the document because those imperfections could be mended over time.Constitutional amendment could be a legitimate method for addressing the founding failures of the constitution. That said, any conversation about how to go about amending the constitution needs to be transparent, inclusive and informed. What factions of the right are pursuing is anything but. They are pursuing exclusively partisan outcomes and have sought to keep their efforts opaque. They do not seem interested in a representative, democratic process.Biden was right. The soul of our nation is under threat. This plan by the far right could send this country into a constitutional crisis, one much more damaging and far-reaching than January 6. Concerned citizens of all ideological stripes should speak out against this radical effort. The far right has benefited from having its efforts conducted mostly under wraps. That must change. A light must be shined on these efforts so they can be stopped and our constitutional democracy preserved.
      Russ Feingold served nearly two decades in the United States Senate and is president of the American Constitution Society
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      Iran president rules out meeting with Biden, saying it won’t be beneficial

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      Iran president rules out meeting with Biden, saying it won’t be beneficialEbrahim Raisi says he sees no ‘changes in reality’ from Trump administration as hopes to revive nuclear talks dampen Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has ruled out a meeting with Joe Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this week, saying he saw no “changes in reality” from the Trump administration.Raisi underlined the firm position of his government and dampened hopes that a week of summitry at UNGA in New York might yield any progress in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Washington has rejected the latest Iranian bargaining positive as “not constructive”, and most observers believe there will be no breakthroughs at least until after the US congressional elections in November.Asked on the CBS 60 Minutes news programme whenever he would be ready to meet Biden in New York, Raisi replied: “No. I don’t think that such a meeting would happen. I don’t believe having a meeting or a talk with him will be beneficial.”Raisi and Biden are both expected to address UNGA on Wednesday morning.On comparisons between the Biden administration, which has reentered talks on restoring the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA) and the Trump White House, which withdrew the US from the deal in 2018, triggering its subsequent unraveling, Raisi was blunt.“The new administration in the US, they claim that they are different from the Trump’s administration. They have said it in their messages to us. But we haven’t witnessed any changes in reality,” he said, in an interview due to be broadcast on Sunday evening.Efforts to restore the JCPOA, by which Iran severely restricted its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief, have stalled in part because Iran is seeking guarantees that any agreement is not reversed by Biden’s successor, which could be Trump himself.Raisi will arrive in New York in a week the regime’s human rights record is under particular scrutiny. Thirty Iranians have been injured, some seriously, in protests after the death of Mahsa Amini a 22-year-old Kurdish woman three days after she was arrested and reportedly beaten by morality police in Tehran.TopicsIranUS foreign policyMiddle East and north AfricaUS politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      DeSantis criticized for sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard: ‘It’s un-American’

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      DeSantis criticized for sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard: ‘It’s un-American’Democrats outraged at the ‘reckless’ and ‘soulless’ actions and question the legality of what some called a political stunt Joe Biden has accused Ron DeSantis of “playing politics with people’s lives” for flying Venezuelan migrants to the wealthy liberal island community of Martha’s Vineyard without warning, while the legality of the Florida governor’s move is also under scrutiny.In what immigration activists and Democratic politicians have decried as a “political stunt”, DeSantis, who is expected to run for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, arranged for two charter planes of about 50 migrant adults and children to fly from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. DeSantis sends migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, causing ‘humanitarian situation’ Read moreClaiming that “every community in America should be sharing in the burdens,” DeSantis told a press briefing he wanted to draw attention to what he claimed was a failure by the Biden administration to secure the US-Mexico border.The president attacked DeSantis’s action in a speech late on Thursday, also criticising Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott.Abbott arranged for two buses from his state to drop off more than 100 migrants from Colombia, Cuba, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela at the Washington DC residence of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, on Wednesday, shortly before the Massachusetts planes landed.The leader of the anti-trafficking charity Polaris on Friday issued a strongly-worded statement that pointedly questioned whether the governors’ actions amounted to human trafficking, citing migrants’ claims that they were deceived about where they were going.