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      Network of Lies review: Brian Stelter on Fox News, Trump and Dominion

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      This week, Rupert Murdoch formally stepped down as the chairman of News Corp. At the annual shareholder’s meeting, the 92-year-old media mogul inveighed against the “suppression of debate by an intolerant elite who regard differing opinions as anathema”. He also passed the baton to Lachlan Murdoch, his 52-year-old son, “a believer in the social purpose of journalism”.Murdoch also told those assembled that “humanity has a high destiny”. Unmentioned: how Fox News’s coverage of the 2020 election led to its shelling out of hundreds of millions to settle a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, or how other suits continue.Five days after the election, insisting Donald Trump could not have lost to Joe Biden – as he clearly did – Maria Bartiromo defied management to become “the first Fox host to utter the name ‘Dominion’”, writes Brian Stelter, a veteran Fox-watcher and former CNN host. “All gassed up on rage and righteousness, [Bartiromo] heaped shame onto the network and spurred a $787.5m settlement payment.”Bartiromo popularized the Trump aide Sidney Powell and her special brand of insanity. Their enthusiasm became fatally contagious. January 6 and the insurrection followed. Two and a half years later, Bartiromo is still on the air. Powell is a professional defendant. Last month, she pleaded guilty in Fulton county, Georgia, to six counts of misdemeanor election interference and agreed to six years of probation. She still faces potential civil liability and legal sanction.“What Bartiromo began on a Sunday morning in November … destroyed America’s sense of a shared reality about the 2020 election,” Stelter laments. “The consequences will be felt for years to come.”In the political sphere, Trump shrugs off 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats to dominate the Republican primary, focusing on retribution and weaponizing the justice department and FBI should he return to power.With less than a year before the 2024 election, Stelter once again focuses on the Murdochs’ flagship operation. Like his previous book from 2020, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, Network of Lies offers a readable and engrossing deep dive into the rightwing juggernaut paid for by the Murdochs and built by the late, disgraced Roger Ailes.Now a podcast host and consulting producer to The Morning Show, an Apple TV drama, Stelter also has journalistic chops earned at the New York Times. He wades through court filings and paperwork from the Dominion litigation, talks to sources close to Fox and the Murdochs, and offers insight into the firing of Tucker Carlson, the dominant, far-right prime-time host who was suddenly ditched in April. Stelter’s book is subtitled The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy. He overstates, but not by much.Unlike Bartiromo, Carlson didn’t drink the Kool-Aid. He was sly and calculated, not crazy.“Carlson privately thought Powell’s ‘software shit’ was ‘absurd’,” Stelter writes about the idea that voting machines were outlandishly rigged. “He worriedly speculated that ‘half our viewers have seen the Maria clip’, and he wanted to push back on it.” But Carlson didn’t push back hard enough. He went with the flow.He now peddles his wares on what used to be Twitter, broadcasts from a basement, and hangs out with Trump at UFC. For a guy once known for wearing bow ties, it’s a transformation. Then again, Carlson also prided himself on his knowledge of how white guys ought to fight, an admission in a text message, revealed by the Dominion suit, that earned the ire of the Fox board and the Murdochs.In Stelter’s telling, Fox “A-listers” received a heads-up on what discovery in the Dominion case would reveal.“‘They’re going to call us hypocrites,’ an exec warned.” Plaintiffs would juxtapose Fox’s public message against its internal doubts about voter fraud claims. “It was likened to ‘a seven-layer cake of shit’,” Stelter writes.The miscalculation by Fox’s legal team is now legend. It led Murdoch to believe Dominion would cost him $50m. But even Murdoch came close to concluding it was “unarguable that high-profile Fox voices” fed the “big lie”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStelter captures the Murdochs’ struggle to make money, keep their audience happy and avoid liability. It is a near-impossible task. The beast must be fed. There is always someone or something out there waiting to cater to Trump’s base if Fox won’t. After the 2020 election, Trump forced Fox to compete with One America News and Newsmax for his attention and his followers’ devotion.The Murdochs’ pivot toward Ron DeSantis as their Republican candidate of choice won’t be forgotten soon, at least not by voters during the GOP primary. Despite being assiduously courted by Fox to appear at the first debate, which it sponsored, Trump smirkingly and wisely declined to show. Fox still covers Trump’s events – until he plugs Carlson, the defenestrated star.Judging by the polls, none of this has hurt Trump’s hopes. He laps the pack while DeSantis stagnates, Nikki Haley threatening to take second place. At the same time, some polling shows Trump ahead of Joe Biden or competitive in battleground states and leading in the electoral college. For now, Fox needs him more than he needs Fox.In that spirit of “social purpose” reporting lauded by his dad, Lachlan Murdoch will be left to navigate a defamation action brought by Smartmatic, another voting machine company, and, among other cases, a suit filed by Ray Epps, an ex-marine who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges for his role in the January 6 insurrection but became the focus of conspiracy theorists. Sating the appetites of the 45th president and his rightwing base never comes cheap.In the Smartmatic litigation, Fox tried to subpoena George Soros, the bete noire of the right. It lost, but conspiracy theories die hard. US democracy remains fragile, the national divide seemingly unbridgeable. Expect little to change at Fox. The show must go on.
