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      Republicans take aim at subsidies that help tens of millions of women

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      As they prepare to take control of the White House and Congress next month, conservatives are eyeing cutbacks to federal programs that help tens of millions of women pay for healthcare, food, housing and transportation.Slashing or overhauling social support programs, long a goal of Republican lawmakers, could be catastrophic for women experiencing poverty. Supporters contend the social safety-net programs are already grossly underfunded.“With this new administration that is coming in … I really am concerned about the lives of women. We are seeing so many policies, so many budget cuts,” said Christian Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women.Republicans say they want to keep campaign promises to cut government spending, and three major programs make easy targets: Medicaid, the joint state/federal health insurance program for people with lower incomes; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a cash-allowance program that replaced welfare; and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), widely known as food stamps.While conservatives frame cuts as making government more efficient and even restoring freedom, advocates for and experts on families with little or no income say reducing these programs will throw more people – especially women and children – further into poverty.“It is going to fall heavily on women,” said Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a non-profit research organization.Predicting precisely what Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration will do is difficult. Congressional leaders are close-mouthed about negotiations, and the president-elect has not finished putting together his advisory team. None of the spokespeople contacted for this story returned calls or e-mails.But organizations known to advise top leaders in Congress and the previous Trump administration have laid out fairly detailed roadmaps.Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the incoming administration, denies its proposed changes will harm women, saying instead that marriage and “family values” will improve their economic situations. “Marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy are virtually ignored in terms of priorities, yet these goals can reverse the cycle of poverty in meaningful ways,” reads the section on proposed changes to TANF and Snap.Numerous other groups that have studied the problem say forcing or even encouraging marriage will not make poverty disappear. And a recent study by a team at the University of South Carolina found that when state laws make it harder for pregnant women to get divorced, they’re more likely to be killed by their partners.Trump has promised not to attack the two most expensive and popular government programs: social security and Medicare. But he and Congress are up against a deadline to extend his 2017 tax reforms, which raised the federal deficit. They’ll have to cut something, and social spending programs, especially the $805bn Medicaid program, are low-hanging fruit for conservatives.Trump repeatedly tried to slash Snap during his last tenure in office: his 2021 budget proposal would have cut the program by more than $180bn – nearly 30% – over 10 years. Conservatives in Congress have continued these efforts and, with majorities in the House and Senate, they may be able to get them through next year.The Republican Study Committee, whose members include about three-quarters of the House Republican caucus, recommends more work requirements for Snap and TANF.“SNAP and our welfare system should embrace that work conveys dignity and self-sustainment and encourage individuals to find gainful employment, not reward them for staying at home,” their plan, released in March, reads.A large body of research questions whether widening work requirements does anything other than force people off benefits without helping them find employment. “I think there is a misperception that people in need of help are not working,” said Mei Powers, chief development and communications officer at Martha’s Table, a non-profit aid organization in Washington DC. “People are a paycheck, a crisis, a broken-down car away from needing services.”Snap currently helps 41 million people buy groceries and other necessities every month. Women accounted for more than 55% of people under 65 receiving Snap benefits in 2022, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a gender justice advocacy group. About one-third of them were women of color, the NWLC said.Among other things, cutting these programs will trap women in dangerous situations, the NWLC said: “SNAP helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault establish basic economic security.”TANF, which provides cash assistance, overwhelmingly benefits women. In 2022, 370,000 TANF adult recipients were female and 69,000 were male, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.Perhaps Medicaid is the most tempting target for conservatives because they can use it to undermine the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The GOP has been gunning for the ACA since it was signed into law without a single Republican vote in 2010.The federal government shares the cost of Medicaid with states. The ACA aimed to make Medicaid cover more people by offering to pay for virtually all the extra costs. Many Republican-led states resisted for years, but as of November, all but 10 states had expanded coverage to an extra 21 million people, or about a quarter of all Medicaid recipients.Medicaid pays for more than 40% of births in the US, plus it covers new mothers for post-pregnancy-related issues for 60 days. It also pays for medical care for 60% of all nursing home residents, more than 70% of whom are women.According to the health research organization KFF, expanding Medicaid helped improve care for women before and during pregnancy and after they gave birth.But most Republicans in Congress have never approved of this federal spending. Proposed cuts to Medicaid funding, which would save hundreds of billions of dollars, are laid out by the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative health thinktank headed by Brian Blase, a top health adviser to the first Trump administration.Experts predict states would be unable or unwilling to make up the difference. “Facing such drastic reductions in federal Medicaid funding, states will have no choice but to institute truly draconian cuts to eligibility, benefits and provider reimbursement rates,” Edwin Park, research professor at Georgetown University, wrote in an analysis.That would mean women, children, older adults and people with disabilities would lose coverage as facilities closed and providers stopped seeing patients.The effects, says the National Organization for Women, “will be widespread, devastating, and long-lasting”.This story is published in partnership with the Fuller Project, a non-profit newsroom dedicated to the coverage of women’s issues around the world. 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      ‘What a circus’: eligible US voters on why they didn’t vote in the 2024 presidential election

