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      Democrats plan to subpoena Leonard Leo over perks to supreme court justices

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      Senate Democrats plan to subpoena Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow and conservative activist Leonard Leo to quiz them about their roles in organizing and paying for lavish perks for justices on the hard-right wing of the US supreme court.The announcement by Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee came on Monday amid a storm of controversy that has blown up in recent months about conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito not only accepting but also not disclosing free travel and other luxury favors provided or facilitated by influential public figures.The supreme court is now being pressed to adopt an ethics code – a move that has been publicly endorsed by three of the nine justices amid the rows about ethical controversies, including the risks of outside influence corrupting the court.The committee could act as soon as next week to authorize Illinois senator Dick Durbin, the panel’s chairman, to issue subpoenas to Crow, Leo and another wealthy donor, Robin Arkley II.Crow has been identified as a benefactor of associate justice Clarence Thomas for more than two decades, paying for nearly annual vacations, purchasing from Thomas and others the Georgia home in which the justice’s mother still lives, and helping pay for the private schooling for a relative.Leo, an executive of the Federalist Society, the powerful Washington-based conservative and libertarian advocacy group, worked with former US president Donald Trump to move the court and the rest of the federal judiciary to the right by nominating ultra-conservative judges.And Arkley helped arrange and pay for a private jet trip to Alaska for Justice Alito in 2008.Arkley and Leo have refused to cooperate with the committee’s investigation of the justices’ largely undisclosed private travel, the committee said.Crow “offered to produce certain limited information that fell well short of what the Committee needs and to which it is entitled”, Durbin and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, said in a joint statement.In a statement after Durbin’s announcement, Crow’s office called the subpoena politically motivated and said Crow had offered information to the committee.“It’s clear this is nothing more than a stunt aimed at undermining a sitting supreme court justice for ideological and political purposes,” the statement said.Leo voiced a similar objection. “I will not bow to the vile and disgusting liberal McCarthyism that seeks to destroy the supreme court simply because it follows the constitution rather than their political agenda,” Leo said in a statement.In July, the Senate judiciary panel approved legislation that would force the justices to abide by stronger ethics standards. The bill would set ethics rules for the court and a process to enforce them, including new standards for transparency around recusals, gifts and potential conflicts of interest.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe bill has little chance of passage in the closely divided Senate. Republicans have united against it, saying it could “destroy” the court. And Republicans control the House of Representatives, further providing a block on Democratic led legislation.Apart from the judiciary committee, Democrats on the Senate finance committee issued the results of their separate probe of the $267,000 loan that enabled Thomas to buy a luxury, 40-ft motorcoach in 1999. The committee found that the loan, made by longtime friend Anthony Welters, appears to have been largely if not totally forgiven after Thomas made payments of interest, only, over nine years.Durbin and Whitehouse put out a statement which said: “The Supreme Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making. Thanks to investigative reporting, we now know that for decades, some justices have been joining billionaires with business before the Court on their private planes and yachts or receiving gifts … the justices have enabled their wealthy benefactors and other individuals … to gain private access to the justices while preventing public scrutiny of this conduct.”“Due to Crow, Leo, and Arkley’s intransigence, the committee is now forced to seek compulsory process to obtain the information they hold … Durbin will be asking the committee to grant him authorization to issue subpoenas to these individuals. The chief justice could fix this problem today and adopt a binding code of conduct. As long as he refuses to act, the judiciary committee will.”
