Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 250 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Former Republican candidate Tim Scott to endorse Donald Trump ahead of New Hampshire primary, reports say – as it happened

      by

      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill.On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.In separate report released by Vanity Fair on Friday, multiple sources said that Trump has been calling Scott in attempts to win his endorsement ahead of next month’s primary in South Carolina, which is also the home state of Trump’s opponent Nikki Haley, who was previously the state’s governor.The report of Scott’s endorsement of Trump comes as the ex-president prepares to rally in New Hampshire this weekend ahead of the state’s primary next week.Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      Anti-abortion activists gathered in Washington DC on Friday as part of the March for Life campaign. The rally comes ahead of the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, which brought national reproductive rights to the country, and ahead of the two-year anniversary of the supreme court’s decision to strike it down.
      Donald Trump has renewed his mistrial request in E Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him. In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the case, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said that Carroll’s actions “severely prejudices the president Trump’s defense [sic] since he has been deprived of critical information relating to critical evidence which plaintiff has described to the jury”.
      In response to whether the White House would publicly support a testimony from the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, before the House Armed Services Committee over his recent hospitalization, White House spokesperson John Kirby said: “That’ll be a decision for the secretary of defense and he has to make that decision … I’m not going to get into personal and private discussions that the secretary has had with the president of the United States.”
      Joe Biden has signed a stopgap government funding bill. The bipartisan legislation narrowly avoided a government shutdown at the 11th hour.
      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill. On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.
      Joe Biden has approved the debt cancellation for another 74,000 student loan borrowers across the country. The latest announcement brings the total number of people who have had their debt cancelled under the Biden administration to 3.7 million.
      Former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang has endorsed the presidential bid of Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips. Calling himself a former “campaign surrogate for Joe [Biden]” at a campaign event on Thursday, Yang said: “Dean Phillips is the only one with the courage, the character and conviction to go against the grain, to go against the legion of followers in Washington DC.”
      Donald Trump is trying to convince allies of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis that the Republican race for a presidential nominee is over, according to a new report by Vanity Fair. As Trump continues to face mounting legal troubles, the ex-president is reported to have been pressuring Haley and DeSantis to drop out of the race.
      Maryland’s Democratic representative Jamie Raskin has pushed back against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal for a Palestinian state, writing in a statement on X:
      Ideological extremism is destroying prospects for peace. Most Americans will support a pragmatic peace strategy to free the hostages, provide aid to the population of Gaza, launch the two-state solution and put Hamas terror & right-wing fanaticism behind us.
      The Guardian’s Carter Sherman is at the March for Life rally in Washington DC where anti-abortion activists are protesting ahead of the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade.Here are some of her dispatches:Donald Trump has renewed his mistrial request in E Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him.In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the case, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said that Carroll’s actions “severely prejudices the president Trump’s defense [sic] since he has been deprived of critical information relating to critical evidence which plaintiff has described to the jury”.Earlier this week, Trump complained loudly in the Manhattan courthouse during Carroll’s testimony, making comments including “It is a witch-hunt” and “It really is a con job” to his lawyers.In turn, Kaplan threatened to remove Trump from the courtroom, to which Trump replied: “I would love it, I would love it.”While speaking at a briefing, White House spokesperson John Kirby answered a question on whether the White House would publicly support a testimony from defense secretary Lloyd Austin before the House Armed Services Committee over his recent hospitalization.Kirby said:
      That’ll be a decision for the secretary of defense and he has to make that decision … I’m not going to get into personal and private discussions that the secretary has had with the president of the United States. They have spoken as recently as late last week. As you have heard the president say himself, he has full trust and confidence in Secretary Austin and his leadership at the Pentagon and that will continue.
      In a letter to Austin on Thursday, Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Alabama who chairs the committee, said that he is “alarmed” over Austin’s recent hospitalization.He added: “I expect your full honesty and cooperation in this matter. Anything shot of that is completely unacceptable.”Here is where the day stands:
      Joe Biden has signed a stopgap government funding bill. The bipartisan legislation narrowly avoided a government shutdown at the 11th hour.
      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill. On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.
      Joe Biden has approved the debt cancellation for another 74,000 student loan borrowers across the country. The latest announcement brings the total number of people who have had their debt cancelled under the Biden administration to 3.7 million.
      Former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang has endorsed the presidential bid of Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips. Calling himself a former “campaign surrogate for Joe [Biden]” at a campaign event on Thursday, Yang said: “Dean Phillips is the only one with the courage, the character and conviction to go against the grain, to go against the legion of followers in Washington DC.”
      Donald Trump is trying to convince allies of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis that the Republican race for a presidential nominee is over, according to a new report by Vanity Fair. As Trump continues to face mounting legal troubles, the ex-president is reported to have been pressuring Haley and DeSantis to drop out of the race.
      Anti-abortion activists are gathering in Washington DC today for the annual March for Life campaign.This time the event takes place ahead of the 51st anniversary, on Monday, of the supreme court’s ruling in Roe v Wade in 1973 that brought in the national right to an abortion in the US, and ahead of the two-year anniversary of the current, right-leaning supreme court striking down Roe in 2022.Joe Biden and Kamala Harris plan to highlight the depletion of reproductive rights, which is proving a vote-loser for Republicans, on the 2024 campaign trail next week, amid high Democratic party spending on related ads, Axios reports.The Guardian’s Carter Sherman is in the cold and snowy capital and will be sending a dispatch. Meanwhile, she’s on X/Twitter with vignettes.The move follows the House of Representatives passing the short-term spending bill late on Thursday, sending the legislation to the president’s desk with just two days left before government funding was to run out, in the latest nail-biter.The bipartisan legislation averted a government shutdown that would have begun at one minute past midnight tonight.The bill, which represents the third stopgap spending measure of this fiscal year, will extend government funding at current levels until 1 March for some government agencies and until 8 March for others.The House vote came hours after the Senate approved the bill in a vote of 77 to 18, following bipartisan negotiations that stretched into late Wednesday evening. The Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, praised the bill as a vital measure that would allow lawmakers more time to negotiate over full-year appropriations bills.“Avoiding a shutdown is very good news for the country, for our veterans, for parents and children, and for farmers and small businesses – all of whom would have felt the sting had the government shut down,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “And this is what the American people want to see: both sides working together and governing responsibly. No chaos. No spectacle. No shutdown.”You can read more on the passage of the legislation last night, from my colleague Joanie Greve, here.The Associated Press is also now reporting that Tim Scott of South Carolina is expected to endorse Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for president ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. It would be a blow to Scott’s fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations during his presidency.The New York Times was first to report the story today, noting it would “spur more talk” of Scott’s prospects as Trump’s vice-presidential pick.The AP news agency also further reports:
      A person familiar with Scott’s plans confirmed Friday to The Associated Press that Scott would travel from Florida to New Hampshire with the GOP front-runner.
      The person spoke on the condition of anonymity due to not being allowed to discuss the plans publicly.
      Scott launched his own bid to challenge Trump last May before shuttering his effort about six months later. Trump has been appearing on the campaign trail with several other former rivals who have endorsed him, including North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
      Scott’s endorsement was sought by the remaining major contenders in the Republican primary, particularly ahead of South Carolina’s February 24 primary, which has historically been influential in determining the eventual nominee.
      Haley appointed Scott to the Senate in 2012.
      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill.On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.In separate report released by Vanity Fair on Friday, multiple sources said that Trump has been calling Scott in attempts to win his endorsement ahead of next month’s primary in South Carolina, which is also the home state of Trump’s opponent Nikki Haley, who was previously the state’s governor.The report of Scott’s endorsement of Trump comes as the ex-president prepares to rally in New Hampshire this weekend ahead of the state’s primary next week. More