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      The 2024 US presidential election had been widely characterized as one of the most consequential political contests in recent US history. Although turnout was high for a presidential election – almost matching the levels of 2020 – it is estimated that close to 90 million Americans, roughly 36% of the eligible voting age population, did not vote. This number is greater than the number of people who voted for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.More than a month on from polling day, eligible US voters from across the country as well as other parts of the world got in touch with the Guardian to share why they did not vote.Scores of people said they had not turned out as they felt their vote would not matter because of the electoral college system, since they lived in a safely blue or red state. This included a number of people who nonetheless had voted in the 2020 and 2016 elections.While various previous Democratic voters said they had abstained this time due to the Harris campaign’s stance on Israel or for other policy reasons, a number of people in this camp said they would have voted for the vice-president had they lived in a swing state.“I’m not in a swing state, and because of the electoral college my vote doesn’t count. I could have voted 500,000 times and it would not have changed the outcome,” said one such voter, a 60-year-old software developer with Latino heritage from Boston.Having voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, he voted in 2020 but left the presidential slot blank “as a Quixotic protest against the electoral college and my preference for Bernie Sanders”, he said.He said he felt “heartbroken” over Joe Biden and Harris’s stance on Gaza. “If I were in a swing state I would always vote for Dems, though,” he added, echoing several others.A 40-year-old carpenter from Idaho who voted in the previous two elections because he then lived in the swing state of Arizona – giving his vote to Clinton and Biden – also said he did not vote this time because he felt his vote did not matter due to the electoral college system.“I didn’t find Harris compelling, just more of the same. Politicians from both parties seem unwilling to make the kind of fundamental economic and political changes that would make a meaningful difference for all people, namely a move towards a more democratic socialist system. That being said if we didn’t have the electoral college I probably would have voted for Harris,” he said.A large number of people said they abstained because no candidate represented working- or middle-class interests and people such as themselves, including several people who voted in the previous two elections but did not vote this time.Some people from swing states said they did not vote because both parties were too similar and did not address concerns of the common voter, among them John, a 29-year-old financial professional from Pennsylvania who is a registered independent, but voted for Clinton and Biden in the previous two elections.“What is the point [of voting]?,” he asked. “Aside from a handful of weaponized issues, the parties are nearly identical. They both hate the poor and serve only their donors.”A number of former Trump and Biden voters said they had not voted in this election as they disliked both candidates, among them Jared Wagner, a 34-year-old from Indiana who works in the trucking industry and said he had voted for Trump in 2016 but had abstained in both the 2020 and 2024 election.“I refuse to put my name on either candidate when I know neither of them are truly the best we have to offer. We need a major overhaul to the two-party system,” he said.
      “As a man with young children I worry about what kind of country they will grow up in. It terrifies me; we deserve better.”John, a 58-year-old from West Virginia, said he had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, but had decided that not voting this November “felt most authentic and appropriate”.“I wasn’t apathetic about this election, I followed it closely,” he said. “But most of the candidates and issues left me cold and disinterested and seemed to be simply perpetuating the existing system, especially the status quo of authority and law and order, or rampant human development on the land.“On the presidential level, I was shocked and disgusted that the Harris campaign chose to completely ignore discussing climate change. Fundamentally, this election seemed to have very little to do with my interests and concerns.”Anne, a 65-year-old retired white woman from California, was among various people who said they had voted but not for any presidential candidate.She said she had always previously voted for the Democratic candidate, but could not bring herself to do so this time.“I did vote for all other down-ballot candidates and initiatives,” she said. “I would have voted for Harris had my vote made a difference, but I could not vote for a president who will continue the complete destruction of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank.”Various people said they did not vote for a presidential candidate in the 2024 election because they had only wanted to cast a positive vote for a candidate rather than merely an opposition one, and that neither candidate had offered a compelling vision for change.Among them was a 62-year-old professional working in process planning from Texas, who said he had voted for the Republican presidential candidate at every election between 1984 and 2016.“In 2020 I voted Libertarian as a protest vote,” he said. “This year I was so turned off by Trump’s low character, economic ignorance, disregard of our national debt, hostility to Ukraine and so on that I was trying to convince myself to vote for Harris. But her economic policy was just a grab bag of voter payoffs and she doesn’t care about the debt either.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“So I did not vote for president. I voted for Senate, congressman, and many other down ballot races. I split my ticket, too. I just no longer want to vote against anyone. I want to vote FOR someone. And none of the candidates for president wanted my vote enough.”A 35-year-old Black male voter from Portland, Oregon, who works at a gas station, said he disliked Kamala Harris but now regretted not voting for her, as he had thought Trump would lose the election.“I did not vote in 2016 or 2020 either because I did not like any of the candidates in those elections either. I last voted in 2012, for Obama,” he said.“I felt both candidates fell well short of the presidential standard, and didn’t feel I could cast a vote for either,” said a 47-year-old engineering manager and registered Republican from Texas.“VP Harris failed to demonstrate she was ethically or intellectually capable of executing the office, repeatedly failing to detail out her policies and generally running her campaign like a popularity contest – ‘collect enough celebrity endorsements, by paying them, and the masses will elect you,’” he said.Trump, he felt, “cares about the US and believes his own ideas will ‘save’ the country – but he’s a terrible human being. I don’t feel he represents a majority of Americans at all, but is more a reaction to some of the issues we face as a country.”Various people who did not vote in other recent elections either said that again this time no candidate was leftwing enough, among them 37-year-old Elly, a mother of four daughters from the midwest.“Bernie Sanders was the last candidate I was excited to vote for,” she said. “This election came down to two parties who have utterly abandoned everyday people and their problems with affordability and worries about climate change, but one party, the Republicans, were savvy enough to pretend they felt the collective pain of the common folks, whilst the Democrats mostly said ‘all is well.’ I couldn’t in good conscience support either side on the national level.”Several people who usually always voted Democrat in the past said the Harris campaign had been overly focussed on progressive identity politics for them to be able to lend it their support this election, such as Simon, a father from California in his 60s who had voted for Clinton in 2016 and for Biden in 2020 in protest against Trump, but had abstained this year due to Harris’s embracing of “trans ideology”, among other reasons.“I am not a fan of the Democrats, but I would have voted to keep Trump out of office if there was an economically literate, competent, law and order candidate who was willing to challenge the excesses of ‘woke’,” he said. “The Dems are out of touch on social issues, and have tacked too far to the left to appease a minority of progressives.“I support some policies that would be considered rightwing on immigration, but also investing in social housing, so I’m looking for candidates capable of taking difficult decisions based on rational analysis.”Leigh Crawford, a 56-year-old hedge fund manager from California, who had voted for Barack Obama in 2012, for Clinton in 2016 and for Biden in 2020, said he had abstained this time as both candidates were fiscally irresponsible in his view, because he strongly disliked Trump’s anti-immigration and pro-tariffs stance, and because Harris had been “pro-censorship” and “too tolerant of antisemitism”.Several people said they did not vote this time because of a growing disillusionment with the extreme polarization in US politics, including Chris, an architect in his 40s from Tennessee who had voted twice for Obama, and once for Trump in 2016, but had abstained in 2020 and 2024 as he had lost hope in politics.“Skip the debates, what a circus,” he said. “I’m so sick of hearing about politics.“The political system in the US is broken. Things are so polarized, there is no cooperation for the good of the people. There is just so much hate, even in everyday conversation with average people.“There is just so much of this ‘if I don’t win, I’m taking the ball and going home’ mentality. It just causes nothing to get accomplished.” More