      Network of Lies is published in the US by Simon & Schuster More

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      Mike Johnson to publicly release 44,000 hours of sensitive January 6 footage

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      House speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he plans to publicly release thousands of hours of footage from the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, making good on a promise he made to far-right members of his party when he was campaigning for his current job.“This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials,” Johnson said in a statement.The newly elected speaker said the first tranche of security footage, around 90 hours, will be released on a public committee website Friday, with the rest of the 44,000 hours expected to be posted over the next several months. In the meantime, a public viewing room will be set up in the Capitol.For the last several months, the GOP-led House Administration Committee has made the video available by appointment only to members of the media, criminal defendants and a limited number of other people. The video shows some of the fighting up close and gives a bird’s-eye view of the Capitol complex – one that visitors rarely see – as hundreds of president Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building, violently attacking police officers and breaking in through windows and doors.By expanding this access to the general public, Johnson is fulfilling one of the pledges he made last month to the most conservative members of his party, including the representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who orchestrated the ouster of the former speaker, Kevin McCarthy. Both Gaetz and Trump – who is currently running for re-election as he faces federal charges for his role in the January 6 attack – applauded Johnson’s decision.In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump congratulated the speaker “for having the courage and fortitude” to release the footage.The move by Johnson will grant the general public a stunning level of access to sensitive and explicit January 6 security footage, which many critics have warned could endanger the safety of staff and Congressmembers in the Capitol complex if it gets into the wrong hands. The hours of footage detail not only the shocking assault rioters made on US Capitol police as they breached the building but also how the rioters accessed the building and the routes lawmakers used to flee to safety.A request for comment from Capitol police was declined.Johnson said Friday that the committee is processing the footage to blur the faces of individuals “to avoid any persons from being targeted for retaliation of any kind”. He added that an estimated 5% of the footage will not be publicly released as it “may involve sensitive security information related to the building architecture”.Gripping images and video from the Capitol attack by Trump supporters have been widely circulated by documentarians, news organizations and even the rioters themselves. But until this year, officials held back much of the surveillance video from hundreds of security cameras stationed in and around the Capitol.In February, McCarthy gave then Fox News host Tucker Carlson exclusive access to the footage, a move that Democrats swiftly condemned as a “grave” breach of security with potentially far-reaching consequences.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe conservative commentator aired a first installment to millions of viewers on his prime-time show in the spring, working to bend perceptions of the violent, grueling siege that played out for the world to see into a narrative favorable to Trump.It is all part of a larger effort by Republicans to redefine the narrative around the deadly insurrection after the findings of the House January 6 committee last year. The select committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans spent months painstakingly documenting, with testimony and video evidence, how Trump rallied his supporters to head to the Capitol and “fight like hell” as Congress was certifying his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.The committee’s final report released last December concluded that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.The panel passed their investigation to the justice department, recommending that federal prosecutors investigate the former president on four crimes, including aiding an insurrection. In August, Trump was indicted on four felony counts for his role in the attack as the justice department accused him of assaulting the “bedrock function” of democracy. More

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      Thirteen Republicans support resolution to expel George Santos from Congress – as it happened

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      It is 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has pledged that he is going to make “all the January 6th tapes available to all Americans.” “Today, I am keeping my promise to the American people and making all the January 6th tapes available to ALL Americans,” he tweeted on Friday.
      Rosalynn Carter, the 96-year-old former first lady, is in hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia. A statement released by her office on Friday afternoon said: “She and President Carter are spending time with each other and their family. The Carter family continues to ask for privacy and remains grateful for the outpouring of love and support.”
      The Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has criticized San Francisco over its street cleanup for the Apec summit and Joe Biden’s bilateral meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping earlier this week. “Xi Jinping’s coming to town, and what do they do? They get the poop off the sidewalk, they … clear the homeless, they stop the drugs, they stop the crime,” said DeSantis.
      Thirteen Republicans have supported a resolution to expel George Santos from the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, Santos, who has been charged with fraud, said: “The one thing I never knew was that the process in Congress was dirty. I will continue to fight for what I believe in and I will never back down.”
      Democrats in New Hampshire still see Joe Biden as the party’s best shot to hold the White House, according to a new poll from CNN. Although Biden’s name will not appear on the state’s primary ballots, 65% of New Hampshire Democrats said they will write in Biden’s name, while 10% said they will vote for Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips.
      The White House has condemned a tweet from Elon Musk that endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish communities “push hatred against whites”. “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” the White House said.
      Following the suspension of Donald Trump’s gag order in his ongoing New York fraud trial, Trump’s team resumed its attacks against the trial’s presiding judge Arthur Engoron’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield. Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, went after Greenfield on X, denouncing her as a “Democrat operative and hack”.