      The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      US House Republicans plan to give Israel $14.3bn by cutting IRS funds

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      Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Monday introduced a plan to provide $14.3bn in aid to Israel by cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service, setting up a showdown with Democrats who control the Senate.In one of the first major policy actions under new House speaker Mike Johnson, House Republicans unveiled a standalone supplemental spending bill only for Israel, despite Joe Biden’s request for a $106bn package that would include aid for Israel, Ukraine and border security.Johnson, who voted against aid for Ukraine before he was elected House speaker last week, had said he wanted aid to Israel and Ukraine to be handled separately. He has said he wants more accountability for money that has been sent to the Kyiv government as it fights Russian invaders.Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on Monday he was confident the House would back a request for additional funds for Ukraine’s military.“The main thing is the outcome – are there enough votes or not?” Kuleba told Ukrainian national television. “And at the moment we have every reason to believe that there are votes in the US House of Representatives for the bill providing Ukraine with additional support.”Kuleba said he was aware of “considerable political resistance” to the bill’s provisions and that it would be a “sin” for US lawmakers not to use the legislation to further their own interests.“Israel is a separate matter,” Johnson said in an interview on Fox News last week, describing his desire to “bifurcate” the Ukraine and Israel funding issues.Johnson has said bolstering support for Israel should top the US national security agenda in the aftermath of the 7 October attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people and saw more than 200 others taken hostage.Democrats accused Republicans of stalling Congress’ ability to help Israel by introducing a partisan bill.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhite House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement accusing Republicans of “politicizing national security” and calling their bill a non-starter. To become law, the measure would need to pass the House and the Senate and be signed by Joe Biden.“House Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent by suggesting that protecting national security or responding to natural disasters is contingent upon cuts to other programs,” Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democratic representative on the House appropriations committee, said in a statement.The House rules committee is expected to consider the Republican Israel bill on Wednesday. More

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      ‘They have reached a historic agreement’: Biden hails UAW settlement with big three carmakers – as it happened

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      Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden hailed the deals reached between the United Auto Workers and the three major Detroit automakers that are set to end a six-week strike at their factories.“They have reached a historic agreement,” the president said of automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis as well as the UAW, who president Shawn Fain he spoke to earlier today.“These record agreements reward auto workers who gave up much to keep the industry working and going during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. These agreements ensure the iconic Big Three can still lead the world in quality and innovation.”The UAW reached a tentative agreement with GM earlier today, the last of the three companies targeted in the strike.The agreements need to be ratified by union members, but Biden said the automakers and the UAW have agreed that workers can return to assembly lines before that happens.“I applaud the UAW and the leaders of the automobile companies for agreeing that all the workers on strike and all those who were walking the picket lines on behalf of the UAW brothers and sisters can go back to work immediately, even before the vote is taken.”A judge in Denver has started hearing arguments in a case brought by liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington aiming at removing Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for the former president argued the plaintiffs do not understand the meaning of the word “insurrection,” while the case could ultimately end up decided by the conservative-dominated US supreme court. Hearings in the Colorado case are expected to continue throughout the week, while a judge in Minnesota will begin considering a similar lawsuit on Thursday.Here’s what else happened today:
      Joe Biden hailed agreements reached between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit automakers as “historic” in a speech at the White House.
      Artificial intelligence developers face new rules under an executive order Biden signed today.
      Trump remains at the top of the polls in Iowa, which isn’t really news. The most interesting tidbits of the survey may be Ron DeSantis’s remarkable favorability despite his overall floundering campaign, and Nikki Haley’s measurable jump in support.
      Never Trumper Asa Hutchinson’s campaign may be falling apart after his manager and confidante resigned, CBS News reports. Hutchinson is polling at 1% support in Iowa.
      New York House Republicans are optimistic they have votes to boot congressman George Santos, who has admitted to fabricating his resume and faces federal charges, out of office.
      Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, urged Congress to approve aid to both Ukraine and Israel. House Republicans seem on board with the latter, but are growing increasingly wary of the former.
      Joe Biden’s comments on the apparent conclusion of the United Auto Workers’ strike came at the start of an event where he signed an executive order that imposes rules on artificial intelligence development.Here’s more from the Associated Press on his administration’s new policy:
      Before signing the order, Biden said AI is driving change at “warp speed” and carries tremendous potential as well as perils.
      “AI is all around us,” Biden said. “To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risk, we need to govern this technology.”
      The order is an initial step that is meant to ensure that AI is trustworthy and helpful, rather than deceitful and destructive. The order – which will likely need to be augmented by congressional action – seeks to steer how AI is developed so that companies can profit without putting public safety in jeopardy.
      Using the Defense Production Act, the order requires leading AI developers to share safety test results and other information with the government. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is to create standards to ensure AI tools are safe and secure before public release.
      The commerce department is to issue guidance to label and watermark AI-generated content to help differentiate between authentic interactions and those generated by software. The extensive order touches on matters of privacy, civil rights, consumer protections, scientific research and worker rights.