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      in US Politics

      Luigi Mangione is the median American voter | Peter Rothpletz

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      The vast majority of the US population rarely – if ever – lapses into murderous fantasies wherein they gun down an unsuspecting father of two. One need not possess the telepathic powers of Professor Charles Xavier to consider this a fact. That said, the heterodox, ostensibly incoherent potpourri of political views expressed by the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin, Luigi Mangione, is more representative of the average American than many elites would care to admit.Mangione’s Twitter/X account is a kaleidoscopic fever dream with no clear ideological rudder. It seems he has a genuine interest in health and wellness. “Wokeness” and masculinity are occasionally discussed; so too are climate change, psychedelics and the potential risks and rewards of artificial intelligence. Pornography, in Mangione’s mind, “should be regulated no less than alcohol, cigarettes, and travel” – and certain sex toys should be banned. He likes Joe Rogan but disdains Jordan Peterson. He also appears to be particularly fond of Pokémon, baby elephants, gorillas and Japan’s Indigenous religion, Shintoism.More interesting than Mangione’s posts themselves are the personalities he follows. They run the political gamut. The right-leaning “manosphere” is well-represented by folks such as Rogan, Patrick Bet-David and Andrew Huberman. The only member of Congress on the list is Representative Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, a democratic socialist. RFK Jr serves as a conduit for both the environmental and Maga movements. Even center-left, wonkish liberalism makes a cameo with Ezra Klein.Some have voiced befuddlement as to where the connective tissue lies between all these figures. They’re confused because they still believe the dominant divide in US politics is liberalism v conservatism. It’s not, and it hasn’t been for some time. Increasingly, even if they lack the exact language to explain it, voters do not identify foremost as Democrats or Republicans, progressives or traditionalists, or even left or right. They identify as pro-system or anti-system. As put by Jeet Heer in The Nation: “Pro-system politics is the bipartisan consensus of establishment Democrats and Republicans: It’s the politics of Nato and other military alliances, of trade agreements, and of deference to economists (as when they say that price gouging isn’t the cause of inflation).” Anti-system politics, he continues, is “a general thumbing of the nose at this consensus”.Rogan, Bet-David and Huberman’s anti-system bona fides are manifest; one can argue AOC’s are too given her status as Bernie Sanders’ heir apparent. RFK Jr is the scion of a Democratic dynasty, but his musings about vaccines, chemtrails, and tap water turning children gay are miles outside the Overton window. Yes, the New York Times’s Ezra Klein feels like a pro-system figure, but one must not forget his February audio essay calling on Joe Biden to pass the torch. Not only did his call land like a bomb, it arguably provided the initial momentum for Democrats to finally force the president out of the election following his disastrous debate performance in late June. Klein was the first man in mainstream media to observe that the emperor has no clothes. Such courage earns one anti-system credibility.Considering all this, Mangione’s digital media diet is arguably quite coherent – and in line with what most non-elites consume. As explained by Rachel Kleinfeld, average Americans are far less ideologically polarized than they think they are – and misconceptions around polarization are greatest among the most politically engaged people. Unfortunately, if you’re reading this essay, you’re likely very, very out of touch.Before November’s election, Blueprint Polling conducted a number of surveys in an effort to define the views of swing voters of swing states. They found these Americans, predictably, defy conventional political categorization. They believe immigration should be decreased, abortion should be legal, the criminal justice system is not tough enough, the government should crack down on price-gouging, and same-sex marriage is just dandy. They practice hodgepodge politics, and they aren’t bothered by what elites would call ideological inconsistency.Mangione is cast in the same mold. Insofar as Mangione can even be called an “ideologue”, he merely believed the American system was fundamentally flawed. He isn’t some pinko, dolled up in Che Guevera revolutionary regalia; nor is he an SS leather fetishist. He’s a highly educated, heterodox, politically homeless moderate – and that fact should terrify us all. Unlike the political violence of old, committed by dyed in the wool radicals, the assassination of Brian Thompson was carried out by a young man with no movement encouraging his extremism. He, on his own, came to the conclusion that the US is so broken and corrupt that murder is the only solution.