    • 225 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      There is still a way to stop Donald Trump – but time is running out | Jonathan Freedland

      by

      The few Republicans who have not succumbed to the cult of Donald Trump cling to one last hope. They are crossing their fingers that on Tuesday night the ex-president’s march to his party’s nomination will be halted, or at least delayed, by a defeat in the New Hampshire primary at the hands of the former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley. But it is a thin hope.Even if Haley wins a famous victory in this snowbound state, the battles ahead are on terrain far more tricky for her and congenial to him. On Monday, Trump won his party’s contest in Iowa by a record-breaking margin, amassing more votes than all his rivals combined – and the primary electorates that come next look more like Iowa’s than New Hampshire’s, which, unusually, includes a big slice of Trump-sceptic independents. When you combine that with surveys that show Trump even – or better than even – with Joe Biden, making him many forecasters’ favourite to win the White House in November, it prompts a question that confounds blue-state America and baffles most of the rest of the world. Given all that he’s said and all that he’s done, given all that he is, why do so many Americans want Donald Trump to be their next president?Any answer to that question has to begin with the weakness of Trump’s opponents. When the New York Post branded Ron DeSantis “DeFuture” in 2022, hailing him as the man to push Trump aside and become the Republican standard bearer in 2024, it had not reckoned on the Florida governor being astonishingly awkward with the basics of retail politics: smiling, shaking hands, interacting with other people. It’s been painful to watch. (Seeing Nikki Haley flail as she defends her view that the US has “never been a racist country” is not much better.)More important, though, was the strategic miscalculation. DeSantis decided to offer Trumpism without Trump, picking fights with the same culture-war targets as the former president – migrants, the media, the “woke” – but without the chaos and lunacy. Trouble was, that made him too Trumpy for those Republicans eager to move on, and not Trumpy enough for the Maga hardcore. That latter group weren’t looking for Trump-lite, because they’re quite happy with the full-strength original.Still, the larger failure was shared by almost the entire Republican field, including Haley. Even though they were nominally running against Trump, only one of them – Chris Christie of New Jersey – dared make the direct case against him. They feared antagonising the (many) Republicans who love Trump, so tiptoed around his obvious and disqualifying flaws – including his support for a violent insurrection in 2021 that sought to overturn a democratic election. Each candidate hoped someone else would take on that task, knocking out Trump in a kamikaze mission that would leave the remaining contenders to scoop up his supporters.It was a classic collective action problem. Had they combined against Trump, they’d have all benefited. Between them, and in their own different ways, they could have devised what political pros say many Republicans needed in order to make the break from Trump: a permission structure. They could have told Republican voters that they did not make a mistake in choosing Trump back in 2016, but his record of broken promises – he never did build that wall – and association with serial electoral defeats, in midterm contests as well as in 2020, made him the wrong choice in 2024. Haley is edging towards that message now, but it has come as time is running out.Trump has been aided, too, by the opponent he hopes to face in November. Initially, many Republicans were wary of backing Trump because they feared he would lose (again) to Biden. But as the president’s numbers continue to bump along the bottom, that fear has receded. Biden’s parlous standing is not chiefly about his record, but something he can do nothing about: how old he is and, more important, how old he seems. One poll found that just 34% of Americans believe the 82-year-old Biden would complete a second term. Biden’s frailty has led Republicans to dismiss the electability argument that might have compelled them to look for an alternative to Trump.And yet, an uncomfortable truth has to be faced. That Donald Trump is very possibly set to return to the Oval Office is not only down to the weakness of others; it is also a product of his own political strengths. He has a skill lacking in every other major figure in the current US political landscape: the ability to craft a narrative that millions believe. He has, for example, turned what should have been a terminal blow – facing multiple prosecutions and 91 criminal charges – into a winning story, one in which he is a victim of, and courageous fighter against, a liberal establishment engaged in “lawfare”, confecting bogus allegations to keep him from power. That story is false, but it has persuaded nearly half the country.He is helped in that by a news environment in which Americans regard themselves as entitled not only to their own opinions but to their own facts, where their feeds and timelines confirm their prejudices and shield them from any unwelcome evidence to the contrary.But Trump is also helped by some actual facts. When he brags about the health of the economy when he was president, it’s not wholly spurious. During his first three years in office, before Covid-19 struck, the typical US household saw its standard of living go up – with a 10.5% real-terms increase in the median household income – only for that same measure to fall by 2.7% during Joe Biden’s first two years. In that period, inflation surged and Americans’ wages could not keep up with rising costs.Of course, it’s laughable for Trump to claim those healthy pre-Covid economic numbers were all down to him. But that doesn’t stop millions of US voters looking back fondly on, say, the low petrol prices of the Trump years. Meanwhile, memories of the daily mayhem, bigotry and creeping authoritarianism are fading.His opponents are weaker than they needed, and still need, to be; he is stronger than many can bear to admit; and the core issue of any election – the economy – may favour him. For all those reasons, Trump has a plausible, even probable, path back to the White House.The best chance to stop him has already passed. It came in February 2021, when the Senate could have convicted Trump on the “incitement of insurrection” charges levelled against him in his second impeachment following the 6 January riot. Had that happened, Trump would have been barred from public office for life. That was the moment, but Senate Republicans ducked it.Trump has benefited from that cowardice, from that perennial belief that someone else will deal with Trump, eventually. Well, eventually is now – and it may already be too late.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
      Jonathan Freedland is presenting three special episodes of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast from New Hampshire. You can hear the first episode here More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Former Republican legislative candidate pleads guilty to January 6 role