      Here’s a clip of a Biden laugh line from his event this afternoon announcing the order:Here’s video of Joe Biden cheering the UAW’s new agreements with the Big Three automakers:Biden had gotten closer to the UAW’s strike than any president who came before him, by traveling to Michigan to address a picket line of striking workers.Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden hailed the deals reached between the United Auto Workers and the three major Detroit automakers that are set to end a six-week strike at their factories.“They have reached a historic agreement,” the president said of automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis as well as the UAW, who president Shawn Fain he spoke to earlier today.“These record agreements reward auto workers who gave up much to keep the industry working and going during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. These agreements ensure the iconic Big Three can still lead the world in quality and innovation.”The UAW reached a tentative agreement with GM earlier today, the last of the three companies targeted in the strike.The agreements need to be ratified by union members, but Biden said the automakers and the UAW have agreed that workers can return to assembly lines before that happens.“I applaud the UAW and the leaders of the automobile companies for agreeing that all the workers on strike and all those who were walking the picket lines on behalf of the UAW brothers and sisters can go back to work immediately, even before the vote is taken.”From the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly, here’s more on what we learned from the presidential poll of Iowa Republicans released this morning, which appeared to be very good for Donald Trump:Donald Trump maintained his huge lead in the crucial early voting state of Iowa in a major new poll by NBC News and the Des Moines Register but Nikki Haley is now emerging as his closest challenger.The former US president has a 27-point lead in Iowa three months before the first vote of the Republican primary as he attracted 43% support. But Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, climbed 10 points to 16%, sharing second place with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose campaign has long been seen to be stalling.No other candidate scored significantly, even after second choices of supporters of Mike Pence, the former vice-president who suspended his campaign, were reapportioned.J Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who conducted the survey, said: “This is a good poll for Donald Trump. For all the things that happened between the last poll and now, he’s still the dominant player in the field and his standing has, in fact, improved from August.”Here’s the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe with more on the start of the legal effort today to keep Donald Trump off presidential ballots for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection:A multi-pronged effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential ballot as an insurrectionist resumes in earnest, beginning with a court case in Colorado on Monday, the first of two states that will hear legal arguments this week.Those seeking to have the former president ruled ineligible are relying on a civil war-era provision of the 14th amendment to the US constitution that states no person can hold public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.They argue that Trump’s incitement of the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol, in which his supporters attempted to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, perfectly encapsulates the clause that has yet to be seriously tested in a courtroom.New York House Republicans believe they are close to securing the two-thirds majority required to expel their fellow Republican George Santos who has pled not guilty to over a dozen fraud-related counts. “I think we’re getting two-thirds. There seems to be a good sentiment out there that enough is enough,” CNN reports Nick LaLota, who represents New York’s first district, saying.“People have seen over the last ten months what a fraud he is,” Anthony D’Espositio, who represents New York’s fourth district, said, echoing similar sentiments.Marcus Molinaro, the state’s representative of its 13th district, said, “I think at this time, it is absolutely inapropriate for him to serve… I think there’s significant support, certainly on both ends of the aisle. I understand hesitance but this is a clear case of an individual who used every lie and misdeed in order to obtain the very office he holds.”Here is more from the lawyer in Colorado arguing against the lawsuits attempting to prevent Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot:Refering to Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, he said:
      “There’s substantial historical evidence that ‘engage’ does not mean mere incitement through words. It doesn’t mean that. And frankly, president Trump didn’t engage.
      He didn’t carry a pitchfork to Capitol grounds. He didn’t lead a charge. He didn’t get into a fistfight with legislators. He didn’t goad president Biden into going out back and having a fight.
      He gave a speech in which he asked people to peacefully and patriotically go to the Capitol to protest.”
      Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is urging the Senate to pass a supplemental foreign aid package to Ukraine and Israel.Speaking on Monday, McConnell said:
      “Right now, our efforts are making a difference, both in Ukraine and here at home. But the Biden administration’s hesitation along the way has really in my view prolonged the bloodshed.
      This is a moment for swift and decisive action to prevent further loss of life, and to impose real consequences on the tyrants who have terrorized the people of Ukraine and of Israel.
      And right now, the Senate has a chance to produce supplemental assistance that will help us do exactly that.
      A judge in Denver has started hearing arguments in a case brought by liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington aiming at removing Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for the former president argued the plaintiffs do not understand the meaning of the word “insurrection,” while the case could ultimately end up decided by the conservative-dominated supreme court. Hearings in the Colorado case are expected to continue through the week, while a judge in Minnesota will begin considering a similar lawsuit on Thursday.Here’s what else has happened today:
      Joe Biden said an agreement to end the United Auto Workers’s strike against General Motors – and the six-week walkout against the Detroit automakers – was “great”.
      Trump remains at the top of the polls in Iowa, which isn’t really news. The most interesting tidbits of the survey may be Ron DeSantis’s remarkable favorability despite his overall floundering campaign, and Nikki Haley’s measurable jump in support.
      Never Trumper Asa Hutchinson’s campaign may be falling apart after his manager and confidante resigned, CBS News reports. Hutchinson is polling at 1% support in Iowa.