      Donald Trump himself has also gone after Allison Greenfield following the gag order’s suspension. In a post on Truth Social, Trump denounced Greenfield as “politically biased and out of control”.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.House speaker Mike Johnson has pledged that he is going to make “all the January 6th tapes available to all Americans”.
      “Today, I am keeping my promise to the American people and making all the January 6th tapes available to ALL Americans,” he tweeted on Friday.
      Rosalynn Carter, the 96-year-old former first lady, is in hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia. A statement released by her office on Friday afternoon said:
      “Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has entered hospice care at home. She and President Carter are spending time with each other and their family. The Carter family continues to ask for privacy and remains grateful for the outpouring of love and support.”
      Several pro-ceasefire demonstrators were arrested at Fox News’s headquarters in New York City as Gaza protests spread.The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:More protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza were under way in the US on Friday morning, with police breaking up crowds and arresting demonstrators in various locations.Such demonstrations come as recent polling shows that US public support for Israel is dropping, while the Hamas authorities in Gaza reported on Friday that more than 12,000 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians and mostly women and children, had now been killed since Israel declared war on Hamas in October.New York police on Friday arrested pro-Palestine supporters who occupied the headquarters of News Corp, the media company that owns the Fox News channel and the Wall Street Journal and New York Post newspapers, according to clips posted on social media.Dozens of demonstrators gathered in the News Corp lobby, chanting, “Shame” and “Fox News … you can’t hide. Your lies cover up genocide.”For the further details, click here:Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has criticized San Francisco over its street cleanup for the Apec summit and Joe Biden’s bilateral meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping earlier this week.
      “I look to see what’s going on in San Francisco the last couple of days. The city is in squalor, there’s poop on the streets, there’s people using drugs, people getting mugged …
      But then Xi Jinping’s coming to town, and what do they do? They get the poop off the sidewalk, they … clear the homeless, they stop the drugs, they stop the crime,” said DeSantis.
      Joe Biden has issued high praise towards Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador during their meeting amid Apec in San Francisco.Speaking to Obrador in English, Biden said:
      “We had dinner last night. I told you, you sat next to my wife. You were so captivating, I was worried she liked you more than she likes me now.”
      George Santos has announced a press conference on 30 November at 8am.In a tweet on Friday, Santos, who has been charged with fraud and is facing expulsion by several of his Republican colleagues, wrote:
      My year from Hell. Running for office was never a dream or goal, but when the opportunity to do so came I felt the time to serve my country was now. Looking back today I know one thing, politics is indeed dirty, dirty from the very bottom up.
      Consultants, operatives, the opposition, the party and more … the one thing I never knew was that the process in Congress was dirty. I will continue to fight for what I believe in and I will never back down. What the ‘ethics committee’ did today was not part of due process, what they did was poison a the jury pool on my on going investigation with the DoJ. This was a dirty biased act and one that tramples all over my rights.
      Press conference November 30th at 8am on The Capitol steps, I encourage ALL members of the press to attend.
      Meanwhile, Representative George Santos has not made a public statement about his fellow party members calling for his expulsion.Instead, the New York congressman published a post on X about the need for Congress to “grow a spine” and ban Tik Tok.Tik Tok has faced backlash in recent days from Jewish public figures over antisemitism on the app.Here is an updated list of Republicans who support the resolution to expel Santos, from CNN:Iowa representative Randy Feenstra publically said he will support a resolution to expel George Santos, another Republican joining the call for Santos’s removal.In a post to X, formally known as Twitter, Feenstra said that he will support the resolution in light of Santos’ “illegal and unethical behavior” if Santos does not “do the right thing and resign”.“Rep. George Santos has proven that his ethics do not align with what we expect from our leaders,” Feenstra said in a statement on X.Democrats in New Hampshire still see Joe Biden as the party’s best shot to hold the White House, according to a new poll from CNN.Although Biden’s name will not appear on the state’s primary ballots, 65% of New Hampshire Democrats said they will write in Biden’s name, while 10% said they will vote for Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips. Nine per cent said they will vote for author Marianne Williamson.CNN also reports, “Among adults in New Hampshire, Biden’s job approval rating (44% approve to 55% disapprove) and favorability (34% favorable, 53% unfavorable) remain in negative territory, and about two-thirds see the country as heading off on the wrong track.”Moreover, only 42% approve of Biden’s handling of the economy while 40% approve of his handling of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.The trial surrounding Donald Trump’s classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort is running about four months behind schedule.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:The US district judge Aileen Cannon put off setting a deadline for Trump to submit a notice about what classified information he intends to use at trial – currently set for May – until after a hearing next year that almost certainly precludes the pre-trial process from finishing in time.Trump was indicted this summer with violating the Espionage Act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.But the fact that Trump was charged with retaining national defense information means his case will be tried under the complex rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, which governs how those documents can be used in court.At issue is the fact that the seven-stage Cipa process is sequential, meaning each previous section has to be completed before the case can proceed to the next section. A delay halfway through the process invariably has the net effect of delaying the entire schedule leading to trial.For the full story, click here:Donald Trump said that he wanted to go to the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection claiming that he would have been “very well recieved.”According to new audio released from an interview between Donald Trump and political journalist and author Jonathan Karl two months after the insurrection, Trump said:
      I was going to [go up to the Capitol] and then Secret Service said you can’t … I wanted to go back. I was thinking about going back during the problem to stop the problem, doing it myself. Secret Service didn’t like that idea too much … I would have been very well received. More

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      George Santos faces new move to expel him from Congress after ethics report

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      The embattled Republican US representative George Santos faced a fresh effort to expel him from Congress on Friday, the day after fellow lawmakers released a report that suggested federal prosecutors should bring additional criminal charges against him.The House of Representatives ethics committee chairman, Michael Guest, introduced the bill targeting the first-term lawmaker from New York, who is now known as much for being a fabulist and a criminal defendant as a politician.Santos has been engulfed in scandal since his 2022 election, following revelations that he lied about much of his past and federal fraud charges.Santos, 35, previously pleaded not guilty to federal charges of laundering campaign funds to pay for personal expenses and charging the credit cards of donors without permission, among other campaign finance violations.Guest, a Republican, released a statement on Friday that said, in part: “The evidence uncovered in the ethics committee’s investigative subcommittee investigation is more than sufficient to warrant punishment and the most appropriate punishment, is expulsion. So, separate from the committee process and my role as chairman, I have filed an expulsion resolution.”The resolution also includes the remark that: “Santos must be held accountable to the highest standards of conduct in order to safeguard the public’s faith in this institution.”The House, which Republicans control by a narrow 221-213 majority, is expected to vote on the expulsion effort when it returns from a two-week recess, so as soon as 28 November. Santos’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Despite the narrow margin in the House, Santos is not likely to get support from the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, who described the report’s findings as “very troubling”, according to a statement from his spokesperson, Raj Shah.“Speaker Johnson encourages all involved to consider the best interests of the institution as this matter is addressed further,” Shah said.Santos’s district, which includes a small slice of New York City and some of its eastern suburbs, is seen as competitive.The bipartisan ethics committee on Thursday released a report into Santos’s alleged campaign finance fraud, which documented a pattern of poor bookkeeping and misuse of campaign funds so pervasive that his election “has called into question the integrity of the House”. Santos said on Thursday he would not run for re-election in 2024, but refused to step down before then.The ethics committee said it referred more “uncharged and unlawful conduct” to the justice department for possible criminal prosecution.The report also detailed extravagant – and possibly illegal – spending of campaign money, including thousands of dollars on Botox treatments, luxury brands such as Hermès, and “smaller purchases” from OnlyFans, an online platform known for sexual content.A motion to expel requires two-thirds support in the House. Last time, 182 Republicans voted against expulsion as they need Santos’s seat to protect their narrow House majority, that result is expected to be less favorable to Santos next time.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Democratic leadership says ceasefire protest ‘exceeded a peaceful demonstration’ and commends police amid activist criticism – as it happened

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      In language similar to that of the Capitol police’s statement from earlier today, Democratic leadership has released a statement on last night’s ceasefire demonstrations – with zero mention of the words “ceasefire,” “Israel” or the 11,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes who demonstrators were mourning last night.The statement, released by House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic whip Katherine Clark, Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar and DCCC chair Suzan DelBene, said:
      Last night, Members of the House Democratic Caucus, hardworking staffers and dozens of guests from throughout the country were participating in an event inside the Democratic National Committee building when some protesters escalated their activity in a manner that exceeded a peaceful demonstration.
      We are thankful for the service and professionalism of the U.S. Capitol Police officers who worked to ensure that Members, staff and visitors were able to safely exit. We strongly support the First Amendment right to freedom of expression and encourage anyone exercising that right to do so peacefully.
      Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      Capitol police is facing criticism from activists after clashing with dozens of demonstators outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC on Wednesday evening. The violence broke out during a demonstration for a ceasefire in Gaza where Israeli forces have killed over 11,000 Palestinians in the last five weeks.
      Organizers of last night’s ceasefire demonstrations has released a statement on the “violent police response,” saying that over 90 no-nviolent protesters were injured by Capitol police. “Protestors were choked and violently handled by multiple office[r]s at once, thrown against the wall, then grabbed and picked up and thrown down the front stairs. At least two protestors’ glasses were smashed by the police. Dozen of people were kicked, kneed and punched in the face by police officers,” organizers said.
      Pictures and videos posted online of yesterday’s ceasefire protests showed Capitol police scattering candles, which were originally laid out to mourn the 11,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes. “This is a reflection of what our gov thinks of Palestinians. 11,000 candles representing the Palestinian lives murdered by Israel with US funding. The cops just stepped on them,” said Sumaya Awad, a member of New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America.