      by

      A former Republican legislative candidate has pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers during the insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in the final days of his one-term presidency.Officials said that Matthew Brackley, 40, of Waldoboro, Maine, traveled to Washington DC, Trump’s Stop the Steal rally on January 6, prior to him encouraging the crowd to go to the Capitol.Brackley was among thousands who then stormed the building as part of an effort to stop the US Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory for the Democratic party in the 2020 presidential election.He entered the Capitol building as the mob broke in and asked for the location of then House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office before shouting “Let’s go!” and using his elbows to push past police officers, according to prosecutors.His group was stopped by police before chemical spray was used to break up the demonstrators, prosecutors said.Brackley will be sentenced 14 May in Washington DC, after reaching an agreement in which he pleaded guilty on Thursday to assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers. The crime carries a maximum penalty of eight years in prison.The defense lawyer Steven Levin said his client has accepted full responsibility for his actions.“His aberrant conduct, which lasted less than an hour and for which he is extremely remorseful, stands in stark contrast to his otherwise lifelong law-abiding character,” Levin said on Friday in an email.Brackley tried unsuccessfully to unseat the Maine Democratic state senator and majority leader, Eloise Vitelli of Arrowsic, last year. His campaign website described him as a Maine Maritime Academy graduate whose approach would be to have “respectful, thoughtful conversations on the issues”.The violent storming of the US Capitol, which caused injuries and led to several deaths among police, delayed the official certification of Biden’s winning the White House until the early hours of 7 January after the Capitol was cleared and lawmakers returned to the floor.Trump was impeached over the insurrection and acquitted in the Senate but now faces a related federal criminal case, amid other legal troubles. More

    • 213 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      As the election looms, we must be alert to Trump’s threats of vigilante justice | Robert Reich

      by

      Donald Trump has galvanized an army of vigilantes who are casting a fearsome shadow over the 2024 election.It’s impossible to know how large this potential army is, but last October 41% of pro-Trump Americans agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” (That view was shared by 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats.)We’re seeing the consequences. The day after the Maine secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, barred Trump from the primary ballot there in late December, her home was “swatted”. As Bellows explained, “That’s when someone calls in a fake emergency to evoke a strong law enforcement response to scare the target. Swatting incidents have resulted in casualties although thankfully this one did not.”Along with the swatting, Bellows discussed “extraordinarily dehumanizing fake images” of her online:“I know from my previous work that dehumanizing a person is the first step in paving the way for attacks and violence against them. These dehumanizing images and threatening communications directed at me and people I love are dangerous. We should be able to agree to disagree on important issues without threats and violence.”The Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold, has also faced mounting threats since the Colorado supreme court in December disqualified Trump from the state’s primary ballot.“Within three weeks of the lawsuit being filed, I received 64 death threats,” Griswold has said. “I stopped counting after that. I will not be intimidated. Democracy and peace will triumph over tyranny and violence.”Jack Smith, the special counsel in charge of two federal prosecutions of Trump, has received a number of death threats. Between April and September of last year, the justice department spent more than $4.4m providing increased security for Smith and his team. On Christmas Day he was swatted.On 4 August, Trump posted, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” The following day, a Texas woman left a voicemail for Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge presiding over the case charging Trump with seeking to overturn the 2020 election, threatening that, “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.”Security has been increased for Judge Chutkan, as well. On 7 January, she was swatted.On 6 August, two days after Trump’s post, a man left a voicemail threatening the lives of the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, and Sheriff Patrick Labat for their roles in the Georgia criminal election interference case against Trump.Trump has also encouraged people to “go after” the New York attorney general, Letitia James.In addition, the far-right group the Proud Boys, according to the justice department, “played a central role in setting the January 6 attack on our Capitol into motion”. The House select committee investigating the attack found that in the months leading up to it, then-Trump operative Roger Stone regularly communicated with Proud Boys members, including their leader, Enrique Tarrio.In September, Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on charges related to the attack. (In 2020, Trump issued Stone a blanket pardon.)As of December, roughly 1,240 people have been arrested in connection with the US Capitol attack. Some 170 have been convicted at trial, and 710 have pleaded guilty. So far, more than 720 have received prison sentences, ranging from a handful of days to more than 20 years.Many have sought to defend themselves by saying they were doing what Trump asked them to do. On that fateful day, Trump told the crowd he had summoned to Washington that:
      We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it any more … We will stop the steal … Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back … You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong … We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.
      Afterward, the crowd stormed the Capitol.There is a direct and alarming connection between Trump’s political rise and the increase in political violence and threats of such violence in America.In 2016, the Capitol police recorded fewer than 900 threats against members of Congress. In 2017, after Trump took office, that figure more than quadrupled, according to the Capitol police.The numbers continued to rise every year of the Trump presidency, peaking at 9,700 in 2021. In 2022, the first full year of Biden’s term, the numbers declined to a still-high 7,500. (The 2023 data is not yet available.)Data also shows extraordinarily high levels of threats against mayors, federal judges, election workers and administrators, public health officials, and even school board members.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe threats have clearly intimidated some Republican lawmakers.The retiring senator Mitt Romney recounted (in McKay Coppins’s biography of him) that during Trump’s 23 January 2021 impeachment for incitement of insurrection, a member of the Republican Senate leadership was leaning toward voting to convict Trump. But after several other senators expressed concern about their personal safety and that of their children, the senator in question voted to acquit.Former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said that in that impeachment vote, “there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security – afraid, in some instances, for their lives.” She cited how “members of Congress aren’t able to cast votes, or feel that they can’t, because of their own security.”Just before the House vote on impeachment, the Democratic representative Jason Crow of Colorado said he heard firsthand from Republicans that fear was holding at least two of them back. “I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night, and a couple of them broke down in tears – saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment,” Crow said on MSNBC.Former representative Peter Meijer, a Republican from Michigan, recalls one of his House colleagues voting to overturn the election results on the evening of January 6, hours after the assault: “My colleague feared for family members, and the danger the vote would put them in.” After voting to impeach Trump, Meijer himself faced so many threats that he felt the need to purchase body armor and make changes to his daily schedule.Meijer also noted that his colleagues who voted not to certify the 2020 election “knew in their heart of hearts that they should’ve voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families. They felt that that vote would put their families in danger.”When announcing his retirement, former Republican congressman Anthony Gonzalez cited threats to him and his family after his vote in favor of Trump’s impeachment. Gonzalez was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. In September 2021, Gonzalez announced he would not seek another term.The Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania state senate explained why she signed a letter backing Trump’s attempt to overturn the results in that state: “If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want to do it,’ I’d get my house bombed tonight.”Political violence is an inherent part of fascism. Hitler’s SA – the letters stood for Sturmabteilung or “Storm Section”, also known as the Stormtroopers or Brownshirts – were vigilantes who did the Nazis’ dirty work before the Nazis took total power.During the German presidential elections in March and April 1932, Brownshirts assembled Alarmbereitschaften, or “emergency squads”, to intimidate voters.On the night of the Reichstag election of 31 July 1932, Brownshirts launched a wave of violence across much of northern and eastern Germany with murders and attempted murders of local officials and communist politicians and arson attacks on local Social Democratic headquarters and the offices of liberal newspapers.When five Brownshirts were sentenced to death for the murders, Hitler called the sentences “a most outrageous blood verdict” and publicly promised the prisoners that “from now on, your freedom is a question of honor for all of us, and to fight against the government which made possible such a verdict is our duty.”A chilling echo of these words can be found in one of Trump’s recent speeches in Iowa, in which he claimed that his supporters had acted “peacefully and patriotically” on 6 January 2021. “Some people call them prisoners,” he said of those who were serving sentences for their violence. “I call them hostages. Release the J6 hostages, Joe [Biden]. Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe.”America is not the Weimar Republic on the eve of 1933, and Trump is not Hitler. But it is important to understand the parallels.That Donald Trump still has not been held accountable for encouraging the attack on the US Capitol, or for provoking his followers with his blatant lie that the 2020 election was stolen, continues to galvanize an army of potentially violent Americans.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      US Senate passes stopgap bill to avert government shutdown

