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      Republicans tout ‘school choice’ as issue to attract parents across party divide

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      Beyond the tumult surrounding Donald Trump’s presidential bid and his threats to seek revenge against his political enemies should he win, the Republican frontrunner has seized on an issue that even some Democrats say could attract new voters in 2024.Trump is backing “school choice” programs that use taxpayer dollars to send students to private and religious schools. It is a stance with wide appeal as parents have become increasingly fed up with the state of US public education.Polls show that about 70% of parents favor greater education options. The issue resonates strongly enough with some voters that Trump’s support could make a difference in the presidential election as well as help Republicans in state and congressional races.“It’s popular among the Republican base, it’s popular among independents and even popular among the Democratic base – in particular African Americans and Hispanics,” said Jason Bedrick, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.In a banner year for the school-choice movement, 10 states, all governed by Republicans, enacted or expanded programs in 2023 that allow varying uses of public tax dollars for private education assistance, from tuition to tutoring and therapy.For reform advocates, the momentum is a natural outgrowth of the conservative “parents’ rights” movement born of the Covid-19 pandemic, when concerns about safety mushroomed into screaming matches at school board meetings over curriculum, learning loss and diversity initiatives.Many Democrats, backed by powerful teachers’ unions, continue to view such programs with suspicion, however, saying they are attempts by Republicans to weaken public education while further enriching wealthy families.But some Democrats warn that their candidates must embrace education options or risk ceding their historic edge over Republicans on the issue.“If we don’t offer an alternative to private school choice, we are going to lose more voters on this issue,” said Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, which favors school-choice options such as charter schools. “We’re going to lose close elections on this issue.”Polling by Elorza’s group in four 2024 battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina – showed Republicans held a three-point advantage on the question of which party people trust most on education.Elorza said he was concerned particularly about Black voters in states like Georgia, where a slight shift in the 2020 elections would have tilted the state toward Trump.After Republicans in Arizona enacted a sweeping state-funded voucher plan last year, enrollment in the program exceeded budget projections, prompting the Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, to argue that it clashes with other state priorities.In Florida, about 123,000 students joined a similar program after it was expanded in March with the backing of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, another presidential candidate who regularly touts it on the campaign trail and in debates.The majority of those students were already attending private schools – a statistic jumped on by critics who argued the program mainly benefits wealthy parents.According to Step Up for Students, the non-profit that administers the Florida program, of the close to 227,000 total students who now receive assistance, about 108,000 are from families who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.The makeup of the program reflects a broad cross-section of demographic groups: 36% of the students are Hispanic and 20% are Black.Shemeika Williams, a Black mother of three who works in a south Florida hospital, said she would not be able to afford the private Christian academy her 17-year-old daughter attends if the state did not cover transportation and tuition costs.Williams, 41, calls herself an independent and said the legislation will make it more likely she will back Republican candidates in the future.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I will support anyone who will benefit me and my family,” she said. “They are helping people who don’t have the resources.”School choice has long been championed by conservatives, including Betsy DeVos, who served as Trump’s education secretary.Trump supports a bill pending in the US House of Representatives that would provide tax relief to corporations and individuals who provide scholarships to allow students to attend private and religious schools.He has also called for more federal support of home schooling, the fastest-growing form of K-12 education in the nation, by providing tax incentives.A Trump campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said Trump seeks to “liberate students from failing schools and raise the quality of education across the board”.School choice, Cheung said, “is an issue that should unify voters of all backgrounds”.Public policy thinktanks such as the Brookings Institution have conducted studies that show vouchers and other choice programs do not produce gains in academic performance and education attainment, largely because the quality of schools that receive private money vary wildly.Conservative advocacy groups argue otherwise, saying there is a measurable improvement in student performance without a corresponding negative effect on public schools.Some Democratic-leaning groups say recent elections showed voters were rejecting the Republican message on education.In a memo last month, the National Education Association, a teachers’ union, noted that voters re-elected the Democratic governor in Kentucky in November in a race in which the Republican candidate’s support for a voucher plan became a top campaign issue.Education was a central issue in races across the country this year. But frequently, Republican candidates who favored private school-choice programs were portrayed by Democrats as supporting efforts to ban controversial education materials and diversity efforts, making it difficult to measure the viability of the issue on its own. More

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      ‘Grifters and sycophants’: the radicals who would fill key posts if Trump is re-elected