      All the way back in July, the Guardian’s David Smith took a look at the prospects of the few Never Trumpers competing for the GOP’s presidential nomination, and concluded they were not good. Here’s more on the forces that derailed Mike Pence’s campaign and are hurting Asa Hutchinson’s: For Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, there were boos and chants of “Trump! Trump!”. For Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami, there were jeers and cries of “Traitor!” And perhaps most tellingly, there was no Florida governor Ron DeSantis at all.The recent Turning Point USA conference brought thousands of young conservatives to Florida and there was no doubting the main attraction: former president Donald Trump, who made a glitzy entrance accompanied by giant stage sparklers. In a less than rigorous poll, 86% of attendees gave Trump as their first choice for president; DeSantis, who polled 19% last year, was down to 4%.Events and numbers like this are cause for sleepless nights among those Republican leaders and donors desperate to believe it would be different this time. The Never Trump forces bet heavily on DeSantis as the coming man and the premise that Trump’s campaign would collapse under the weight of myriad legal problems.But six months away from the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, none of it seems to be working. DeSantis’s campaign is flailing and leaving some with buyers’ remorse. Hutchinson and Chris Christie, outspoken Trump critics, are polling in single digits, sowing doubts about voters’ appetite for change. Never Trumpers have reason to fear that his march to the Republican nomination may already be unstoppable.“They’re experiencing a brutal wake-up call that the party is not interested in hearing critiques of Trump,” said Tim Miller, who was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign. “The Trump challengers’ candidacies have been astonishingly poor and learned nothing from 2016. When the leading candidate gets indicted and all of his opponents besides Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson just echo his fake persecution complex talking points, it’s going to be hard to beat him.”Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is among the few Republican presidential candidates who have openly attacked Donald Trump, and his campaign now appears to be collapsing.CBS News reports Hutchinson’s campaign manager and longtime confidante has resigned:Republicans who have gone against the former president have gotten nowhere in this presidential election cycle. Hutchinson polled at 1% in the NBC News survey released this morning, and over the weekend, Mike Pence, who was Trump’s vice-president and fell out with him over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, suspended his presidential campaign.Over the weekend, a federal judge reinstated a limited gag order on Donald Trump, intended to prevent him from making statements maligning those involved in his prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Donald Trump was once again bound by the gag order in the federal criminal case charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, after a judge on Sunday reinstated restrictions prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.The US district judge Tanya Chutkan also denied the former US president’s request to suspend the gag order indefinitely while his lawyers appealed.Trump had been granted a reprieve when the judge temporarily lifted the gag order while she considered that request. Prosecutors argued last week that the order should be reimposed after Trump took advantage and posted a slew of inflammatory statements.The statements included Trump’s repeated attacks on the special counsel Jack Smith, whom he called “deranged”, and Trump’s comments about the testimony that his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had provided to the grand jury during the criminal investigation.Prosecutors argued that each of Trump’s statements were exactly the sort of comments that the order was designed to prevent, including intimidating or influencing witnesses who could wind up testifying against him at trial, and weighing on the substance of their testimony.“The defendant has capitalized on the court’s administrative stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” prosecutors said in their brief. “Unless the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not stop.” More

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      Trump maintains huge Iowa polling lead as Nikki Haley gains ground

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      Donald Trump maintained his huge lead in the crucial early voting state of Iowa in a major new poll by NBC News and the Des Moines Register but Nikki Haley is now emerging as his closest challenger.The former US president has a 27-point lead in Iowa three months before the first vote of the Republican primary as he attracted 43% support. But Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, climbed 10 points to 16%, sharing second place with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose campaign has long been seen to be stalling.No other candidate scored significantly, even after second choices of supporters of Mike Pence, the former vice-president who suspended his campaign, were reapportioned.J Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who conducted the survey, said: “This is a good poll for Donald Trump. For all the things that happened between the last poll and now, he’s still the dominant player in the field and his standing has, in fact, improved from August.”Trump’s memory apparently hasn’t improved, though. In Sioux City on Sunday, he told supporters: “Well, thank you very much. And a very big hello to a place where we’ve done very well: Sioux Falls. Thank you very much, Sioux Falls.”A state senator, Brad Zaun, whispered: “It’s Sioux City, not Sioux Falls.”Trump said: “Oh … is that right?”To the crowd, he said: “So Sioux City, let me ask you: how many people come from Sioux City?”Trump is 77 but polling shows fewer Americans think he is too old for a second term than think so about Joe Biden, the president who turns 81 next month. Trump has made Biden’s age an anvil for his campaign to hammer but both men are closely watched for errors.In Sioux