      by

      The Senate voted on Thursday to extend current federal spending and keep the government open, sending a short-term measure to the House that would avoid a shutdown and push off a final budget package until early March.The House is scheduled to vote on the measure and send it to Joe Biden later in the day.The stopgap bill, passed by the Senate on a 77-18 vote, comes after a bipartisan spending deal between the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, this month and a subsequent agreement to extend current spending so the two chambers have enough time to pass individual spending bills.The temporary measure will run to 1 March for some federal agencies whose approved funds were set to run out on Friday and extend the remainder of government operations to 8 March.Johnson has been under pressure from his right flank to scrap the budget agreement with Schumer, and the bill to keep the government running will need Democratic support to pass the Republican-majority House. Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal as moderates in the party have urged him not to back out.It would be the third time Congress has extended current spending as House Republicans have bitterly disagreed over budget levels and some on the right have demanded steeper cuts. The former House speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his caucus in October after striking an agreement with Democrats to extend current spending the first time. Johnson has also come under criticism as he has wrestled with how to appease his members and avoid a government shutdown in an election year.“We just needed a little more time on the calendar to do it and now that’s where we are,” Johnson said on Tuesday about the decision to extend federal funding yet again. “We’re not going to get everything we want.”Most House Republicans have so far refrained from saying that Johnson’s job is in danger. But a revolt of even a handful of Republicans could endanger his position in the narrowly divided House.The Virginia representative Bob Good, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has been pushing Johnson to reconsider the deal with Schumer.“If your opponent in negotiation knows that you fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement more than they fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement, you will lose every time,” Good said this week.Other Republicans acknowledge Johnson is in a tough spot. “The speaker was dealt with the hand he was dealt,” said the Kentucky congressman Andy Barr. “We can only lose one vote on the majority side. I think it’s going to have to be bipartisan.”The short-term measure comes amid negotiations on a separate spending package that would provide wartime dollars to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen security at the US-Mexico border. Johnson is also under pressure from the right not to accept a deal that is any weaker than a House-passed border measure that has no Democratic support.Johnson, Schumer and other congressional leaders and committee heads visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss that spending legislation. Johnson used the meeting to push for stronger border security measures while Biden and Democrats detailed Ukraine’s security needs as it continues to fight Russia.Biden has requested a $110bn package for the wartime spending and border security. More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US third-party centrists file formal complaint over election ‘conspiracy’