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      As Donald Trump and his allies start plotting another presidency, an emerging priority is to find hard-right lawyers who display total fealty to Trump, as a way to enhance his power and seek “retribution” against political foes.Stocking a future administration with more ideological lawyers loyal to Trump in key posts at the justice department, other agencies and the White House is alarming to former DoJ officials and analysts who say such plans endanger the rule of law.Trump’s former senior adviser Stephen Miller, president of the Maga-allied legal group America First Legal, is playing a key role in seeking lawyers fully in sync with Trump’s radical agenda to expand his power and curb some major agencies. His search is for those with unswerving loyalty to Trump, who could back Trump’s increasingly authoritarian talk about plans to “weaponize” the DoJ against critics, including some he has labeled as “vermin”.Miller is well known in Maga circles for his loyalty to Trump and the hard-line anti-immigration policies he helped craft for Trump’s presidency. Notably, Trump has vowed to make those policies even more draconian if he is the GOP nominee and wins again.Such an advisory role for Miller squares with Trump’s desire for a tougher brand of lawyer who will not try to obstruct him, as some top administration lawyers did in late 2020 over his false claims about election fraud.“They’re looking for lawyers who worship Trump and will do his bidding,” Ty Cobb, a former White House lawyer during the Trump years and former justice department official, said. “Trump is looking to Miller to pick people who will be more loyal to Trump than the rule of law.”Cobb added that “Trump trusts Miller greatly”, although Miller is not a lawyer.“Trump doesn’t care about the rule of law or the quality of the criminal justice system,” Cobb said. “He only cares about fealty to him.”Miller’s legal group, which raked in a hefty $44m dollars in 2022, also has a board seat with Project 2025, a sprawling effort led by the Heritage Foundation and dozens of other conservative groups to map policy plans for a second Trump term – or another GOP presidency if Trump is not the nominee.Project 2025 includes schemes to curb the justice department, the FBI and other agencies, giving Trump more power to seek revenge – as he has pledged to do in campaign speeches and Truth Social posts – against critics in both parties, which could benefit from conservative lawyers’ sign-offs, but which justice department veterans warn would undermine the legal system.“It seems that they are looking for lawyers who will do whatever Trump wants them to do, and that is the antithesis of implementing the rule of law,” Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general under George HW Bush, said.“When you consider the number of lawyers who became Trump’s severe critics after joining the first Trump administration and participating in a lot of questionable actions, selection for a new administration will have to exclude pretty much anyone who has any inclination to defend our legal system or question the president asserting absolute authority.”Ayer’s analysis is underscored by Trump’s 2020 anger at top lawyers such as the then attorney general William Barr, the then White House counsel Pat Cipollone and others, who pushed back on Trump for his false claims that he lost to Biden due to fraud.Trump has cited Barr – one of several former top lawyers and officials who later became critics – as someone he would press the justice department to launch inquiries against, according to the Washington Post.The former president, who faces 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions including 17 involving his aggressive efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, has also threatened to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.Trump has attacked the prosecutions against him as political witch-hunts, arguing they give him the right if he wins the presidency again to use the justice department and FBI as tools to attack his opponents.Trump’s retribution agenda was partly revealed on Tuesday at a Fox News town hall, when he slyly said if he was elected again he would not be a dictator “except for day one”.To help facilitate Trump’s agenda, Miller plus the former Trump aide John McEntee, who started as Trump’s personal aide and then became a key adviser in 2020, have reportedly been working with others at Project 2025 to identify tougher pro-Trump lawyers.Besides Miller’s group, numerous conservative groups have board seats on Project 2025 including the Center for Renewing America, a thinktank run by the former Trump budget director Russ Vought. The center employs Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official who pushed false information about voting fraud in 2020 as part of Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss. Clark has written a paper that Vought’s center published titled The US Justice Department Is Not Independent.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, Clark and several other former Trump lawyers are now facing major legal headaches after aiding Trump’s efforts to block Biden’s victory, which could complicate Miller’s hunt for new diehard Trump lawyers.Clark and other key conservative lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman have been charged by the Fulton county, Georgia, district attorney, Fani Willis, in a sprawling racketeering case against Trump and 18 others for seeking to thwart Biden’s Georgia victory. Other Trump legal advisers who were charged, including Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis, have struck plea deals with Willis.Some experts foresee real dangers to democracy in Miller’s search for lawyers who would back Trump’s emerging far-right agenda.“This is a search for people with situational ethics,” Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, said.“They’re trying to screen out people who have higher loyalties to the US constitution. It’s likely they’re looking for people whose higher loyalty is to Donald Trump,” he said. “They’re trying to find lawyers who believe in dictatorship. You have to wonder what kind of people in good conscience could sign up for a Trump revenge tour. This appears to be a casting call for an American political horror movie.”If Trump wins, some of the lawyers who may be candidates for key posts according to the New York Times include a few who work at either Miller’s group or have worked for Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, a close Trump and Miller ally who has faced several ethics and criminal inquiries.Miller and his legal center did not respond to a request for comment for this story.Miller’s lawyer search could benefit from his group’s contacts in Maga circles and rapid growth. When America First Legal was launched in 2021, it soon garnered $1.3m from the Maga-allied Conservative Partnership Institute, where Trump’s ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows is a senior official. Meadows and Vought have both served on the board of Miller’s group.America First Legal’s deep pockets have helped fund an array of lawsuits against the Biden administration, states targeting immigration policies and what Miller has labeled “the equity cult”. Just last month, America First Legal filed a brief opposing the limited gag order placed on Trump by a federal judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith’s four-count criminal indictment of Trump for election subversion.More broadly, the mission statement of Miller’s America First Legal reveals its ideological compatibility with Trump’s authoritarian-leaning agenda, of which hard-right lawyers would be assets in implementing should Trump get another term.“Our security, our liberty, our sovereignty, and our most fundamental rights and values are being systematically dismantled by an unholy alliance of corrupt special interests, big tech titans, the fake news media, and liberal Washington politicians,” the mission statement reads.Given Miller’s strong ties to Trump, some GOP congressional veterans are alarmed by his search for more ideological lawyers who would not question Trump’s emerging authoritarian agenda.“They’re looking for grifters and sycophants like Jeffrey Clark and Ken Paxton,” said the former House member Charlie Dent.In Dent’s eyes, these kinds of lawyers would “do whatever they’re told. This is absolutely dangerous.” More