City, bragging about his relationships with authoritarian world leaders, Trump said Hungary “fronts on both Ukraine and Russia”. Hungary does not have a border with Russia.Haley has made foreign policy smarts part of her pitch to voters, strong debate performances also helping her rise.In the NBC/Register poll, she climbed 10 points from the same survey in August as DeSantis fell by three. Other candidates fell (the South Carolina senator Tim Scott from 9% to 7%, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie from 5% to 4%) or stagnated (the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy sticking at 4%).Haley was the second choice of 17% of likely caucus-goers, with 22% more saying they would consider her.Kristy Beckwith, 60 and from Ankeny, said: “I feel like she’s fresh, and I liked what she said about … the things that she did as governor of South Carolina … she’s a strong woman.”Trump faces 91 criminal charges, including for state and federal election subversion, and assorted civil trials. Nonetheless, he has increased his lead in the NBC/Register poll. In August, he led DeSantis by 23 points. He now leads by 27.Evangelical Christians remain a key Iowa voting bloc. Despite Trump facing criminal charges over hush-money payments to a porn star and a civil trial arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”, 65% of respondents to the NBC/Register poll said such legal problems would not stop him winning a general election.Trump enjoys bigger leads elsewhere. On Monday, the fivethirtyeight.com national polling average put Trump at 57%: 43% clear of DeSantis and 49% up on Haley. More

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      in Elections

      Efforts to keep ‘insurrectionist’ Trump off 2024 ballot to be heard in court

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      A multi-pronged effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential ballot as an insurrectionist resumes in earnest, beginning with a court case in Colorado on Monday, the first of two states that will hear legal arguments this week.Those seeking to have the former president ruled ineligible are relying on a civil war-era provision of the 14th amendment to the US constitution that states no person can hold public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.They argue that Trump’s incitement of the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol, in which his supporters attempted to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, perfectly encapsulates the clause that has yet to be seriously tested in a courtroom.In Denver on Monday, and in Minnesota’s supreme court on Thursday, hearings will commence in cases that could ultimately end up in the US supreme court, regardless of which side wins in the lower court. The rulings are likely to be swiftly appealed, dragging the cases out with next year’s general election only 12 months away.“We’ve had hearings with presidential candidates debating their eligibility before – Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, John McCain,” said Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, listing candidates challenged on whether they met the constitutional requirement of being a “natural-born citizen”.But the arguments against Trump, he said, rely on an obscure clause of the constitution with an “incendiary” bar against insurrection. “Those legal questions are very heavy ones,” he said, noting that even if they are seen as long shots, they raise important issues and have a plausible legal path to success.Among those who support the argument for Trump’s removal from the ballot are the Virginia senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, who told ABC last month that the “language is specific” in the 14th amendment clause.“In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose at a particular moment and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as is laid out in the constitution,” he said.“So I think there is a powerful argument to be made.”Dozens of cases citing the amendment have been filed in recent months, but the ones in Colorado and Minnesota seem the most important, according to legal experts. They were filed by two liberal groups with significant resources, and in states with a clear, swift process for challenges to candidates’ ballot qualifications.That means the Colorado and Minnesota cases are taking a more legally sound route to get courts to force election officials to disqualify Trump, in contrast to other lawsuits that seek a sweeping ruling from federal judges that Trump is no longer eligible for the presidency.The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) watchdog group filed the Colorado lawsuit. “By instigating this unprecedented assault on the American constitutional order, Trump violated his oath and disqualified himself under the 14th Amendment from holding public office, including the office of the president,” its filing states.Trump’s lawyers say the provision has not been used in 150 years, and the plaintiffs are interpreting it incorrectly. They contend it was never meant to apply to the office of president, which is not mentioned in the text, unlike “senator or representative in Congress” and “elector of president and vice-president”.They also insist Trump never “engaged in insurrection” and was simply exercising his free speech rights to warn about election results he did not believe were legitimate.The then president was impeached for a historic second time in 2021 for inciting the attack on the Capitol, though he was acquitted by the US Senate.Trump has been predictably dismissive. “This is like a banana republic,” he told the conservative radio host Dan Bongino last month. “And what they’re doing is, it’s called election interference. Now the 14th amendment is just a continuation of that. It’s nonsense.”The arguments in Colorado could feature testimony from witnesses to the 6 January 2021 attack, and other moves by Trump to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He is already facing charges in a federal case in Washington DC and a state case being heard in Fulton county, Georgia, over those efforts.Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      ‘This war is prophetically significant’: why US evangelical Christians support Israel