      by

      The centrist group No Labels has filed a formal complaint with the justice department, asking it to investigate an “alleged unlawful conspiracy” to shut down its effort to secure ballot access for the 2024 presidential election.No Labels has not yet decided whether it will run a third party against Joe Biden and the Republican nominee, widely expected to be Donald Trump, in November’s presidential election. Critics say the effort would have the unintended consequence of hurting Biden and helping Trump.Last week No Labels sent an eight-page letter to the justice department’s Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, and Nicole Argentieri, acting assistant attorney general for the criminal division, accusing its opponents of violating federal law including racketeering and a number of criminal civil rights provisions.“There is a group of activists and operatives and party officials who are participating in alleged illegal conspiracy to use intimidation, harassment and fear against representatives of No Labels, its donors and its potential candidates,” Dan Webb, a No Labels leader who has served as the US attorney in Chicago, told a press conference in Washington DC on Thursday.The letter cites examples including a recent Semafor report on an 80-minute call organised by Matt Bennett, co-founder of the thinktank Third Way. One attendee explained on the call how they would dissuade candidates from running on a No Labels unity ticket: “Through every channel we have, to their donors, their friends, the press, everyone – everyone – should send the message: if you have one fingernail clipping of a skeleton in your closet, we will find it.”In another case, Holly Page, a co-founder of No Labels, was allegedly approached by a representative of the Lincoln Project and told to walk away from the group. She was allegedly warned: “You have no idea of the forces aligned against you. You will never be able to work in Democratic politics again.”The letter also notes that Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, posted a tweet last year of a video in which he said No Labels and its leaders “need to be burned to the fucking ground politically”.At Thursday’s press conference, Pat McCrory, a national co-chair and former governor of North Carolina, responded: “Who do they think they are, Tony Soprano? I hope not.”Benjamin Chavis Jr, a No Labels national co-chair and a leader and veteran civil rights activist, said: “The alleged conspiracy to stop No Labels is a brazen voter suppression effort.“Based on the evidence that we have submitted to the United States Department of Justice, if individuals were working to frighten and harass an organisation seeking to register disenfranchised voters, the country would be outraged and those individuals would likely be prosecuted. That is what is happening today and needs to be exposed for what it is.”Joe Lieberman, a No Labels National founding chair and former senator, added: “It’s a matter of giving voice to millions of Americans who feel abandoned by the Democratic and Republican political establishments. They’re angry at the two major parties. Who can blame them?“And they’re profoundly disappointed that they’re going to be forced to choose once again between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. They want a third choice. There’s a lot of talk lately about democracy being on the ballot in 2024 and in many ways it is. But I think it’s really important to understand what we mean by the word democracy.”Demand for a third-party presidential candidate has reached record highs amid deep voter dissatisfaction with 81-year-old Biden and Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges across four cases. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in December showed six in 10 respondents were unhappy with the two-party system and wanted a third choice.Founded in 2009, No Labels is now on the ballot in 14 states and say it will decide in March whether to offer its ballot line to a unity presidential ticket. If it does, the Unity ticket presidential campaign will be responsible for securing ballot access in the final 18 states plus the District of Columbia.On Tuesday a federal judge blocked the Arizona secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, from recognizing candidates wanting to run for office under the No Labels banner aside from the party’s yet-to-be-chosen ticket for president and vice-president. Lieberman acknowledged that, should Nikki Haley drop out of the Republican primary race and express an interest in joining a No Labels ticket, she would “deserve serious consideration”.The Lincoln Project rejected No Labels’ legal complaint, saying in statement: “No Labels is a dark money group that is so consumed with its own quest for power and relevancy that it is willing to risk electing Trump, despite their own acknowledgment that he is a dangerous ideologue.“And like Trump, they want to weaponize the DoJ to get to attack their opponents for protected political speech. This is a desperate attempt to salvage their failing campaign and keep their fleeing supporters who have finally seen through their facade.” More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Climate crisis ignored by Republicans as Trump vows to ‘drill, baby, drill’