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      Jamaal Bowman on his censure: ‘This Republican House is unserious and unproductive’ – as it happened

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      New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman has issued a statement in response to his censure by House Republicans, saying: “This Republican House is unserious and unproductive.”In his statement, Bowman said:
      I want to thank Democratic leadership and my countless other colleagues for standing up for me last night during the debate. Your words were so kind and I am always grateful to have you all by my side.
      I have expressed deep regret, apologized for my mistake, and taken accountability for my actions. I also went through the proper investigative processes with the Republican controlled House Committee on Ethics, which decided not to open a formal investigation.
      I had hoped that we could devote our time and resources to doing our jobs and addressing the issues Americans care about. Americans desperately need us to act with urgency to address the high costs of healthcare, prevent gun violence, invest in education, and so much more, but my colleagues have made it explicitly clear that they would rather relitigate already settled matters than do what we were sent here to do and legislate.
      This Republican House is unserious and unproductive, and I know that their efforts to target me are a testament to the importance of my voice in pushing back against their disingenuous rhetoric and harmful policies. I look forward to continuing to serve the people of New York’s 16th district and the country.
      It is 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The GOP-led House voted to censure New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman with 214 yeas and 191 nays. There were also five votes of present and three Democrats out of party lines against Bowman, who pleaded guilty to setting off a fire alarm in a House office building in September.
      Jamaal Bowman issued a statement in response to his censure saying: “This Republican House is unserious and unproductive.” He added: “I know that their efforts to target me are a testament to the importance of my voice in pushing back against their disingenuous rhetoric and harmful policies.”
      In response to the House’s vote to censure Jamaal Bowman, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said that Maga Republicans “have nothing to show for their narrow, fading and decreasing majority”. “Extreme Maga Republicans continue to utilize tactics such as censuring Democratic members of Congress, burying their heads in the sand with respect to unlawful or unacceptable conduct by their own members,” he added.
      Michigan’s Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib criticized House Republicans following the vote to censure Jamaal Bowman. In an impassioned address, she said: “You all [are] so desperate to distract from the fact that you all have nothing, nothing to improve the lives of the American people or end the ongoing genocide [in Gaza]. So now you’re trying to shift the focus by baselessly attacking Rep Bowman to score cheap political points.”
      Massachusetts’s Democratic representative Ayanna Pressley also condemned the censure of Jamaal Bowman. Pressley called the censure “just the latest in this chamber’s shameful history of telling Black and brown folks they don’t belong in Congress”.
      The Joe Biden administration has announced new actions to promote competition in healthcare and support lowering prescription drug costs for Americans. A statement released by the White House on Thursday revealed that the actions include the promotion of equitable access to lower-price taxpayer-funded drugs, as well as the launch of a cross-government public inquiry into corporate greed in healthcare.
      The White House has pushed back against House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. In a statement released on Thursday, Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations said: “This baseless stunt is not rooted in facts or reality but in extreme House Republicans’ shameless desire to abuse their power to smear president Biden.”
      CNN has announced that it will host two Republican presidential primary debates next month in Iowa and New Hampshire. The first debate will take place on 10 January at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The second debate is scheduled for 21 January at St Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Jahana Hayes, one of the three Democrats who voted to censure Jamaal Bowman, has released a statement explaining her vote:
      Today, I voted YEA on a resolution to censure representative Jamaal Bowman for pulling a fire alarm in the Cannon House office building on September 30th, 2023.
      While I disagree with the decision of the Republican majority to put the resolution on the House floor, and the watering down of the censure process, I believe what representative Bowman did was wrong and as members of Congress we should be held to a higher standard.
      The other two Democrats who voted to censure Bowman are New Hampshire’s Chris Pappas and Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.George Santos, the former New York Republican representative who was expelled from the House last weekend, has also weighed in on the censure of Jamaal Bowman.Tweeting on Thursday, Santos said:
      Republicans in the house just showed they don’t have the testicular fortitude to expel a convicted criminal from the house of reps.
      Bowman got a slap on the wrist from the RINO [Republicans In Name Only] establishment and they now all feel like they accomplished something!
      New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman has issued a statement in response to his censure by House Republicans, saying: “This Republican House is unserious and unproductive.”In his statement, Bowman said:
      I want to thank Democratic leadership and my countless other colleagues for standing up for me last night during the debate. Your words were so kind and I am always grateful to have you all by my side.
      I have expressed deep regret, apologized for my mistake, and taken accountability for my actions. I also went through the proper investigative processes with the Republican controlled House Committee on Ethics, which decided not to open a formal investigation.
      I had hoped that we could devote our time and resources to doing our jobs and addressing the issues Americans care about. Americans desperately need us to act with urgency to address the high costs of healthcare, prevent gun violence, invest in education, and so much more, but my colleagues have made it explicitly clear that they would rather relitigate already settled matters than do what we were sent here to do and legislate.
      This Republican House is unserious and unproductive, and I know that their efforts to target me are a testament to the importance of my voice in pushing back against their disingenuous rhetoric and harmful policies. I look forward to continuing to serve the people of New York’s 16th district and the country.