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      It didn’t take long for many evangelical Christian groups in America to show their support for Israel.Hours after Hamas attacked the country on 7 October, killing more than 1,400 people, Christians United for Israel, an evangelical lobbying group which claims to have more than 10 million members, posted a message to on X, formerly known as Twitter.“To the terrorists who have chosen this fight, hear this, what you do to Israel, god will do to you. Despite today’s weeping, joy will come because he [god] who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps,” CUFI, whose founder believes the presence of Jews in Israel is a precursor to Jesus Christ returning to Earth, wrote.Soon an “Evangelical statement in support of Israel” was issued by the ethics and religion liberty commission – an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination which has 45,000 churches in the US.In the statement, 2,000 evangelical leaders – not all were named – said they “fully support Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack”. Little credence was given to the Palestinians who would soon find themselves under attack: more than 8,000 people in Gaza have now been killed by Israeli bombardments, according to Gaza’s health ministry .“While our theological perspectives on Israel and the Church may vary, we are unified in calling attacks against Jewish people especially troubling as they have been often targeted by their neighbors since God called them as His people in the days of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3),” the evangelical statement said.“In keeping with Christian Just War tradition, we also affirm the legitimacy of Israel’s right to respond against those who have initiated these attacks as Romans 13 grants governments the power to bear the sword against those who commit such evil acts against innocent life.”The more than 90 named signatories – four were women, the rest men – included the current president, and eight former presidents, of the Southern Baptist Convention, among other influential evangelicals.For people not immersed in evangelicalism – a conservative strand of Christianity which emphasises adherence to the Bible – the overt biblical references may have seemed unusual to hear in a geopolitical context.Romans 13 – the 13th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament – is essentially a lengthy treatise on the importance of submitting to bureaucracy, which states:“Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason.”For those more familiar with the evangelical world, the vehemence of the support has not been a surprise, given the importance to evangelicals of an Israel inhabited by Jewish people. One main strand of evangelical theology holds that the return of Jews to the region starts the clock ticking on a seven-year armageddon, after which Jesus Christ will return.To that end, the issue of Israel and Palestine has dominated sermons at evangelical churches over the past two Sundays, said Daniel Hummel, a historian of American religion, and the author of Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and US-Israeli Relations.“The overwhelming theme has been: this war is prophetically significant, but no one is willing to really claim exactly how,” Hummel said.“And that’s been a long tradition of sort of hedging your bets and getting whatever you can in terms of sort of interest and eyeballs, by declaring that there’s something significant here, but once you start saying specific things and you’re sort of on the hook, it doesn’t turn out that way.”The rush to respond, and the statements in support of Israel, were not surprising to those aware of the deep feeling evangelicals have for Israel.Broadly speaking, some evangelicals believe that Jewish people returning to Israel following the 1917 ​​Balfour Declaration, a British statement which called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”, was key to end times, when God will purge sinners and Jesus Christ will return.John Hagee, an evangelical pastor and influential founder of Christians United for Israel, explained the prophecy to TBN Networks in December 2022.“God is getting ready to defend Israel in such a supernatural way it’s going to take the breath out of the lungs of the dictators on planet Earth but we are living on the cusp of the greatest most supernatural series of events the world has ever seen ready or not.”Hagee said when Jewish people are present in Israel “the clock starts ticking” on the rapture.“What will come soon [is] the antichrist and his seven year empire that will be destroyed in the battle of armageddon. Then Jesus Christ will set up his throne in the city of Jerusalem. He will establish a kingdom that will never end,” Hagee said.Hagee, despite having a long history of antisemitism – he has suggested Jews brought persecution upon themselves by upsetting God and called Hitler a “half-breed Jew” – founded Christians United for Israel in 2006.Among other things, the group lobbied for the US embassy in Israel to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Donald Trump did in 2018, and is “committed to Israel’s strength, security and sovereignty”.The support of evangelical Christians – in 2015 the Pew Research Center estimated there were about 62 million in the US – for Israel can be split into different groups, Hummel said.While there are plenty of evangelicals who, like Hagee, adhere to the Israel-is-key-to-Jesus’-return theology, there are also those who believe in “blessings theology”, a less outlandish, more transactional approach to support for Israel.The blessings theology is based on a literal reading of the book of Genesis, where God told Abraham – who Hummel described as “the patriarch of the Jewish people” – that he would “bless those who bless you” and “curse those who curse you”.“For the last couple of centuries this has been interpreted on individual terms. So you can accrue personal blessings by being good to the Jewish people, or by giving money, or touring Israel or things like that,” Hummel said.That also works on a national level, he said.“And so the crude way of doing this is a pastor will say something like: ‘Look at the Roman Empire and how they persecuted the Jews and Rome fell. Look at the British Empire and how the British didn’t treat the Jews well, and how they fell. Look at the Nazis and how they persecuted the Jews, and they fell.