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      Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema vows to never join Republican party

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      US senator Kyrsten Sinema has vowed to never join the Republican party after she changed her party affiliation from Democrat to independent late last year.In an interview aired on Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, the Arizona senator said that she is “absolutely” done with the country’s two-party political system.The show’s host, Margaret Brennan, asked: “Now that you’re an independent, you’ll never become a Republican?”“No,” said Sinema, who has been accused of actually being a Republican after past legislative actions that have been hostile to Democrats’ agenda. She added: “You don’t go from one broken party to another.”Sinema elaborated by saying: “Arizona is one of the states that has the highest level of independents in the country. We are a state of folks who don’t often march to the drum that is being taught to us, right. So most of us don’t fit neatly in one box or another. And I think the challenge that we have right now in our political discourse is to make it OK for folks to think on their own.”Reports emerged last month that Sinema was preparing to run for re-election in 2024 as an independent after landing her office as a Democratic candidate in 2018.Those reports came after Sinema in December switched her party affiliation from Democrat to independent. She announced the change almost immediately after Democrats and independents who caucus with them had secured a 51-49 majority in the Senate.“I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington,” Sinema said in a statement at the time.Despite reports about her re-election plans, Sinema herself has remained tight-lipped in that respect.“It sounds like you want a second … term,” Brennan told Sinema in the interview aired on Sunday. Sinema replied: “I’m not here to talk about elections today.”Brennan countered, “Why keep people guessing?”Sinema said: “I want to stay focused on the work that I’m doing. I hope folks who are here today can tell how much it matters to me to actually make progress, solve challenges, deliver results.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That is why I get up and go to work every day. I don’t get up and go to work every day so that people can say, you know, is she running again or not? That’s just not my concern.”During her first term as senator, Sinema has often withheld her support for various legislative initiatives put forth by the Joe Biden White House, including voting rights protections. That drew the ire of progressives, many of her colleagues and supporters of the Democratic president.Sinema nevertheless has maintained that she has a working relationship with the White House – particularly on immigration reform legislation – despite her changed party affiliation.“I talked to the White House several times this week. I feel confident that if we are able to get a workable plan that has the support of 60-plus senators in the United States Senate, I feel confident that President Biden would support it. I feel confident,” said Sinema.Sinema’s pursuit of another Senate term as an independent could mean a competitive three-way race for her seat in Arizona. Democratic US House representative Ruben Gallego, 43, has declared as a candidate, and unsuccessful 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, 53, has said she is exploring a run. More

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      Moms for Liberty, meet John Birch: the roots of US rightwing book bans

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      Moms for Liberty is a Florida-based pressure group which campaigns for book bans in US public schools, an issue at the heart of the national debate as Republican-run states seek to control or eliminate teaching of sex education, LGBTQ+ rights and racism in American history.But rightwing calls for school book bans are by no means a new phenomenon – and a look at the Moms for Liberty website indicates why.Moms for Liberty seeks to organise “Madison Meetups”, events it describes as “like a book club for the constitution!”, featuring discussion of “liberty, freedom and the foundation of our government”. Under “resources that we have found helpful”, the only resource offered is The Making of America, a book by W Cleon Skousen.In the early 1960s, Skousen was a hero to and a defender of the John Birch Society, a far-right group that campaigned against what it claimed was the communist threat to America.Matthew Dallek, a professor of political management at George Washington University, is the author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right. He points out that though the Birchers were not the only ones promoting book bans in the 60s, “they were likely the most visible group promoting book bans or promoting the policing of content in schools, libraries, movie theaters, even on newsstands”.The Birchers, Dallek adds, focused on “the so-called erosion of the moral fiber of the United States, but also the struggle to rid the country of what they regarded as really the socialist left wing”.The society still exists but its influence is greater than its presence, most obviously through a resurgence of Bircher-esque thought and action in the Republican party of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.In the society’s heyday, Dallek says, book bans and school board elections, another current battlefield, “gave Birchers a way to take action in their community.“They looked at where their kids went to school and their local library and the movie theater they would pass by. Part of their agenda was to insert what they considered Americanist publications, as opposed to communist propaganda.“What’s frightening now is that I don’t recall a time where those efforts were so often successful. Moms for Liberty and the other successors to the John Birch Society, they’re having a lot more success at actually implementing their vision.”Last month, the writers’ organisation Pen America reported a 28% rise in public school book bans in just six months. As the 2024 election approaches, attacks on the place of race in history classes and teaching on LGBTQ+ issues seem certain to feature in Republican debates and town halls.Dallek considers the Birchers’ influence on the Republican party over more than 60 years. But he can’t recall the society inspiring “any sweeping legislation like Florida has now passed, through three major bills. And one in particular, it’s very Orwellian. They have these education minders who have to approve all texts in school libraries. That was certainly a dream of the Birch Society.”Tactics are familiar too. Birchers often protested against what they called pornography in books and teaching, as a vehicle for communistic thought. Now, the hard right sees pornography in books on LGBTQ+ rights, in drag queen story hours, or in the casting of children’s plays.Dallek says: “Whatever the language is, whether it’s ‘woke’, or ‘progressive’, or ‘pornographic’, or ‘communistic’, in a way the brilliance of the Birchers and other groups is in the way they use language. They’re able to distill ideas and aspects of the culture they find offensive and brand them as something evil, something un-American, something that will twist and pollute the minds of kids.“I don’t know that they meant that it was literally communistic to teach sex ed in schools but it was a kind of brilliant shorthand, because they were able to mobilise a lot of supporters by saying this was a civilizational battle. A battle for whether your children will grow up being moral or not, whether they’ll have a decent life.“And if we want to bring it back to today, Ron DeSantis is out there claiming, ‘We’re only banning books that are pornographic or that kids should not be exposed to.’ But then when you’re talking about banning Toni Morrison? I mean, come on. It’s ridiculous.”But it’s real. The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s first novel, and her masterpiece Beloved have been removed from some Florida libraries.Dallek notes other echoes. For instance, the role of rightwing women.“Historically, schools have been in terms of teaching jobs often reserved for women. And so, ironically, in the 1960s and 70s, as feminism becomes a major force in the culture and many women expect to work outside the home and be active politically, conservative, really far-right women take an element of that and get active in their communities.“Women have been on the frontlines of many of these fights to ban books, to police what kids are learning. Parental rights, the whole idea … is I think focused at the moms and … imposing their version of Christian morals on public education and many public spaces.“To go back to the W Cleon Skousen thing” on the Moms for Liberty website, “it does suggest a link to the past. Skousen continued to write in the 1980s and 90s. He was a defender of the John Birch Society and was held up as a hero.”Skousen died in 2006. Seventeen years later, to Dallek his recommendation from Moms for Liberty “suggests there really is a tradition in modern American politics, on the far right, that has become much more mainstream.“Groups like Moms for Liberty understand that. That there’s a set of ideas, and a literature, and a whole kind of subculture around this effort to police ideas and morality in schools. And they are tapping into that very effectively.”
      Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right is published in the US by Hachette More