      Georgia’s state Republican lawmakers have finalized new district maps to comply with a federal judge’s order.The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports:Republican state lawmakers in Georgia have finalized new district maps to comply with a federal judge’s order, though Democrats and advocacy groups say the new maps create one majority-Black district at the expense of another diverse district.US district judge Steve Jones ordered Georgia lawmakers to redo their redistricted maps in October after a lawsuit claimed they violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Black people.He gave lawmakers until 8 December to redraw maps to create “an additional majority-Black district” in west metro Atlanta. He warned “the state cannot remedy the section 2 violations found herein by eliminating minority opportunity districts elsewhere in the plans”.Georgia lawmakers did not appear to heed that instruction. They created the additional majority-Black district in west Atlanta, but dismantled another district where Black voters had been joining with other racial minorities to elect the candidate of their choosing. The dismantled district is now represented by Lucy McBath, a Democrat. The plan ensures that Republicans are able to maintain a 9-5 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.Read the full story here:The Joe Biden administration has announced new actions to promote competition in healthcare and support lowering prescription drug costs for Americans.A statement released by the White House on Thursday revealed that the actions include the promotion of equitable access to lower-price taxpayer-funded drugs, as well as the launch of a cross-government public inquiry into corporate greed in healthcare.Other actions include increasing ownership transparency, as well as Medicare Advantage transparency.In a tweet on Thursday, Biden said:
      “My administration is proposing that if a drug made using taxpayer funds is not reasonably available to Americans, the government reserves the right to “march in” and license that drug to another manufacturer who could sell it for less.”
      The White House has pushed back against House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, the “baseless stunt is not rooted in facts or reality”.In a statement released on Thursday, Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations said:
      This baseless stunt is not rooted in facts or reality but in extreme House Republicans’ shameless desire to abuse their power to smear President Biden. Fox News already reported that the only reason they’re having this vote is to ‘put a GOP win on the table for the base’, which is sad, pathetic, and a waste of everyone’s time.”
      Instead of doing anything to actually help people before leaving Washington for a month, these extreme House Republicans are hoping to distract from their own failed ability to govern by trying to score cheap political points in an effort to mollify Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is in open war with her own party’s Speaker. The American people are yet again going to see a clear contrast in priorities: President Biden who is focused on solving the challenges facing America and the world, and extreme House Republicans who only focus on stupid stunts to get attention for themselves.
      CNN has announced that it will host two Republican presidential primary debates next month in Iowa and New Hampshire.The first debate will take place on 10 January at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The second debate is scheduled for 21 January at St Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has criticized Republicans over their decision to block supplemental funding for Ukraine and Israel, saying that they need to “get serious and stand up for democracy”.In a tweet following the Senate’s vote on Wednesday to block the funding, Schumer wrote:
      The GOP blocked funding for Ukraine, Israel, humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, the Indo-Pacific
      We offered a golden opportunity for a border amendment vote of their choosing if it can get 60 votes – they rejected it
      Republicans need to get serious and stand up for democracy
      Massachusetts’s Democratic representative Ayanna Pressley has condemned the censure of New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman.Following the vote, Pressley addressed the House and called the censure “just the latest in this chamber’s shameful history of telling Black and brown folks they don’t belong in Congress”.She added:
      Congressman Bowman has taken accountability for his mistake and even Republicans on the [House] ethics committee agree that this is a waste of time. We’ve got 99 problems but a functional government of a Republican majority is not one of them.
      Republicans are disconnected, dysfunctional, discriminating and a disappointment to the American people.
      New Hampshire’s Democratic representative Chris Pappas, who voted to censure New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman, told Axios:
      I voted to table this resolution because we have far more pressing issues to tackle for the country.
      But at the end of the day, representative Bowman broke the law when he pulled the fire alarm during House proceedings and has since pled guilty. The resolution was a straightforward condemnation of his actions, and I voted yes.
      Florida’s Democratic representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost has also hit back at Republicans following their vote to censure New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman, calling it “pathetic”.In an tweet on Thursday, Frost wrote:
      House Republicans just spent time and taxpayer money to censure one of the people’s champions, Jamaal Bowman.
      They did this while they have members who aided and abetted the January 6th insurrection.
      Pathetic.
      In response to the House’s vote to censure New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said that Maga Republicans “have nothing to show for their narrow, fading and decreasing majority”.He said:
      Extreme Maga Republicans continue to utilize tactics such as censuring Democratic members of Congress, burying their heads in the sand with respect to unlawful or unacceptable conduct by their own members including but not limited to Marjorie Taylor Greene, and engaging in efforts to irresponsibly and illegitimately target president Joe Biden and his family.
      Why are extreme Maga Republicans wasting so much time on these efforts to target Democratic members of Congress, target president Biden?… It’s because the extreme Maga Republicans have nothing to show for their narrow, fading and decreasing majority.
      Rashida Tlaib has criticized House Republicans following the vote to censure New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman.In an impassioned address, she said:
      “So desperate. You all [are] so desperate to distract from the fact that you all have nothing, nothing to improve the lives of the American people or end the ongoing genocide [in Gaza]. So now you’re trying to shift the focus by baselessly attacking Rep. Bowman to score cheap political points, comparing him to the white supremacists on January 6th, who were smashing windows in the Capitol, you all, and screaming ‘Hang Mike Pence!’
      Your inability to govern is so obvious to the American people. You all can’t even find enough Republicans to vote to pass a budget or keep a speaker. This is yet another attempt to silence a person of color in this chamber.”
      Last month, the Republican-majority House voted to censure Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, over her condemnation of Israel’s war in Gaza which has killed over 21,700 Palestinians in the last two months. More