      American Muslim writer and civil rights scholar Omar Suleiman has joined numerous activists in condemning Capitol police officers over their actions during last night’s ceasefire demonstrations. Suleiman tweeted: “Unbelievable. Capitol police throwing Jewish protestors shouting not in our name and calling for a ceasefire down the steps of the Democratic National Headquarters. Good luck in 2024 y’all.”
      The Capitol police said in a statement on Thursday that its officers ‘pulled people off the DNC building, pushed them back and cleared them from the area’ during last night’s ceasefire demonstrations. In its statement, the Capitol police made no mention of pepper-spraying protestors, despite images posted online that appeared to show them doing so.
      In language similar to that of the Capitol police’s statement, Democratic leadership released a statement on last night’s ceasefire demonstrations. The statement said, “Some protesters escalated their activity in a manner that exceeded a peaceful demonstration.”
      The Jewish peace advocacy organization If Not Now has issued a list of FAQs following last night’s ceasefire demonstrations, saying, “Our protest was nonviolent. Capitol police brutally attacked us with no warning.” In its series of FAQs, the organization said that there was a police liaison “who asked to speak with officers but the police refused to speak with them.”
      Meanwhile, ceasefire protesters shut down the Bay Bridge in San Francisco during morning rush hour on Thursday. Images on the news wires show scores of people holding banners calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and protesting against military aid for Israel. All westbound lanes were shut at the time.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Alec Karakatsanis, founder of the nonprofit organization Civil Rights Corps, has also condemned Capitol police over their response to last night’s ceasefire demonstrations.In a post on X, Karakatsanis wrote:
      “After the attack by Capitol Police last night on Jewish progressives singing songs and locking arms for ceasefire, recall how Democrats forced through budget increases for one of the most incompetent and unaccountable institutions in federal bureaucracy.”
      The Jewish peace advocacy organization If Not Now has issued a list of FAQs following last night’s ceasefire demonstrations, saying, “Our protest was nonviolent. Capitol police brutally attacked us with no warning.”In its series of FAQs, the organization said that there was a police liaison “who asked to speak with officers but the police refused to speak with them.”“Instead, police arrived on the scene and immediately ran at protestors, shoving many down the stairs,” the organization said, calling the police response “brutal and reckless.”It added that Capitol police “did not give any warnings or requests to disperse.”The organization also said that approximately 90 protestors were injured last night.It also called the demonstrations a “nonviolent act of civil disobedience”and said that “at no point did anyone trying to enter the building” of the Democratic National Committee.“The purpose of the protest was to speak peacefully to members of Congress as they exited the building and share that 80% of Democrats – their base – want to see a ceasefire,” it said.Here are some images coming through the newswires of ceasefire protestors on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge:Protestors on the San Francisco Bay Bridge have thrown their car keys into the bay and chained themselves together and to the bridge in calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US military aid to Israel, according to local media outets.KRON4 reports:All lanes remain blocked on the Bay Bridge after protesters shut down all lanes of westbound Interstate 80 traffic on the bridge during the Thursday morning commute. The protesters stopped their cars on the bridge, east of Treasure Island Road, and threw their keys into the Bay before chaining themselves together and to the bridge, according to California Highway Patrol.Around 50 to 60 protesters on the bridge were arrested and processed by responding CHP officers before being led to awaiting buses, according to KRON4’s Will Tran. Approximately 250 officers are on scene, according to CHP.As of 10 a.m., a far-right lane of westbound traffic reopened on the Bay Bridge for motorists already on the bridge. Drivers who were backed up before the toll plaza were being guided by CHP to turn around back into Oakland. There is no estimated time for when all lanes will reopen across the Bay Bridge.In language similar to that of the Capitol police’s statement from earlier today, Democratic leadership has released a statement on last night’s ceasefire demonstrations – with zero mention of the words “ceasefire,” “Israel” or the 11,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes who demonstrators were mourning last night.The statement, released by House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic whip Katherine Clark, Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar and DCCC chair Suzan DelBene, said:
      Last night, Members of the House Democratic Caucus, hardworking staffers and dozens of guests from throughout the country were participating in an event inside the Democratic National Committee building when some protesters escalated their activity in a manner that exceeded a peaceful demonstration.
      We are thankful for the service and professionalism of the U.S. Capitol Police officers who worked to ensure that Members, staff and visitors were able to safely exit. We strongly support the First Amendment right to freedom of expression and encourage anyone exercising that right to do so peacefully.
      Protesters shut down the Bay Bridge in San Francisco during morning rush hour. Images on the news wires show scores of people holding banners calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and protesting against military aid for Israel.All westbound lanes were shut at the time.Local media reported around 50 to 60 protesters were arrested before being led to buses. There were 250 officers on the scene, reports said.Here are more images coming through the newswires of last night’s ceasefire demonstrations outside the Democratic National Committee building:American Muslim writer and civil rights scholar Omar Suleiman has joined numerous activists in condemning Capitol police officers over their actions during last night’s ceasefire demonstrations.In a post on X, Suleiman said:
      “Unbelievable. Capitol police throwing Jewish protestors shouting not in our name and calling for a ceasefire down the steps of the Democratic National Headquarters. Good luck in 2024 y’all.”