“And we, the Americans, don’t want to be the next Empire or the next great power to fall because we didn’t sufficiently bless the Jewish people.’”There are also those whose support is “more broadly American”, Hummel said: “There’s a deep cultural affinity that’s been built over decades and decades between the US and Israel all across the board.”Evangelicals make up an influential part of the Republican party base, and have a strong number in Congress. More than 100 members of the current Congress can be broadly identified as evangelical, and that was on display in recent days.Lee Fang, a journalist, recently asked congressmen and women whether their religion was important to their support for Israel, for the documentary “Praying for Armageddon”.“This entire matter is based upon the faith of our maker, our creator, but it’s also faith of a chosen people,” Pete Sessions, a Republican congressman from Texas and a Methodist, said.Fang asked Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, about evangelical support.“They’re following the scripture, and what the scripture says about Israel: ‘Those who bless Israel will be blessed,’ they take it literal, and I’m one of those people,” Burchett said.In terms of the influence evangelicals might wield as the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, Hummel said there had been a “mixed record” on evangelicals’ political sway.Still, Trump has specifically said he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem “for the evangelicals”, while Hagee served as an adviser to the twice-impeached president.In the 2020 election, evangelical or born-again Christians made up 28% of the overall electorate, CNN reported, and three-quarters voted for Trump. Given that support for the Republican party, under GOP leadership evangelicals would have plenty of influence.“When there’s a Republican president they have a seat at the table it doesn’t mean the president’s going to do exactly what they want, but they’re the ones that the president’s listening to more than other interested parties on Israel,” Hummel said.With a presidential election looming, and with few signs that the Israeli conflict will ebb away any time soon, evangelicals could find themselves in a position of significant power in the near future. More

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      Mike Pence’s exit from White House bid is winnowing of crowded field, rivals say

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      Mike Pence’s surprise withdrawal from the Republican presidential nomination race on Saturday is part of natural winnowing of the crowded field, rivals of the former vice-president said Sunday – and one that could help their quest of candidates to wrestle the nomination from overwhelming frontrunner Donald Trump.“In the end, the race is narrowing, which everyone said it would,” said former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics and one of four who have qualified for a third TV debate next month in Miami that may not have included Pence, who, he told CNN’s State of the Union, had run “a tough race, a good race”.The former vice-president’s decision to make an early exit may also have been influenced by fundraising difficulties he was known to be having. Announcing his departure from the field saying it had “become clear” he did not have a path to victory, he vowed to help elect “principled Republican leaders”.Christie, who is at 3.1% support in primary polling, put his finger on Pence’s fundamental misalignment – accepting Trump’s hand as his running mate in 2016, resisting his boss on January 6th, then defending his administration record while simultaneously urging his party to turn away from Trump populism and back to conservative values.“There are people who want to have it both ways,” Christie continued his comments to CNN on Sunday. “They want to support him … on the other hand they want to go after him.”But Christie also carries that burden, having sought a cabinet appointment in the Trump administration in 2016.The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is widely presumed to be the main beneficiary of Pence’s exit. In a speech on Saturday, the former US ambassador to the UN praised Pence as a “good man of faith” who had “fought for America and he has fought for Israel”.Haley’s polling is rising amid endorsements from Republican politicians and pundits prepared to break with Trump. “She’s breaking through at the right moment,” Republican strategist Mike Murphy told Politico last week. “Everything else has been ridiculous preseason coverage … I think it all starts now.”According to FiveThirtyEight, Haley is polling in third place nationally at 8% among registered Republican voters behind Florida governor Ron DeSantis, at 14%. But support for DeSantis is falling. In the key early primary state of New Hampshire Haley beats DeSantis 19% to 10%, according to a recent survey.But both DeSantis and Haley, along with Vivek Ramaswamy and Christie, still hugely trail Trump at 58% support nationally – and the Maga king’s support only seems to grow with each criminal and civil indictment he is served.Governor DeSantis also rallied behind Pence, calling him “a principled man of faith who has worked tirelessly to advance the conservative cause” in a post on X.After Pence stepped aside, Trump called on him for his endorsement: “I don’t know about Mike Pence. He should endorse me. You know why? Because I had a great, successful presidency and he was the vice-president.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the former president also took a swipe at his Christian fundamentalist vice-president, who refused to help in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election and held the confirmation vote after the Capitol building had been cleared of January 6 protesters.“People in politics can be very disloyal,” Trump said at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, according to The Hill.Pence’s exit is also a stark reminder of Trump’s hold over the party: former vice-presidents are typically seen as a formidable primary challengers. But in recent years, that assumption has weakened.Neither Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, or now Pence, have automatically managed or sought to immediately trade in the vice-presidency for the presidency.But as ABC News political contributor Donna Brazile pointed out on Sunday, Pence did not resonate with voters – a former vice-president who was unable to get traction, raise money or distinguish himself. “He tried to change the dynamics of the Republican party but it’s not changing. It’s now behind Donald Trump come trial or tribulations.” More