      Peter Rothpletz is a freelance writer More

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      in Elections

      Six Republicans in Nevada again charged for 2020 fake elector scheme

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      Six Republicans in Nevada have again been charged with submitting a bogus certificate to Congress that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential battleground’s 2020 election.Aaron Ford, the state’s attorney general, announced on Thursday that the fake electors case had been revived in Carson City, the capital, where he filed a new complaint this week charging the defendants with “uttering a forged instrument”, a felony.A Nevada judge dismissed the original indictment earlier this year, ruling that Clark county, the state’s most populous county and home to Las Vegas, was the wrong venue for the case.Ford, a Democrat, said the new case was filed as a precaution to avoid the statute of limitations expiring while the Nevada supreme court weighs his appeal of the judge’s ruling.“While we disagree with the finding of improper venue and will continue to seek to overturn it, we are preserving our legal rights in order to ensure that these fake electors do not escape justice,” Ford said.“The actions the fake electors undertook in 2020 violated Nevada criminal law and were direct attempts to both sow doubt in our democracy and undermine the results of a free and fair election. Justice requires that these actions not go unpunished.”Officials have said it was part of a larger scheme across seven battleground states to keep the former president in the White House after losing to Joe Biden. Criminal cases have also been brought in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.Trump lost in 2020 to the president by more than 30,000 votes in Nevada. An investigation by then Nevada secretary of state Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.The defendants are state the Republican party chair Michael McDonald; the Clark county Republican party chair Jesse Law; the national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; the national and Douglas county committee member Shawn Meehan; the Storey county clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area.In an emailed statement to the Associated Press, McDonald’s attorney, Richard Wright, called the new complaint a political move by a Democratic state attorney general who also announced on Thursday that he plans to run for governor in 2026.“We will withhold further comment and address the issues in court,” said Wright, who has spoken often in court on behalf of all six defendants.Attorneys for the others did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.Their lawyers previously argued that Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas instead of in a northern Nevada city, where the alleged crimes occurred. More

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      North Carolina GOP lawmakers override veto to strip power from Democratic officials

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      On the brink of losing their supermajority in the state legislature, North Carolina Republicans overrode a gubernatorial veto on Wednesday to enact a new law that gives them control over elections in the state and strips the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general of some of their powers.Currently, North Carolina’s governor appoints the five members of the state board of elections, allowing him to select a three-person majority from his party. The new law transfers that appointment power to the state auditor. A Republican won control of the state auditor race this fall for the first time in more than a decade.The bill also changes how local election boards in each of North Carolina’s 100 counties would be appointed. Currently the state board appoints members and the governor appoints the chair. Under the new law, the auditor-appointed state board would still pick the local boards, but the auditor would pick the chair. Taken together, the new law would give Republicans control over both the state and local boards of elections.Lawsuits are expected challenging the changes, which were tucked into a bill that allocates more than $200m in relief money for Hurricane Helene. The money will not be immediately availableand the funds cannot be spent until the legislature acts again, according to the Associated Press.The outgoing governor, Roy Cooper, and the incoming governor, Josh Stein, both Democrats, have criticized the measure as a power grab. Republicans are poised to lose their supermajority in the state legislature next year.“Western North Carolina small businesses and communities still wait for support from the legislature while Republicans make political power grabs the priority. Shameful,” Cooper said in a statement.The measure also makes significant changes to election procedures. Voters currently have more than a week to provide ID or proof of residence when they vote. The new law shortens that window to just two and a half days and requires local election officials to count provisional ballots more quickly.That change seems directly in response to a state supreme court election in which the Democrat Allison Riggs trailed her opponent by 10,000 votes on election night but then pulled ahead as more votes were counted. She appears to have won the election by a little over 700 votes.It also limits Jeff Jackson, the incoming Democratic attorney general, from taking positions contrary to the general assembly and dilutes the governor’s power to fill judicial vacancies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Unfortunately, Western North Carolina had to watch as every Republican in the general assembly shamelessly put their desire to strip political power away from recently elected Democrats ahead of the aid and relief their communities need,” Anderson Clayton, the chair of the North Carolina Democratic party, said in a statement. “Using the guise of Hurricane Helene relief is a new low, even for general assembly Republicans.” More

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      in US Politics

      Did gerrymandering keep Republicans from a bigger majority? Absolutely not | David Daley