      The Jewish peace advocacy organization If Not Now has pushed back against California’s Democratic representative Brad Sherman who said that yesterday’s demonstrators “grew violent” and pepper sprayed Capitol police.The organization tweeted a video that showed protestors in locked arms singing, “Which side are you on.” At one point, the video showed Capitol police pulling and shoving protestors outside the DNC building.Capitol police then appears to throw a protestor down the stairs. Someone behind the camera yelled, “Oh shit! Someone just got thrown. People getting thrown down the stairs!”In its caption, If Not Now addressed Sherman’s comments, saying:
      “This is dangerous & reckless disinformation, Congressman. We were peacefully linking arms, singing, and calling for a ceasefire. As you can see with your own eyes in this video. Then Capitol Police rushed in, threw us down the stairs, and pepper sprayed us. Retract this now.”
      A Capitol police officer was captured on video snatching a Palestinian flag out of the hands of a protester who was waving the flag and chanting “Ceasefire now!” during last night’s ceasefire demonstrations.Video posted online showed the officer reaching for the flag as an onlooker shouted, “Hey hey hey! What the fuck?” Other Capitol police officers standing behind their bikes appeared to then grab the flag and throw it aside.The Capitol police said in a statement on Thursday that its officers ‘pulled people off the DNC building, pushed them back and cleared them from the area’ during last night’s ceasefire demonstrations – using language vastly different from the demonstration’s organizers who said protestors were choked, thrown against walls and pepper sprayed.In its statement, the Capitol police made no mention of pepper-spraying protestors, despite images posted online that appeared to show them doing so.Instead, the statement said:
      “When the group moved dumpsters in front of the exits, pepper sprayed our officers and attempted to pick up the bike rack, our teams quickly introduced consequences – pulling people off the building, pushing them back, and clearing them from the area, so we could safely evacuate the Members and staff.
      Six officers were treated for injuries, from minor cuts to being pepper sprayed to being punched.”
      In a video posted to Youtube, a Capitol police officer can be seen pepper-spraying a protestor in the face as she held onto another protestor. More

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      George Santos: the four strands of the Republican congressman’s web of lies

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      George Santos’s extensive lies and financial improprieties have started to catch up to the New York representative, with criminal charges in New York and a newly released House ethics committee report.The congressman built a campaign on a fake résumé, made-up personal stories and a host of complex financial transactions that benefited his personal bank account, the report and other reporting show. His falsehoods ranged from serious to mundane and, at times, bizarre.“Representative Santos’ congressional campaigns were built around his backstory as a successful man of means: a grandson of Holocaust survivors and graduate from Baruch College with a Master’s in Business Administration from New York University, who went on to work at Citi Group and Goldman Sachs, owned multiple properties, and was the beneficiary of a family trust worth millions of dollars left by his mother, who passed years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a result of long-term health effects related to being at one of the towers,” the House ethics report says.“No part of that backstory has been found to be true.”Financial irregularitiesThe House ethics report concluded that Santos used campaign funds and his position to enrich himself. He allegedly claimed to have loaned his campaign money, despite not having done so, then paid himself back. His financial disclosure forms were not accurate, and, the report said, one was “filled with falsehoods designed to make him appear wealthier than he was and furthered the fictional persona he had concocted by falsely reporting more than half a million dollars in loans to the FEC”.He also used campaign funds for personal purposes. Some examples in the House report: purchases at Ferragamo and Hermès, hotel stays in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, ATM withdrawals, paying his personal rent and personal credit card bills, spa services like Botox and “smaller purchases” at OnlyFans, an adult content service.His campaign filed a list of false donors as another way to “artificially inflate” his required financial reports, the House investigation claims. The New York indictment further alleges Santos defrauded donors and charged their credit cards without authorization.The New York criminal charges include allegations that Santos improperly received unemployment insurance despite being employed at a $120,000-per-year job. He received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic, the charges state.Ironically, Santos touted his financial acumen when running for office, claiming he had an “extensive background in money management/growth” and was “good at it”. This background would help the House during budgeting and serve his constituents well, he said.If they’d known about his inaccurate and false financial statements, the House ethics group said, “his constituents may have had cause to question whether he was actually ‘good at’ money management and growth, or balancing costs and budgets – or, indeed, whether he had any experience in finance at all”.Personal historyThe New York Times first detailed lengthy fictions Santos told about himself, his education and his work experience, finding that his résumé was beyond embellished and outright false. He didn’t receive degrees from the schools he claimed he had. He hadn’t worked jobs he included in his work history.He also claimed to be a landlord who owned 13 properties, though no records of any property ownership have been found for him.His background has also come into question. He claimed his grandparents were Jewish and fled Europe because of persecution during the second world war, but genealogical research by Forward contradicted his story.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSantos also said his mother was at the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks, but records show she was not in the US at that time.Stolen election claimsWhile claiming the 2020 election was stolen isn’t rare for congressional Republicans, Santos also boosted election denialism. In a speech on 5 January 2021, Santos claimed his election was stolen, as was Trump’s. He said he had been ahead in the vote count for days until the results changed, which happened because more ballots were counted.