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      Democrats decry House censure vote as ‘attempt to silence’ Jamaal Bowman

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      Democrats accused Republicans of wasting time and pursuing “another attempt to silence a person of colour”, after the New York progressive Jamaal Bowman was formally censured for pulling a fire alarm in a congressional office building.“This censure of Representative Bowman is yet another attempt to silence a person of colour in this chamber,” the Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib said.“They are obsessed with attacking Black and brown members of Congress, but do nothing to help our families thrive. They need to get a grip.”The resolution introduced by the Michigan Republican Lisa McClain was adopted on Thursday by a vote of 214-191 with five voting present. Three Democrats – Jahana Hayes, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Chris Pappas – voted in favour.Bowman was seen on surveillance video pulling the alarm on 30 September, as a vote loomed during efforts to avoid a government shutdown. He said he did so accidentally. Critics claimed he was trying to delay the vote.Bowman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour and agreed to pay a $1,000 fine, the maximum applicable under Washington DC law.A prominent progressive, Bowman has long presented a target for rightwing anger. Last week, the New York Republican, fabulist and accused fraudster George Santos introduced a motion to expel Bowman, a parting shot as Santos became only the sixth representative ever expelled.The resolution to censure Bowman was introduced on Wednesday. McClain said: “While the House was working tirelessly to avert a government shutdown, Representative Bowman was working nefariously to prevent a vote.“It is reprehensible that a member of Congress would go to such lengths to prevent House Republicans from bringing forth a vote to keep the government operating and Americans receiving their paychecks. Especially from a former schoolteacher, who without a doubt understands the function and severity of pulling a fire alarm.”In response, Bowman said: “I immediately took responsibility and accountability for my actions and pled guilty … Republicans are trying to rehash an already litigated matter.”On Thursday, Pappas, the New Hampshire Democrat who voted for censure, said Bowman “broke the law … and has since ple[aded] guilty. The resolution was a straightforward condemnation of his actions.”But his was a rare Democratic voice in favour.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTlaib, censured herself last month for condemning Israel’s actions in its war with Hamas, said Republicans were “desperate to distract from the fact that [they have done] nothing … to improve the lives of the American people or end the ongoing genocide [in Gaza].“So now you’re trying to shift the focus by baselessly attacking Representative Bowman to score cheap political points, comparing him to the white supremacists on January 6 who were smashing windows in the Capitol … and screaming ‘Hang Mike Pence!’“Your inability to govern is so obvious to the American people. You all can’t even find enough Republicans to vote to pass a budget or keep a speaker. This is yet another attempt to silence a person of colour in this chamber.”Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic minority leader, said Republicans were “burying their heads in the sand with respect to unlawful or unacceptable conduct by their own members … and engaging in efforts to irresponsibly and illegitimately target President Joe Biden and his family”.In a statement, Bowman thanked Democratic colleagues and noted that the Republican-controlled ethics committee did not investigate his action.“I had hoped that we could devote our time and resources to doing our jobs and addressing the issues Americans care about,” he said, calling Republican “efforts to target me … a testament to the importance of my voice”. More

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      Biden infuriated by Ukraine impasse but Republicans refuse to bend over border