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      Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, will soon have the challenge of leading a three-seat Republican majority. He has an interesting theory about why the Republican edge will be so slender. Last week, on Fox News, he blamed Democratic gerrymandering.While it’s always a delightful surprise to hear a Republican leader express concern about the evils of gerrymandering, Johnson has the facts and the math completely backwards.The truth is the opposite: Republicans drew the district lines of nearly three times as many US House seats as did Democrats – 191 to 71. Republicans gerrymandered more than three times as many seats than Democrats. They started from a position of power after drawing historic gerrymanders in 2011 that lasted a decade in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina. And the Republicans’ gerrymandered advantage was preserved and protected by the Republican supermajority on the US supreme court.Johnson is right about one thing: he holds the speakership because of gerrymandering – but because of the election rigging done by his own side.The Republican party’s three-seat majority would not exist at all without a new, mid-decade gerrymander in North Carolina that gift-wrapped the Republicans the three additional seats that made the difference. Before the Republican-controlled state supreme court upended North Carolina’s congressional map, the purple state elected seven Democrats and seven Republicans. (When Democrats controlled the court, they mandated a fair map, not a Democratic one; when Republicans took over, the gerrymander returned.)And what happened after the newly seated Republican court destroyed the balanced map and returned it to the Republican legislature to be tilted in its direction? The new map produced 10 Republicans and four Democrats. Many experts believe it could yet elect 11 Republicans and three Democrats. The gerrymander handed Johnson the three seats that made him speaker. Without it, Democrats might even control the House.Johnson, quite simply, couldn’t be any more wrong. Both parties certainly gerrymandered where they could. But Republicans had the power to gerrymander far more districts in far more places.Overall, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school, it all adds up to a 16-seat edge for Republicans nationwide. “The bias in this cycle’s maps strongly favors Republicans due primarily to aggressive gerrymandering in GOP strongholds in the South and Midwest,” a Brennan report concludes.There are no redistricting angels. The US supreme court made sure of that with their 2019 decision in Rucho v Common Cause, which closed the federal courts to partisan gerrymandering cases at exactly the time when lower-court judges appointed by both parties had found the tools they needed to determine when partisan gerrymanders went too far.But when the Republican court ended the possibility of a national solution, it launched a game of mutual assured destruction: the Republican party built its advantages in state legislature and Congress throughout the 2010s via redistricting. With no hope of help from neutral courts in leveling tilted playing fields in Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and elsewhere, Democrats were left with little choice but to maximize gerrymanders of their own. This is terrible for voters. It’s bad for democracy. Sometimes it is even hypocritical. Yet doing nothing while Republican gerrymanders run wild isn’t a better strategy and presents no moral victory.So in 2021, Democrats turned a 13-5 map in Illinois into a 14-3 edge, gaining one seat and wiping away two from the Republicans. (Illinois lost a member in reapportionment.) Democrats also helped themselves to an additional seat in Oregon, Nevada and New Mexico, and retained their gerrymander of Maryland. This year, a court-ordered redistricting in New York resulted in one additional Democratic seat, and mildly strengthened a handful of others, each by no more than a percentage point. (Only one flip in New York this cycle can be attributed to redistricting.)Those are the only gerrymanders Johnson wants you to know about. The truth is that they are dwarfed by what Republicans did themselves.Start in Florida, where Ron DeSantis, the governor, oversaw an aggressive and likely unconstitutional gerrymander that netted the Republican party four additional seats, wiped away two historically Black districts and created a wildly disproportional 20-8 Republican delegation.The North Carolina gerrymander added three more seats. This was hardball politics to the core: national Republicans deeply wired into Leonard Leo’s court-packing, billion-dollar dark money entity helped fund the takeover of North Carolina’s state supreme court. The new Republican majority quickly did the national party’s dirty work and overturned a year-old decision that created the balanced 7-7 map and enabled the Republican state legislature to radically tilt it toward Republicans.Florida and North Carolina alone account for more Republican gerrymanders than Democratic ones. They don’t stop there.Republicans gerrymandered two additional seats in Texas, creating an unbalanced 25-13 Republican delegation. In Ohio, Republicans lawlessly stiff-armed the state supreme court not once, not twice, but seven times to preserve gerrymanders of the state’s legislature and congressional delegation. A federal court packed with Federalist Society and Leonard Leo acolytes allowed them to get away with it.Republican judges similarly abused the legal process to allow Wisconsin to get away with its congressional gerrymander which awards the Republican party a 6-2 edge in the ultimate swing state. The US supreme court slow-walked cases on racial gerrymandering, which also accrued, unsurprisingly, to the Republicans’ benefit.In Tennessee, the Republican party wiped a Democratic seat in Nashville off the map by cracking the blue city in half and attaching small pieces to conservative, rural districts. They played similar tricks with swing seats in Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City and Indianapolis, and reinforced a Republican seat in Omaha, Nebraska, swapping suburban areas for more Republican, rural ones. It might well have tipped Democratic this year otherwise.Republican hardball with Iowa’s redistricting commission added another seat. In Arizona, Republicans didn’t bother playing games at all; they simply hijacked the entire process by taking over an obscure state board that vets the commissioners and packing the field of supposedly independent chairs with longtime partisans, friends and family of Republican leadership, and business acquaintances. Arizona now consistently sends a 6-3 Republican-dominated delegation to Washington, even in years where Democrats all but sweep statewide offices.Mike Johnson doesn’t want to admit it, but Republican gerrymanders are the only reason he will wield the gavel for another term.Whether Democrats should control the chamber is a trickier question; Republican candidates did win four million more votes nationwide. Yet the “national popular vote” for the House is a statistic that has also been distorted and made meaningless by gerrymandering. Uncompetitive gerrymandered seats generate weak opposition and lower voter turnout. Nearly all of that bulge comes from states where gerrymanders gutted competitive elections and created Republican delegations wildly disproportionate to the presidential vote: Florida, Texas, Ohio and North Carolina.Fair maps and competitive contests in those Republican and mixed states – rather than districts rigged so one side comes away with three-quarters of the seats in a 50/50 state – would make the “popular vote” look entirely different. (It is, of course, equally exciting to see Republican leaders talk about the popular vote as it is to hear them discuss gerrymandering concerns.) No one would look at the results in nations where district lines have been so drastically warped and suggest that they reflect the will of the people. We shouldn’t either.Johnson’s gaslighting, however, probably has a deeper purpose. He may well be laying the groundwork for a Republican package to change how we vote. What if the Republican party advanced a package of redistricting “reforms” that actually reverberated to their advantage – say, ending any consideration of race, counting population based on citizenship rather than all residents, requiring congressional districts to be drawn by the legislature and not an independent commission, and making it more difficult to challenge maps in the courts? Or if they required prioritizing “compactness”, which could naturally pack Democratic voters in a handful of urban districts and benefit the party that is spread out more efficiently?We live in a gerrymandered nation twisted into extremism by one side as eager to warp the map as they are to protect their ill-won gains. And every time you think it can’t get worse, or harder to overcome, Johnson’s mistruths suggest that it very much still can.