“They did to me what they did to Donald J Trump, they stole my election,” Santos said. He then asked the crowd: “Who here is ready to overturn the election for Donald J Trump?”Dog-related storiesA few stories about pets also plague Santos. He claimed to run a charity that rescued more than 2,500 animals, though the group wasn’t registered as a non-profit and it appears Santos’s claims related to its work were greatly exaggerated.In a strange side story, Santos was also charged with writing bad checks to dog breeders with “puppies” in the memo line, though he had the charge dismissed and his record expunged because he claimed someone stole his checkbook and wrote the checks in his name.In a separate fraud case in Brazil, Santos admitted he stole a man’s checkbook and made purchases with it.Yet another dog-related story claims Santos raised thousands of dollars in a GoFundMe to help a veteran who was homeless take care of his pit bull, then pocketed the money instead of helping the dog. More

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      George Santos will not seek re-election after House details ‘pervasive’ fraud

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      The New York Republican congressman, fabulist and criminal defendant George Santos said he would not seek re-election next year, after the US House ethics committee issued a report detailing “grave and pervasive campaign finance violations and fraudulent activity” and recommended action against him.“I will NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time,” Santos said, calling the report “biased” and “a disgusting politicised smear”.But after the report detailed his conduct, moves for a new expulsion resolution began.“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the committee said.“He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.“He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign – and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported ‘repayments’ of those fictitious loans.“He used his connections to high-value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”Santos, 35, was elected last year, as Republicans retook the House in part thanks to a strong performance in New York. But as his résumé unraveled amid increasingly picaresque reports about his life before entering Congress, including questions about his actual name, he admitted “embellishing” his record.Allegations of criminal behaviour emerged. Santos has now pleaded not guilty to 23 federal criminal charges, including laundering funds and defrauding donors.He has survived attempts to expel him from the House, including from members of his own party. Most recently, 31 Democrats voted against making him only the sixth member ever expelled, saying he should not be thrown out without being convicted. Three congressmen were expelled in 1861, for supporting the Confederacy in the civil war. Two have been expelled after being criminally convicted, the last in 2002.Republican leaders, beholden to a narrow majority, had said they would wait for the ethics report.On Thursday, the New York Democrat Dan Goldman said: “More than 10 months after Congressman [Ritchie] Torres and I filed a complaint … the committee has … concluded that George Santos defrauded his donors, filed false Federal Election Commission reports, and repeatedly broke the law in order to fraudulently win his election last November.”Promising to “file a motion to expel Santos from Congress once and for all” after the Thanksgiving break, Goldman said Republicans “no longer have any fictional excuse to protect Santos in order to preserve their narrow majority”.Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who has tried to expel Santos, said Santos should “end this farce and resign immediately. If he refuses, he must be removed from Congress. His conduct is not only unbecoming and embarrassing, it is criminal. He is unfit to serve and should resign today”.Mike Johnson, the new Republican speaker, has said Santos deserves due process. Speaking to Fox News last month, he also said Republicans had “no margin for error”.But according to the Washington Post, citing an anonymous source, Michael Guest of Mississippi, the Republican committee chair, planned to file a motion to expel Santos on Friday, setting up a possible vote after the Thanksgiving holiday next week.Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said she “intend[ed] to vote yes on any privileged expulsion resolution … as the work of the committee is now complete, and I am no longer obligated to maintain neutrality”.Santos said: “If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the ‘ethics committee’, they would have not released this biased report. The committee went to extraordinary lengths to smear myself and my legal team about me not being forthcoming (my legal bills suggest otherwise).“It is a disgusting politicised smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk. Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of justice should all be ashamed of themselves.”Somewhat optimistically, he called for a constitutional convention to formalise action against Joe Biden for supposed crimes. More contritely, Santos said he was “humbled yet again and reminded that I am human and I have flaws”.The report was accompanied by extensive appendices including evidence of apparent malpractice. Santos was shown to have spent donor money on vacations, luxury goods, Botox treatment and the website OnlyFans.One exhibit showed a suggestion by a staffer to place a microphone under a table bearing donuts for reporters, an offering that made headlines earlier this year.The committee said Santos had not cooperated, “continues to flout his statutory financial disclosure obligations and has failed to correct countless errors and omissions in his past [financial disclosure] statements, despite being repeatedly reminded … of his requirement to do so.“The [committee] also found that, despite his attempts to blame others for much of the misconduct, Representative Santos was a knowing and active participant in the wrongdoing. Particularly troubling was Representative Santos’ lack of candour during the investigation itself.”The committee said it would refer its findings to federal prosecutors. Members of Congress, it said, should take any action “appropriate and necessary … to fulfill the House’s constitutional mandate to police the conduct of its members”.Outside Congress, Brett Edkins, of the pressure group Stand Up America, said: “This report has one clear conclusion: Santos is wholly unfit to hold office.“If George Santos had any shame or remorse over deceiving hard-working New Yorkers and his colleagues in Congress, he would resign immediately. Instead, he continues to use every possible lie and excuse to cling to power … since he refuses to step down, House Republicans should grow a backbone and expel him.” More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Democrats failed to defend House from Capitol rioters