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      It is an astonishing bit of horse-trading over Ukraine that has left Democrats infuriated, even baffled. After Senate Republicans blocked a supplemental funding package on Wednesday to aid the country in its fight against the Russian invasion, demanding tough new southern border controls in exchange, the chamber’s leading Democrat took to the floor.Calling it “a sad night in the history of the Senate”, Chuck Schumer bemoaned the vote as a disappointing reflection on the country, a step away from letting Vladimir Putin “walk right through Ukraine and right through Europe”.“Republicans just blocked a very much needed proposal to send funding for Ukraine, funding for Israel, humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza, and funding for the Indo-Pacific,” Schumer said.“If there is a word for what we most need now, it is to be serious.”The 49-51 vote reflected a growing trend in Congress that has become a source of distress for the White House. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, aiding Kyiv was a bipartisan project. In May of that year, a $40bn Ukraine aid package sailed through the House with a vote of 368-57, and the Senate with a vote of 86 -11.But as the war has stretched on, more Republican lawmakers have turned against aid to Ukraine, embracing Donald Trump’s “America first” approach to foreign policy. When the House voted in September on a bill to provide $300m to train and equip Ukrainian fighters, a majority of Republicans – 117 members – opposed it.Republicans also now have more power in Congress than they did when the war in Ukraine began. Although Democrats previously controlled both chambers, Republicans now hold a narrow majority in the House. That new strength has emboldened them to insist that any supplemental funding for Ukraine also include robust border security measures, many of which are unpalatable to Democrats.The standoff comes at a dangerous point in Ukraine’s fight against Russia. The White House has warned that the US is “out of money and nearly out of time” to assist Ukraine, suggesting the Russian military will soon gain ground in the war without another infusion of funding for Kyiv.Democrats and Republicans have been negotiating over a potential compromise on border measures to get the aid package across the finish line, but those talks stalled out over the weekend. On Wednesday Joe Biden accused Republicans of negotiating in bad faith.“Republicans think they can get everything they want without any bipartisan compromise. That’s not the answer,” Biden said. “And now they’re willing to literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield and damage our national security in the process.”Despite the stark rhetoric, Republicans have presented a united front in their demands for more severe changes to immigration policy. Even Republican lawmakers who remain strongly supportive of additional Ukraine aid, such as the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, have embraced this stance. On Wednesday, McConnell joined his 48 Republican colleagues in opposing the motion to advance the aid package, and he rejected Schumer’s exhortation to “get serious” about threats to democracy.“It is profoundly unserious to pretend that national security priorities don’t include securing our nation’s borders, to warn about borders in jeopardy and not start with the one that’s being overrun here at home,” McConnell said on Thursday. “I’m not in need of any lectures about on the gravity of the challenges facing national security today.”The gridlock has angered and at times perplexed Democrats. In their minds, sending financial aid to US allies such as Ukraine benefits the entire country and thus should be an area of common ground between the two parties. But the recent negotiations appear to have reframed Ukraine aid as a Democratic priority that can only be achieved through concessions to Republicans, specifically on the issue of immigration. That shifting dynamic has not escaped the notice of some frustrated Democrats on Capitol Hill.“I think I’m going to demand that we pass an assault weapons ban or I won’t fund Ukraine,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, told HuffPost. “I guess that’s how things get done around here.”Despite that frustration, Biden appeared open to continuing negotiations on Wednesday, saying he was willing to make “significant compromises on the border” to advance the aid package. McConnell similarly described Wednesday’s failed vote as “a new opportunity to make real progress on legislation that addresses urgent national security priorities”.Schumer also appeared prepared to reopen negotiations on Wednesday, even as he implored Republicans to “come up with something serious instead of the extreme policies they’ve presented thus far”.“This is a serious moment that will have lasting consequences for the 21st century. If Ukraine falls, Putin will not stop there. He will be emboldened,” Schumer said.“Western democracy will begin to enter an age of decline if we aren’t willing to defend it. This Senate – this Republican party – must get serious.” More

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      The Republican debate was another grim exercise in futility and attention-seeking | Lloyd Green