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      You can’t fight the Republican party’s ‘big lie’ with facts alone | Peter Pomerantsev

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      Why do seemingly serious people repeat crazy political lies? This was the question the American anthropologist and political scientist Lisa Wedeen explored when she studied the Syrian dictatorship in the 1990s.She was struck by how people who were usually rational in private would repeat the utterly absurd slogans of the regime, such as claiming that the dictator Hafez al-Assad was the greatest chemist in the world.“From the moment you leave your house, you ask: what does the regime want?,” a Syrian explained to her. “The struggle becomes who can praise the government more.” The bigger the lie you uttered, the more loyal you were.“The regime’s power resides in its ability to impose national fictions and to make people say and do what they otherwise would not,” Wedeen concluded. “This obedience makes people complicit; it entangles them in self-enforcing relations of domination, thereby making it hard for participants to see themselves simply as victims of the state’s caprices.”I was reminded of Wedeen’s research when the US Congress finally selected a speaker after weeks of chaos. Their choice, Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana, is best known for ardently supporting ex-president Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Jo Biden, was rigged. Johnson was the head of the committee to question the integrity of the election. He constructed spurious legal arguments that tried to discredit the vote, though his proposals were thrown out by the US supreme court. He raised the unfounded theory that the voting machines used in the election were tampered with.This claim is so groundless that Fox, the network that supported the allegation, had to pay nearly a billion dollars in a settlement with Dominion, the company that makes the machines.Many of the Republican representatives who supported Johnson’s candidacy have admitted both publicly and privately that the elections were, in fact, not falsified. Yet when journalists faced a gaggle of Republican congressmen and questioned Johnson’s record on this blatant lie, his colleagues jeered and he mockingly said: “Next question” – as if the facts were irrelevant here.And in a sense, they are. Agreeing to Trump’s claims about the rigged election is the absurdity you have to pledge allegiance to in order to show you belong to the tribe. It ensures your fealty by making you complicit. For anyone who has lived in authoritarian regimes, it’s a familiar sight.Along with Wedeen’s Syrian example, I’m reminded of the Czech dissident and playwright Václav Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless, where he tells the story of a greengrocer in communist-era Prague who puts up pro-regime posters in his shop window. The greengrocer doesn’t believe the communist slogans; the people who make the slogans don’t believe in them; and the people who read them don’t believe in them.But as long as everyone plays along, the system continues. It’s the act of not believing and yet pretending, rather than of fervently believing, which is the power of such systems. Your will is corroded: you are made into moral mincemeat that can be shaped any which way by the leader.Havel nobly suggested that in order to fight such a system, what was needed was to “live in truth”, start being honest. Republican politicians face none of the danger communist-era Czechoslovaks or Syrians under the Assads have, but living in truth seems beyond them.Contradicting Trump’s absurdities risks falling out of favour with the leader and his supporters.Altogether, about 40% of Americans think the 2020 vote was illegitimate, and about 60% of Republicans (the figures fluctuate). A democracy will struggle to survive, let alone flourish, when such huge swathes of its population see it as their badge of loyalty not to trust its most fundamental processes.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut if the “rigged” election claim is more about identity than evidence, it also means it will be hard to fact check our way out of this situation. The issue can’t simply be resolved by “trusted” sources, even those on the far right, who can communicate the truth about the election to Trump supporters. Instead, sources only become trusted if they agree to the lie.Pledging loyalty to the “big lie” is more about identity than knowledge – and to fight it entails understanding the need for belonging and meaning it fulfils. Authoritarian propaganda can give the illusion of status and at its extremes a sense of supremacy to compensate for the lack of real agency.Self-styled “populists” can flourish in what sociologists call “civic deserts”: frequently rural areas where the old institutions that bonded communities, the local clubs and town halls have disappeared and where civic engagement is particularly low.But such communities can start to be regenerated for a digital age with, for example, online as well as offline town halls; reinvigorated local news that responds to people’s priorities; and online municipal budget making and other innovations that help people feel part of a community and have ownership over local politics.Historical lessons from understanding and fighting propaganda can be useful here too. When he investigated the psychology of German soldiers in the second world war, the British psychiatrist Henry Dicks thought that counterpropaganda needed to stress the bonds people had that went beyond belonging to the Nazi Volk: the emotional bonds they felt with loved ones and relatives, for example.The competition with the big lie is not just, or even primarily, about fact checking. It’s a competition between different models of belonging: can we build alternative communities that are more benign and yet fulfilling than the ones offered by the conspiracy theorists? More