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      In a new book, the extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claims no Democrats stayed in the House chamber on January 6 to help defend it against rioters sent by Donald Trump to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election win – a claim one Democrat who did stay labeled “patently false”.Greene’s book, MTG, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Describing January 6, Greene writes: “Several of the Republican congressmen said, ‘We’re going to stay right here and defend the House chamber.’ As they began barricading the door with furniture, I noticed not one Democrat was willing to stay to defend the chamber.”But that version of events sits in stark contrast to others prominently including that of Jason Crow of Colorado, a Democratic congressman and former US army ranger who worked to help fellow representatives before being, by his own description, the last politician to leave.Speaking to the Denver Post after the riot, Crow said: “They evacuated the folks on the floor but those of us in the gallery actually got trapped for like 20 minutes as the rioters stormed the stairwells and the doors.“So, Capitol police actually locked the doors of the chamber and started piling furniture up on the doors to barricade them, while holding their guns out.“I got into ranger mode a little bit. Most of the members didn’t know how to use the emergency masks, so I was helping them get their emergency masks out of the bags and helped instruct a bunch of folks on how to put it on and how to use it. I wasn’t going to leave the House floor until every member was gone, so I waited until we were able to get everybody out.”On Wednesday, Crow told the Guardian: “Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t exist in the same reality as the rest of us. For those of us who were there on January 6 and actually defended the chamber from violent insurrectionists, her view is patently false. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”Other Democrats have described how they tried to help.In an oral history of January 6 by Business Insider, Raúl Grijalva, of Arizona, said: “You also saw members doing their part to facilitate our evacuation – Seth Moulton [of Massachusetts, a marines veteran], Ruben Gallego, and four or five others … who assumed a role of helping us to get out of there and working with the Capitol police to make sure that we were all safe.”Gallego, also of Arizona and a former marine, told the same site: “Eventually what I did was I jumped up on a table and started giving instructions to people about how to open up the gas mask. We start seeing the doors being barricaded with furniture. We start hearing the noise of people – the insurrectionists – pounding on doors. Especially in the gallery.”Greene’s book pursues her familiar conspiracy theory-laced invective, taking shots at targets including Democrats, the media and Lauren Boebert, another Republican extremist with whom Greene has fallen out.Discussing January 6, three days after her swearing-in, Greene claims to have worked “tirelessly” on objections to key state results but to have been “utterly shocked” when rioters breached the Capitol.Some Republicans, she says “carried concealed weapons and were ready to be good guys with guns, defending themselves and others if need be” – despite guns being banned in the House chamber. Greene says she tried to stay close to Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a former law enforcement officer who was “one of the armed Republican members of Congress exercising his second amendment rights that day”.Describing instructions to put on hoods against possible exposure to teargas, Greene says she did not do so as she would not have been able to clearly hear or see.“Many of the Democrats obligingly put theirs on and some were lying on the floor, hysterical,” she writes, describing a chamber “in complete and utter disarray”.Pictures of the House on January 6 show Crow comforting Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, a Republican lying on the gallery floor. Other pictures show Republicans including Troy Nehls of Texas and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma helping to barricade doors.According to the House January 6 committee, evacuation happened in stages. Democratic leaders including the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, were removed at the same time as Mike Pence, the vice-president. Kevin McCarthy, then Republican minority leader, soon followed. Evacuation of the rest of the House began at 2.38pm, members escaping as a rioter, Ashli Babbitt, was fatally shot by police.“Members in the House gallery were evacuated after the members on the House floor,” the report says. “Congressional members in the gallery had to wait to be evacuated because rioters were still roaming the hallways right outside the chamber.“At 2.49pm, as members were trying to evacuate the House gallery, the [Capitol police] … cleared the hallways with long rifles so that the members could be escorted to safety … surveillance footage shows several rioters lying on the ground, with long rifles pointed at them, as members evacuate. By 3pm, the area had been cleared and members were evacuated … to a secure location.”Greene claims rioters have since been mistreated. But she is not finished. A noted fitness enthusiast, she chooses to mock another Democrat, Jerry Nadler of New York, then the 73-year-old chair of the House judiciary committee.“I saw that it was a problem that so many of our representatives were older and physically unable to run,” Greene writes. “How do you get them to safety when they cannot move quickly because of age, physical ailments or lack of physical fitness?“Oh, and many were hysterical, with the plastic bags over their heads in fear of teargas and the little electric fans running so they couldn’t hear, either. Just imagine Jerry Nadler trying to run for safety!” More