      by

      In the wake of an Iowa primary election chilled in a record blast of cold weather – which scientists say may, counterintuitively, have been worsened by global heating – Republican presidential candidates are embracing the fossil fuel industry tighter than ever, with little to say about the growing toll the climate crisis is taking upon Americans.The remaining contenders for the US presidential nomination – frontrunner Donald Trump, along with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis – all used the Iowa caucus to promise surging levels of oil and gas drilling if elected, along with the wholesale abolition of Joe Biden’s climate change policies.Trump, who comfortably won the Iowa poll, said “we are going to drill, baby, drill” once elected, in a Fox News town hall on the eve of the primary. “We have more liquid gold under our feet; energy, oil and gas than any other country in the world,” the multiply indicted former president said. “We have a lot of potential income.”Trump also called clean energy a “new scam business” and went on a lengthy digression on how energy is important in the making of donuts and hamburgers. The Trump campaign has accused Biden of trying to prevent Americans from buying non-electric cars – no such prohibition exists – and even for causing people’s dishes to be dirty by imposing new efficiency standards for dishwashers.Haley, meanwhile, has called the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate bill that provides tax credits for renewable energy production and electric car purchases, a “communist manifesto” and used the Iowa election to promise to “roll back all of Biden’s green subsidies because they’re misplaced”. DeSantis, who came second in Iowa, said that on his first day as president he would “take Biden’s Green New Deal, we tear it up and we throw it in the trash can. It is bad for this country.”Last year was, globally, the hottest ever recorded, and scientists have warned of mounting calamities as the world barrels through agreed temperature limits. Last year, the US suffered a record number of disasters costing at least $1bn in damages, with the climate crisis spurring fiercer wildfires, storms and extreme heat.Such concerns were largely unvoiced in frigid Iowa, however, apart from by young climate activists who disrupted rallies held by Trump, Haley and DeSantis. On Sunday, a 17-year-old activist from the Sunrise climate group interrupted a Trump speech to shout: “Mr Trump your campaign is funded by fossil fuel millionaires. Do you represent them, or ordinary people like me?”She was drowned out by boos from Trump supporters, and then scolded from the stage by the former president, who told the activist to “go home to mommy.” He then said the protester was “young and immature”.The continued championing of fossil fuels, and dismissal of young people’s worries about climate change, shows that the Republican candidates are “determined to drag us into a chaotic world just to make a bit more money”, said Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of Sunrise.“Not a single Republican is addressing root causes of the climate crisis. They’ve been bought out by oil and gas billionaires,” said Shiney-Ajay, who added that young climate activists were also dismayed at Biden, who has overseen a record glut of oil and gas drilling, despite Republican claims he has hindered US energy production.“The reality is that every presidential candidate, including Joe Biden, is falling so far short of the climate ambition we need, despite there being millions of lives at stake,” she said.Some Republicans have warned that the party must take climate change seriously if it is to remain viable electorally, with increasing numbers of Americans alarmed about the impacts of global heating. “If conservatives are scared to talk about the climate, then we’re not going to have a seat at the table when decisions are made,” said Buddy Carter, a Republican congressman from Georgia. “We are right on policy, so we need a seat at the table.”Still, polling has shown that the climate crisis remains of minor importance to Republican voters, compared to issues such as the economy and inflation, with just 13% of them saying it is a top priority in a Pew survey last year. None of the party’s leading presidential candidates have sought to significantly change this dynamic, to the frustration of some climate-conscious conservatives.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Republican candidates can’t lose sight of the big picture amid the primary season,” said Danielle Butcher Franz, the chief executive of the advocacy arm of the American Conservation Coalition, a conservative climate group.“Beyond the primary, the next Republican nominee must win over the hearts and minds of young Americans by speaking to the issue they care most about: climate change.”Butcher Franz said there must be “more productive rhetoric and real policy solutions from Republicans. The race for 2024 is an opportunity to do so that no candidate has fully seized.”Even if the candidates aren’t talking much about climate change, its effects are still being directly felt as the Republican primary field moves on to New Hampshire. Icily cold temperatures have gripped much of the US – the Iowa caucus was the coldest on record – due to a blast of Arctic-like weather that has triggered power blackouts, halted flights and caused schools to shut in parts of the country.The Arctic is heating up at four times the rate of the global average, and scientists think this is affecting the jet stream, a river of strong winds that steers weather across the northern hemisphere, and the polar vortex, another current of winds that usually keeps frigid Arctic air over the polar region. Both these systems risk becoming “wavier”, recent research has found, meaning Arctic-like conditions can meander far further south than normal.The current blast of cold weather is “certainly much more likely given how much the planet is warming” said Judah Cohen, a meteorologist at Verisk Atmospheric and Environmental who has studied the phenomenon. “There is scientific evidence that makes severe winter weather consistent or explainable in a warming world. One does not negate the other.”Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at Woods Hole Research Center, said that while it seems counterintuitive, the science was “becoming clear” that extreme cold spells will be a consequence of global heating.“The irony is pretty rich” that Iowa has experienced such conditions during a Republican presidential primary, Francis added. “Of course, the deniers won’t see it that way, and won’t listen to any science that says otherwise.” More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Major poll gives Trump 16-point lead in New Hampshire days before primary