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      On Wednesday night, the Republican party staged its fourth primary debate, the last one before next month’s Iowa caucus.Once again, Donald Trump won in absentia. His repeated absences from these dust-ups have burnished his image among the party faithful. He holds an insurmountable and growing lead. Indictments and headlines have only boosted his popularity. He laps the field, running 40 points ahead of Ron DeSantis nationally. Other than Chris Christie, no one on the stage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, did anything to alter these realities.Vivek Ramaswamy was his usual loud and attention-seeking self. He loves the sound of his own voice. Yet his boomlet is dead. At this juncture, there is no primary that he can conceivably win. He is killing time, hoping for a spot in a second Trump administration. With the 45th president polling ahead of Joe Biden, it is a reasonable strategy.Ramaswamy tried to take a hatchet to Christie and Nikki Haley, only to bloody himself. His attacks on Haley smacked of sexism. He left the night with little doubt that he really is a bully and a fan of conspiracy theories.Next up, DeSantis, Florida’s hapless governor. Like a chicken with its head lopped off, he staggers aimlessly. His campaign and affiliated political action committee burn through cash with nothing to show for their efforts. On a personal level, he has failed to distinguish himself from Trump other than by claiming greater mental acuity and youthfulness.Months ago, he had a chance to land a meaningful blow on Trump. Instead, he pulled his punches and whiffed. Doubling down as a social warrior has left him in a perpetual state of retrograde. Picking a fight with Disney turned out to be stupid. The company is Florida’s largest employer; everyone loves Mickey Mouse.DeSantis, a Harvard law school graduate with membership in St Elmo, a Yale secret society, has repeatedly demonstrated himself to be tone-deaf, unrelatable and unlikable, the worst sin for any politician.He couldn’t even land a lasting blow on Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor. When the two clashed last week on Fox, DeSantis was forced to defend his own record on abortion, crime and Covid, to the delectation of Trump. Florida really is a place where people go to die.For DeSantis, the Iowa caucus is a must-win contest. If he can’t win there, he can’t win anywhere. According to the latest polls, he trails Trump in Iowa by more than 20 points. The endorsement he received from Bob Vander Plaats, a leading Iowa evangelical, appears to be little more than a headline-grabbing nothing-burger. There is a reason why Haley is poised to overtake him among the Republican also-rans.As for New Hampshire, DeSantis’s brand of social conservatism has found few takers. This is the “Live Free or Die” state, in case he forgot. Regardless, DeSantis gave Trump a pass on pledging to be a dictator, and refused to say whether or not he believed Trump to be unfit to hold office.Turning to Nikki Haley: the fact that she is the darling of the deep-pocketed set should not be confused with popularity among actual rank-and-file voters. Her appeal to the higher-end of the Republican electorate will not be enough to get her first to the finish line; not even close.A November poll out of South Carolina, where Haley served as governor, shows Trump beating her by more than 30 points. In other words, those who know her best don’t appear to like her all that much.Chris Christie, however, may have delivered the evening’s most memorable performance. He labeled Trump a dictator, called him unfit for office, and referred to him as Voldemort – that is, he who must not be named.“I understand why these three are timid to say anything about him,” Christie jibed. “He just said this past week he wants to use [the Department of Justice] to go after his enemies. He is unfit to be president.” Christie also trashed Ramaswamy as an “obnoxious blowhard” and questioned his credentials as a Republican.Yet Christie, too, faces the realities of the primary map. He runs poorly everywhere except New Hampshire. How he can get beyond that small piece of real estate is unclear. With Haley surging, he struggles to retain relevance.Disturbingly, Tom Fitton, the leader of the well-funded, rightwing Judicial Watch, was one of the night’s questioners. He is a Trump lackey who helped script Trump’s defiance. In a 31 October 2020 email, Fitton urged Trump to declare himself the election winner, regardless of the actual outcome.He called for Trump to demand that only votes “counted by the election day deadline” be tallied. Later, Fitton argued that White House records were Trump’s to keep. These days, the 45th president stands under federal indictment in Washington DC for January 6 and in Florida for allegedly absconding with government records.The clock clicks down. The primaries and Trump’s trial dates creep up. The open question is whether Trump prevails in both sets of forums.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      in Elections

      Georgia prosecutors predict jail sentences in Trump 2020 election case

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      Fulton county prosecutors have signaled they want prison sentences in the Georgia criminal case against Donald Trump and his top allies for allegedly violating the racketeering statute as part of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to exchanges in private emails.“We have a long road ahead,” the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, wrote in one email. “Long after these folks are in jail, we will still be practicing law.”The previously unreported emails, between Willis and defense lawyers, open a window on to the endgame envisioned by prosecutors on her team – which could inform legal strategies ahead of a potential trial next year, such as approaches toward plea deal negotiations.Prosecutors are not presently expected to offer plea agreements to Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his former election lawyer Rudy Giuliani, but left open the possibility of talks with other co-defendants, the Guardian previously reported.The emails also underscore the increasing breakdown in trust with a growing number of defense lawyers who have regarded prosecutors’ tactics – including Willis assuming she will win – as inappropriately aggressive and presumptuous given the case remains months from a potential verdict.The district attorney raised the prospect of defendants in prison in a 29 November exchange, which started with Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow complaining about an incomplete Giuliani transcript the defense received in discovery, according to two people with direct knowledge of the emails.Willis responded that the defense lawyers would receive the full transcript in the next production of discovery and, in increasingly tense exchanges, took offense that she was not being referred to by her formal title as well as the implicit accusation that they were withholding evidence.“No one placed me here and I have earned this title,” Willis said, apparently taking umbrage that she was not referred to specifically as the district attorney, but as a prosecutor. “I’ve never practiced law by hiding the ball, I’ve enjoyed beating folks by making sure they have the entire file.”The email took a turn when Willis added that they should remain professional because their legal careers would continue even after the election case co-defendants went to jail. Willis signed off: “yours in service”.Trump and 18 co-defendants in August originally pleaded not guilty to charges that they violated Georgia’s state racketeering statute as they sought to overturn the 2020 election. In the following weeks, four of the 18 negotiated plea deals and extricated themselves from the case.The remark about jail caused consternation with some of the defense lawyers, who have been aghast that the district attorney’s office would throw around what they took as a prison threat in a cavalier manner, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA spokesperson for Willis declined to comment.Relations between prosecutors and defense lawyers have been particularly strained in recent weeks, people close to the case have said, mainly since several media outlets published videotaped “proffer” statements that the former Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro gave as part of plea deals.The district attorney’s office had privately believed Trump’s team leaked the videos, only to be surprised when the lawyer for the former Coffee county elections official Misty Hampton acknowledged at a court hearing that he had disseminated videos to a certain news outlet.The leak of the proffer statements prompted prosecutors to seek an emergency protective order on discovery materials and to refuse to provide copies of any future proffer videos to defense lawyers, who would instead have to view them in the district attorney’s offices in Atlanta.In the separate federal 2020 election subversion case brought against Trump in Washington, the discovery materials were subject to a protective order almost as soon as Trump was charged. But special counsel prosecutors have not forced Trump’s lawyers to only view the discovery in person.The Fulton county superior judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding in the case, ultimately agreed to impose a protective order governing the release of discovery materials marked as “sensitive”, though the threat to only have proffer videos available in the district attorney’s offices was dropped. More