“Acts of calculated deception were reportedly used to trick migrants onto buses and planes,” the statement from Polaris chief Catherine Chen said. “Unfortunately, this tactic is one that we know far too well in the anti-trafficking world. Migrants are regularly tricked and defrauded as part of their trafficking experience, with traffickers and exploiters taking advantage of their recent arrival, limited English proficiency, and unfamiliarity with our government systems and labor laws.”Chen added: “If migrants were defrauded, and if this fraud was intended as a vehicle for anyone’s material gain, including that of an elected official, then there is a case for investigating it as trafficking.”DeSantis, Abbott and Doug Ducey, governor of Arizona, have sent thousands of migrants to predominantly Democratic-run “sanctuary” states and cities they deem to be liberal over immigration, although Massachusetts has a Republican governor, Charlie Baker.Attack on asylum seeker in New York sparks outrage over conditions Read more“Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” Biden said at a gala for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington DC.“What they’re doing is simply wrong. It’s un-American, it’s reckless and we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border. We’re working to make sure it’s safe and orderly and humane.“Republican officials should not interfere with that process by waging these political stunts,” he added.Veronica Escobar, a Democratic congresswoman from Texas, meanwhile, said DeSantis was “a soulless human being”.On Friday, as Baker said he had ordered up to 125 members of the Massachusetts national guard to help move the migrants to more secure accommodation at a military base in Cape Cod on the mainland, questions were mounting over the legality of DeSantis’s action.The US attorney for Massachusetts, Rachael Rollins, said she planned to speak with the justice department, and Nikki Fried, a member of the Florida cabinet and the only statewide-elected Democrat, wrote to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to demand a federal investigation into potential human trafficking.California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said he had also written to the justice department, which declined comment when contacted by the Guardian on Friday.Charlie Crist, the Democratic nominee for Florida governor, who will challenge DeSantis in November’s midterm elections, said he had filed a sunshine law request demanding information about the state’s legislature-approved “relocation programme”.Earlier this year politicians granted $12m (£10.5m) for DeSantis’s plan to relocate migrants to other states, but the language is specific to undocumented immigrants physically in Florida.Both flights to Massachusetts touched down briefly in Florida en route between San Antonio and Martha’s Vineyard, but DeSantis’s office did not say if that was an attempt to meet the requirement of the programme.The southern Republican governors have been transporting migrants who are, at least temporarily, legally in the US waiting for their immigration cases, such as seeking asylum from violent regimes, to be processed.Crist in a statement accused DeSantis of trafficking humans with Florida taxpayer money. “He owes the people of our state answers,” Crist added.In Edgartown, the Martha’s Vineyard county seat and old whaling port, on Friday, residents and aid groups were working to care for and relocate the Venezuelan families, many of whom speak no English and say they were not told of their destination when they boarded the plane.Several told journalists there was nobody at the airport to greet them, and they walked almost four miles to find help in the town, where they were put up in a church overnight.“They were told there was a surprise present for them, and that there would be jobs and housing awaiting for them when they arrived. This was obviously a sadistic lie,” Rachel Self, a Boston immigration attorney assisting with the migrants’ cases, said at a press briefing.Self said she believes the migrants in question were kidnapped and defrauded, and any who cooperate with investigators may become eligible for a visa granted to crime victims.On Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Republican governors involved of lying to migrants, and said DeSantis did not notify Massachusetts that “migrant children, in need of food and shelter, were about to land on their doorstep”.“These vulnerable migrants were misled about where they were headed.”She condemned what she called Abbott and DeSantis “creating political theater [without] creating actual solution.She noted, however, that any legal challenge would have to come from the US Justice Department rather than the White House.Shaw Drake, senior policy counsel on border and immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the Martha’s Vineyard case has raised “particular concerns about the level of coercion and lack of informed consent”.“The issue of consent is of core legal concern,” Drake added.Meanwhile, NBC News reported friction between the White House and the Department of Homeland Security about how to cope with the latest rise in unauthorized border crossings.TopicsUS immigrationJoe BidenRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More