      by

      Donald Trump continues to dominate the race for the Republican presidential nomination, enjoying a 16-point lead in New Hampshire days before it becomes the second state to vote, according to a major new poll.Suffolk University, the Boston Globe and NBC found the former president at 50% support in New Hampshire, to 34% for the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. Ron DeSantis, the hard-right governor of Florida, who edged out Haley for second in Iowa this week, was a distant third at 5%.In New Hampshire, undeclared voters can take part in state or presidential primaries. Many observers think such voters will have an outsized effect on the Republican primary this year, given the lack of real Democratic contest because Joe Biden is president.In the new poll, Trump dominated among registered Republicans and voters who called themselves conservatives. Haley led among moderates and independents.David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, told the Globe: “Haley’s had a tough week: underperforming in Iowa, trying to answer Trump’s attacks on her positions on social security and immigration, and the recent [Vivek] Ramaswamy endorsement of Trump helping him with younger GOP voters.”Ramaswamy, a brash biotech entrepreneur with whom Haley frequently clashed in debates, dropped out after finishing fourth in Iowa.For Haley, Paleologos said, there was still time “to at least close the gap with undecided voters or even with some Trump voters, and pull Trump below 50”.Other recent polls have shown Haley closing the gap in New Hampshire. On Wednesday, the American Research Group had Haley and Trump tied at 40% each.Not all polls are created equal. The polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight.com gives the American Research Group a C+ rating. Suffolk University gets an A-.After New Hampshire, the next state to vote will be Haley’s own. The FiveThirtyEight average for South Carolina puts Trump at 55%, Haley at 25% and DeSantis at 12%. Nationally, the site puts Trump at 63%, and Haley and DeSantis both 41 points behind.With Trump displaying such dominance despite facing unprecedented legal jeopardy – 91 criminal charges, various civil suits and attempts to keep him off the ballot for inciting an insurrection – most observers think Haley must win in New Hampshire if the primary is to present anything like a meaningful contest.Seeking to present a straight choice between her and Trump, Haley said she would not take part in New Hampshire debates planned for Thursday (to be hosted by ABC) and Sunday (CNN). As Trump has skipped all debates so far, that left DeSantis the only contender willing to appear.Both debates were scrapped. CNN said: “We will continue to pursue other opportunities as the campaign season progresses through 2024, including candidate town halls this week with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.”Haley told CNN that Trump was “who I’m running against, that’s who I want. At the end of the day, he’s the frontrunner … There is nobody else I need to debate.”But on Wednesday Trump was more than 250 miles south of New Hampshire, in court in New York City in a defamation suit brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, whose claim that Trump raped her has already been deemed “substantially true” by the judge.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionClaiming Haley was “terrified of getting smoked” on the debate stage, the DeSantis campaign posted Iowa remarks in which Haley said of Trump: “You can’t have an election and not appear on a debate stage in front of the people who are gonna be voting for you. That’s an arrogant approach to think you don’t have to do that.”Haley and DeSantis were campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday but DeSantis was reportedly preparing to switch focus to South Carolina. Once a fundraising juggernaut, the DeSantis campaign has seen donations fall in line with polling results.“It’s a pretty sober conversation in terms of how much more the campaign can raise in this environment,” an unnamed source told the Washington Post. Elsewhere, the DeSantis-supporting Super Pac Never Back Down began laying off staff.DeSantis sought to sound a warning to voters, telling CNN that should Trump be the Republican nominee, the presidential election “will revolve around all these legal issues, his trials, perhaps convictions … and about things like January 6” – the deadly attack on Congress Trump incited as he attempted to overturn his 2020 defeat.Republicans, DeSantis said, would “lose if voters are making a decision based on that. We don’t want it to be a referendum on those issues.”Many agree. Digesting the result in Iowa, JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois and a Biden surrogate, told MSNBC: “Almost half of the base of the Republican party showing up for this caucus voted against Donald Trump.“Think about that. I think that is telling. It tells you the weakness of Donald Trump and also the opportunity for Democrats because in the end … if the base doesn’t turn out for Donald Trump in the general election enthusiastically and Democrats turn out [their] base, this is all about independents – and independents don’t like Donald Trump.” More