      David Daley is the author of the new book Antidemocratic: Inside the Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count More

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      in US Politics

      Trump picks Kari Lake as Voice of America director

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      President-elect Donald Trump has picked Kari Lake as director of Voice of America, installing a staunch loyalist and immigration hardliner to head the congressionally funded broadcaster that provides independent news reporting around the world.Lake, who ran unsuccessfully for Arizona governor and a Senate seat, was a television news anchor in Phoenix for nearly three decades until she left in 2021 after making a series of controversial statements on social media, including sharing Covid-19 misinformation during the pandemic.She launched her political career a short time later, quickly building a loyal following and national profile as she sparred with journalists and echoed Trump in her sharp criticism of what she called the “fake news”. In 2022, she said she would be a journalist’s “worst fricking nightmare” if she won the race to be governor of Arizona.She endeared herself to Trump through her dogmatic commitment to the falsehood that both she and Trump were the victims of election fraud. She has never acknowledged her defeat in the 2022 gubernatorial race and lost her Senate race last month by an even larger margin. Trump considered her for his vice presidential running mate before deciding on JD Vance.Trump has in the past been a fierce critic of Voice of America (VOA), including saying in 2020 that “things they say are disgusting toward our country.”The broadcaster drew additional criticism during Trump’s first term for its coverage of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, with a White House publication accusing it of using taxpayer money “to speak for authoritarian regimes” because it covered the lifting of lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged.VOA was founded during the second world war, and its congressional charter requires it to present independent news and information to international audiences. It responded to Trump’s criticism by defending its coverage.Upon taking office in January 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration swiftly removed a number of senior officials aligned with Trump from VOA and positions affiliated with it.Also on Wednesday, Trump announced Leandro Rizzuto as his choice to be the US ambassador to the Washington-based Organization of American States, and said he wanted Florida personal injury attorney Dan Newlin to be his administration’s ambassador to Colombia.He also picked Peter Lamelas, a physician and the founder of one of Florida’s largest urgent care companies, to be the US ambassador to Argentina. Lamelas is also a large donor to the past campaigns of Trump and other top Republicans. More

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      Trump says FBI chief Wray’s resignation will ‘end the weaponization’ of justice department – US politics live