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      in US Politics

      Here’s what Trump 2.0 will bring: ignorance and vengeance in the US, chaos for world order | Gordon Brown

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      This year has been dominated by the Russia-Ukraine war, recession, the China-US standoff, and the Hamas terrorist attack and Gaza war. Yet as earth-shattering as these conflicts and tragedies are, the next two years could aggravate them and surpass them all if the threat of a second Trump presidency comes to pass. At a moment that urgently needs a firefighter to stamp out the embers of conflict, Americans and the rest of the world may find an arsonist in the White House. It is not just the survival of American democracy that will be on the ballot in 2024 but stability and progress everywhere.A second Trump administration, in which he has brazenly vowed to be a dictator on day one, would be a disaster. Domestically, Trump’s “new independence” is no longer just an economic agenda. Gone is the 2016 talk of massive deregulation, privatisation of public services and big tax cuts. Instead, his policies are based on his personal prejudices and his desire for vengeance: deporting homeless people from urban areas, imposing death sentences on drug traffickers, legitimising “shoot and kill” even for shoplifters, repatriating the children of illegal immigrants whom he accuses of “poisoning the blood of our country”, purging free-thinking academics in educational institutions, and – what he says he will make his first act – clearing out what he calls the “vermin” and “traitors”, namely those government officials who would refuse to be yes men for his grotesque policies.When Trump engages in the conspiracy-theory politics of destroying “the deep state”, what he really means is that he will rule by presidential decree and where possible undermine independent federal institutions, thus destroying the checks and balances that have for two and a half centuries been at the heart of the American constitution. No longer would we be able to say that the rule of law and democracy prevails in America, that voting is free of interference or intimidation, or that power is properly accountable. He would kill for good any ideal of the “city on the hill”, and the liberal rules-based order with the US as the model for the world to emulate.Trump has already given us a preview of what awaits in this term, or what he calls his “final battle” for an “independent America”. What is even more frightening is that while in 2016 he was wholly unprepared for the presidency, this time around, extreme-right thinktanks such as the Heritage Foundation are giving him detailed policy playbooks, like one titled Project 2025, which recommends radically reshaping government departments and consolidating power in the executive branch, that he could implement from day one.His international agenda would dramatically exacerbate the instability of an already unstable world. Trump has also boasted that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, no doubt by conceding to Vladimir Putin, and so even in the run-up to the presidential election, there is no incentive for Russia to come to the negotiating table.Trump’s vision of “America First and Only” is a dark summons to an insular and isolationist America, and an “us versus them” world of zero-sum politics. He conceives of a world where nations compete – like he did as a property developer – to destroy competitors, and thus the US can only win when others lose.And because he has threatened to renege on the US commitment to Nato to treat an attack on one country as an attack on all – he wants Europe to pay the US for American weapons supplied to Ukraine – the European Council is already discussing, with its document Strategic Compass, what President Macron calls “strategic autonomy” from the US.And four more years of the man who thinks climate change is a hoax and wishes to drill and burn oil and gas anywhere would threaten the point of no return for the climate crisis.Trump’s neo-mercantilist economic agenda would have even wider ramifications for America’s allies and adversaries alike. Within days of his coming to power, he would impose a 10% tariff to place “a ring around the collar” of the US economy. While trade was once seen as the route to higher living standards, Trump favours the opposite: trade restrictions as the key to protecting living standards. The automatic overnight tripling of import duties would be a tax on US consumers, but it would at the same time destroy trading relations with every single American ally while creating a global economic downturn in the process. Indeed, the IMF estimates that a full fracturing of the global economy would wipe out 7% of global GDP. This return to mercantilism would benefit no one.Overall, he would accelerate the shift to a more protectionist and multipolar world, and with his plan to withdraw from the World Bank, the IMF and the World Health Organization, attempts at international cooperation would be blown apart. The US, which tended to act multilaterally in a unipolar era, would act unilaterally in a multipolar era.Trump has been upping the rhetoric of vengeance for some time. As he declared at a recent rally: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” But his policies are based not just on vengeance, but on ignorance.It is crucial to understand that Trump cannot be defeated by narrowing the difference between him and his Democratic opponents. It would be a mistake for them to dilute or abandon progressive policies and indulge in protectionism, mercantilism and xenophobia. Recent elections in Europe, where the far right has made considerable gains, show that if moderates allow the election agenda to be captured by the far right’s anti-immigrant, anti-environmental and anti-internationalist rhetoric, the far right wins.The evidence is that those Americans most likely to switch to Trump are those who now see the US not as a land of opportunity but as an “us versus them” society – in which you can only succeed at others’ expense. There is a pessimism about the country’s future because, for many years, a low-growth America has not been delivering for working people. They want a fairer society, and meeting Trump halfway on his anti-globalisation agenda won’t defeat him, but an open dialogue with the American people that elevates the case for fairness, justice, and equality will.
      Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010 More