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      Christopher Wray’s plans to step down as FBI director once he takes office will “end the weaponization” of federal law enforcement, Donald Trump said.Referring to the justice department as “the United States Department of Injustice”, Trump said of Wray, the outgoing FBI director whom he appointed in 2017: “I just don’t know what happened to him.” The president-elect has repeatedly claimed the bureau has become politicized, after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago resort and found classified documents. He’s also criticized the justice department under Joe Biden, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead Trump’s prosecution on charges of hiding classified documents, and attempting to overturn the 2020 election.Here’s more from Trump:
      The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice. I just don’t know what happened to him. We will now restore the Rule of Law for all Americans. Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me, and has done everything else to interfere with the success and future of America. They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them.
      Montana’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors has been temporarily blocked by the state supreme court on grounds that it is likely to violate the right to privacy enshrined in the state’s constitution.The top court in Montana sided on Wednesday with an earlier district court decision blocking SB 99, the ban introduced last year by the Republican-controlled state legislature. The decision will allow under-18 transgender girls and boys to continue gender-affirming medical treatment pending a full trial.Montana’s supreme court justices agreed with the district court judge Jason Marks who put a stop to the ban in September 2023, just days before it came into effect. Marks ruled: “The legislature has no interest … to justify its interference with an individual’s fundamental privacy right to obtain a particular lawful medical procedure from a healthcare provider.”The decision to allow gender-affirming treatment to continue for the time being was greeted with delight by the young plaintiffs and advocacy groups. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat who is the first out trans member of the state legislature, said on social media: “Montana has a constitutional right to privacy, including in our healthcare decisions. Today our constitution continues to protect individuals from government overreach.”Zephyr was propelled into the national limelight in the spring of 2023 when she spoke passionately against the ban in the Montana house. She was banished from the chamber by the Republican leadership prompting large protests.Montana is among at least 26 states that have introduced bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors. By contrast, 15 states have enacted protections for under-18s seeking treatment.The state’s supreme court ruling comes at a critical moment in the nationwide battle over medical care for trans youth. Earlier this month the US supreme court heard oral arguments in a landmark case brought by the ACLU and others against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for trans minors.Read the full story here:Attorney general Merrick Garland praised Wray for his service.“The director of the FBI is responsible for protecting the independence of the FBI. from inappropriate influence in its criminal investigations. That independence is central to preserving the rule of law and to protecting the freedoms we as Americans hold dear,” Garland said in a statement.Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, has been on Capitol Hill promoting his candidacy.“We look forward to a very smooth transition at the FBI and I’ll be ready to go on day one,” he told reporters.It is unclear the level of support Patel can expect, even from Republicans, for his nomination. The firebrand loyalist has said he sees the department he would lead as part of a “deep state” and pledged to shut its Washington headquarters.The Democratic chair of the Senate select committee on intelligence, Mark Warner, had a measured response to the resignation of FBI chief Christopher Wray.“As we look ahead to the process of confirming a new leader for the FBI, it is essential that the next director be someone who shares director Wray’s commitment to fairness, transparency, and the rule of law, so that the men and women of the FBI can continue their vital work safeguarding national security, fighting crime, and ensuring justice for all,” he said.Independent senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who became notorious for opposing major parts of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda during the first half of his term, have prevented Democrats from appointing a majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Manchin and Sinema, both former Democrats who left the party this year and in 2022, respectively, voted against reappointing Lauren McFerran to a five-year term on the NLRB, which enforces labor laws and oversees unionization efforts. Together with opposition from Senate Republicans, McFerran’s nomination failed, preventing the Democrats from having a majority of their appointees on the board through 2026. Instead, her seat will become open next week, and is likely to be filled by an appointee picked by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate’s incoming Republican majority.Manchin and Sinema’s votes were a parting shot to Democrats, after both opted to retire rather than seek another term in the Senate. Biden’s allies are rushing to approve as many federal judges and other appointees as possible before the GOP takes the majority in January, with an eye towards frustrating Trump’s ability to enact the sorts of radical policies he campaigned on implementing.In his post cheering Christopher Wray’s plan to depart as FBI director, Donald Trump also sang the praises of Kash Patel, his nominee to lead the bureau:
      Kash Patel is the most qualified Nominee to lead the FBI in the Agency’s History, and is committed to helping ensure that Law, Order, and Justice will be brought back to our Country again, and soon. As everyone knows, I have great respect for the rank-and-file of the FBI, and they have great respect for me. They want to see these changes every bit as much as I do but, more importantly, the American People are demanding a strong, but fair, System of Justice. We want our FBI back, and that will now happen. I look forward to Kash Patel’s confirmation, so that the process of Making the FBI Great Again can begin.
      Patel has promised to make radical changes to the bureau, including dramatically downsizing its Washington headquarters, and opening investigations of journalists and others who have been critical of Trump. Republican senators have thus far signaled support for his nomination.Here’s more about Patel’s ideas, and the concerns that have been raised about them:Christopher Wray’s plans to step down as FBI director once he takes office will “end the weaponization” of federal law enforcement, Donald Trump said.Referring to the justice department as “the United States Department of Injustice”, Trump said of Wray, the outgoing FBI director whom he appointed in 2017: “I just don’t know what happened to him.” The president-elect has repeatedly claimed the bureau has become politicized, after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago resort and found classified documents. He’s also criticized the justice department under Joe Biden, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead Trump’s prosecution on charges of hiding classified documents, and attempting to overturn the 2020 election.Here’s more from Trump:
      The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice. I just don’t know what happened to him. We will now restore the Rule of Law for all Americans. Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me, and has done everything else to interfere with the success and future of America. They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them.
      The Senate judiciary committee’s outgoing Democratic chair, Dick Durbin, had this to say about Christopher Wray’s announcement that he will step down as FBI director once Donald Trump takes office:
      The FBI is critical to our nation’s security and our families’ safety. It will soon embark on a perilous new era with serious questions about its future. I want to thank Director Wray for his service to our nation, and all the men and women of the FBI for their continued efforts to protect our security and liberty.
      The committee is set to consider Donald Trump nominee Kash Patel’s qualifications for the FBI director job – but when it do so sometime next year, it’ll be Trump-aligned Republicans in the majority, not the Democrats.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US was “looking at the question” of whether there was evidence of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces committing genocide in Darfur when asked by Democratic congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove this afternoon at a House foreign affairs committee.Kamlager-Dove said a genocide determination was “overdue” as she pressed Blinken on what was causing the delay. Blinken said: “In terms of atrocities, war crimes, we’ve been making determinations already; we’re looking at the question of genocide. Whether we complete that review in the time we have left, I can’t tell you.”Blinken also said that Sudan, which has been at war since April 2023, was the “worst humanitarian situation in the world by orders of magnitude”, adding that modest progress had been made on getting aid into the country.Progressive thinktank Public Citizen called on Christopher Wray to rethink his decision to resign as FBI director once Joe Biden’s presidency ends.“FBI director Christopher Wray should stay. He should rethink his decision to resign and finish out his 10-year term,” the group’s co-president Robert Weissman, said in a statement.He continued:
      It is especially important that Wray stays in office in light of Donald Trump’s announced intention to appoint Kash Patel to the position. Patel is not only unqualified, he is a danger to America. Patel has already announced his intention to weaponize the FBI against Trump’s perceived enemies – threatening a return to the agency’s most sinister history, or worse.If Donald Trump fires him, so be it. But Wray should not aid and abet the effort to weaponize the FBI by bowing out in advance.
      Christopher Wray announced his resignation plans in a message to FBI employees today, Reuters reports.“After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” Wray said, according to a statement from the bureau seen by Reuters.The FBI director, Christopher Wray, will resign once Donald Trump takes office, Reuters reports.Trump appointed Wray to a 10-year term leading the federal law enforcement agency in 2017, but has since criticized him for the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago resort for classified documents and other actions the president-elect says are proof the bureau has been “weaponized” against him. After winning the presidential election, Trump nominated former national security official Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, who has so far received a positive reception from Senate Republicans.Patel’s nomination was a clear warning to Wray that if he did not resign, he would be fired.Donald Trump will be Time magazine’s person of the year this year, picking up the accolade for a second time, Politico reports.Trump previously won the honor in 2016, when he won his first term as president. Politico reports he beat out Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu and others for the title, and will celebrate by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow.Here’s more, from Politico:
      Last year, pop superstar Taylor Swift won the honor. To mark the magazine cover reveal, Time CEO Jessica Sibley rang the opening bell.
      Trump was also named Time Person of the Year in 2016 after he won the presidential election. He joins 13 other U.S. presidents who have received the recognition, including President Joe Biden.
      A short list for Time Person of the Year was announced Monday on NBC’s “The Today Show” and included Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, Kate Middleton, Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu.
      Time already announced NBA star Caitlin Clark as Athlete of the Year, Elton John as Icon of the Year and Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices as CEO of the Year.
      A spokesperson for Time said the magazine “does not comment on its annual choice for Person of the Year prior to publication. This year’s choice will be announced tomorrow morning, Dec. 12, on Time.com.”
      Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace yesterday said she had been assaulted by an activist who supports transgender rights, but witnesses to the incident say no such attack occurred, and they are puzzled as to why police made an arrest.The Washington Post and the Imprint report that the alleged attack took place at an anniversary celebration for a child welfare law, which Mace attended. The man who police would later go on to arrest on a charge of assaulting a government official, James McIntyre, is a former foster child who now advocates for their rights. Far from attacking Mace, he went up and shook her hand and spoke to her, the reports say.From the Imprint:
      At tonight’s event, Mace, who co-chairs Congress’ bipartisan foster care caucus, joined a group of legislators at a House reception celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999. The act created the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood, legislation that significantly expanded federal support for foster youth who leave the system after turning 18 without a permanent home.
      In her remarks at the House event, Rep. Mace told the crowd that while she was not an adoptee or former foster youth, she had been a victim of sexual abuse as a child. She called the dozens of advocates and foster youth in attendance — McIntyre among them — “the cream of the crop.”
      “I look forward to working with each and every one of you. God bless you, I will be praying for you,” Mace said.
      As she finished her comments and moved to leave the room, McIntyre approached her near an exit door, witnesses said.
      Elliott Hinkle, a former foster youth and advocate for LGBTQ rights, said McIntyre shook her hand, and made a comment about how many transgender youth are in foster care, adding: “They need your support.”
      “From what I saw, it was a normal handshake and interaction that I would expect any legislator to expect from anyone as a constituent,” said Hinkle, a consultant who has advised the federal government on issues affecting youth in foster care.
      Later, Hinkle said, one of Mace’s aides returned to the reception and asked McIntyre his name and whether he would repeat what he had told the legislator. Two other people who witnessed the interaction confirmed that description of the brief episode.
      McIntyre left the celebration, but he was later summoned back to the Rayburn Building by police.
      Donald Trump’s nominees for powerful cabinet positions are back on Capitol hill to make their cases to the Republican senators who will decide if they get the job. Pete Hegseth is making the rounds, after picking up apparent support from a senator who had grown wary of the defense secretary nominee following the emergence of a sexual assault allegation and stories of excessive drinking and poor treatment of women. Nominee for FBI director Kash Patel is also on the Hill, but his ex-boss, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, says he’s unqualified to lead the bureau because he inflated his résumé and was known for exaggerations and fibs.Here’s what else has been happening:

      Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman who introduced a bill to bar the first-ever openly transgender House lawmaker from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity, said she was attacked. Capitol police confirmed the arrest of an Illinois man on a charge of assaulting a public official.

      Conservative activists have launched a pressure campaign, which includes threats to launch primaries, against lawmakers who are less than enthusiastic in their support Trump’s cabinet picks.

      John Fetterman has become the first Democratic senator to join Trump’s X-like Truth Social. In his first post, he called both the president-elect’s hush-money case and the prosecution of Hunter Biden “bullshit”.
      Former national security adviser John Bolton said Kash Patel, whom he supervised during his time in Donald Trump’s first administration, is the wrong choice to lead the FBI.Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bolton says Patel inflated his résumé and was prone to exaggerations or outright fibs that jeopardized national security:
      Rep Devin Nunes pushed Mr Patel for the National Security Council staff after Republicans lost the House in 2018. Notwithstanding Mr Patel’s lack of policy credentials, the president ordered him hired. NSC staff has long been divided into directorates responsible for different policy areas. Charles Kupperman, my deputy, and I placed Mr. Patel in the International Organizations Directorate, which had a vacancy.
      Some five months later, we moved him to fill an opening in the Counter-Terrorism Directorate. In neither case was he in charge of a directorate during my tenure as national security adviser or thereafter, as he contends in his memoir and elsewhere. He reported to senior directors in both cases and had defined responsibilities. His puffery was characteristic of the résumé inflation we had detected when Mr Trump pressed him on us. We found he had exaggerated his role in cases he worked on as a Justice Department lawyer before joining Mr Nunes’s committee staff. Given the sensitivity of the NSC’s responsibilities, problems of credibility or reliability would ordinarily disqualify any job applicant.
      He proved to be less interested in his assigned duties than in worming his way into Mr Trump’s presence. Fiona Hill, NSC senior director for Europe, testified to Congress during Mr Trump’s first impeachment hearings that Mr Patel, at that time assigned to the International Organizations Directorate, participated in a May 2019 Oval Office meeting on Ukraine, and that he had engaged in various other Ukraine-related activities. Whatever he did on Ukraine while an NSC staffer, at least during my tenure, was unrestrained freelancing. (He has denied any communication with Mr Trump on Ukraine.)
      He also said Patel nearly compromised a hostage rescue mission by falsely stating that approval for US troops to enter a country had been granted:
      According to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir, during an October 2020 hostage-rescue mission, Mr Patel, then in the Counter-Terrorism directorate, misinformed other officials that a key airspace-transit clearance had been granted. In fact, Mr Esper writes, the clearance hadn’t been obtained, threatening the operation’s success, and his team “suspected Patel made the approval story up” but wasn’t certain. Typically, Mr Patel’s version of this episode in his memoir denies any error – though, ironically, it also boasts of his acting beyond the authority of NSC staffers. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also knew the day’s details, including about the clearance issue. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the incident. He should.
      Bolton, who was national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 and has since broken with Trump, said the president-elect likely nominated Patel simply because he would do whatever he is told – a dangerous qualification for a FBI director:
      Too many of Mr Trump’s personnel selections evidence his assiduous search for personal fealty, not loyalty to the Constitution. Kash Patel’s nomination as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation squarely fits this pattern.
      Also expected on Capitol Hill today is Kash Patel, a former defense official whom Donald Trump nominated to lead the FBI.Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said he would be meeting with Patel this morning.Yesterday, Patel met with several Republican senators, who generally praised him, despite his plans to radically change the FBI and potentially use it to go after Trump’s opponents.After their meeting yesterday, Senator Thom Tillis said on X:
      Kash Patel is the real deal. President Trump campaigned on the promise to enforce our laws equally and fairly and restore the integrity of the FBI. I look forward to supporting @Kash_Patel ’s confirmation.
      Senator Tommy Tuberville expressed a similar sentiment:
      Just met with the next FBI Director, @Kash_Patel. He will support our law enforcement officers and get the FBI back to working for the PEOPLE again. More