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      Rightwingers praise free speech at CPAC Hungary – then eject Guardian journalist

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      US Republicans and their European allies tore up news headlines and ejected a Guardian journalist from a conference of radical rightwing activists, on the same day that they highlighted the importance of free speech.Speaking at the second annual meeting in Budapest of the US Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC), Kari Lake, a failed Republican gubernatorial candidate, said that “truth-tellers and peacemakers” were being destroyed by “fake news”.“It’s always opposite day in the media: if they’re telling what you’re doing is bad, it’s probably good,” said Lake before tearing up a sheaf of printed articles about the conference aimed at cementing radical rightwing ties across the Atlantic.Despite being a former TV news anchor, Lake made hostility towards the press a central theme in her unsuccessful 2022 election campaign, which included an advert in which she smashed TVs and pledged to “take a sledgehammer to the mainstream media’s lies and propaganda”.Addressing CPAC, she said her childhood ambition was to be a journalist, but that during the Covid pandemic she had realized that “some of the news wasn’t true”.Lake was one of the most high-profile Republicans in the midterm elections to embrace Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud. She lost her bid to become the governor of Arizona but refused to concede and continued making false claims of electoral wrongdoing.The CPAC audience also watched a recorded message from Donald Trump in which the former president said conservatives were “fighting against barbarians” and listed freedom of speech as one of the cardinal virtues of the far right.“We believe in tradition, the rule of law, freedom of speech and a God-given dignity of every human life. These are ideas that bind together our movement,” Trump said.Not long afterwards, a Guardian journalist was ejected from the conference, during an interview with Rick Santorum.The former Republican senator was praising Hungary’s parental leave policies, when one of the conference organisers grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away mid-sentence.A security guard then led the reporter to the exit.Meanwhile, speakers including the Newsweek comment editor, Josh Hammer, were preparing for a panel on “Free Speech”.CPAC later described the reporter’s registration for the conference as a “system error”.The International Press Institute (IPI) denounced the Guardian’s ejection from the event as a “shameless move” and an “attack on media freedom”.Enmity towards the media has been a constant theme at CPAC’s Hungarian iteration. Last year the organizers refused entry to journalists from all US media outlets, including Vice, Vox, Rolling Stone, the New Yorker and the Associated Press.This year, most independent journalists were refused accreditation for the event, held in a country where the IPI has said media freedom “remains suffocated”. During the Covid outbreak, Viktor Orbán’s government passed a law imposing prison sentences of up to five years for spreading disinformation. More

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      Clarence Thomas scandal deepens with report of rightwing activist’s secret payments to wife – as it happened

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      From 7h agoRightwing judicial activist Leonard Leo made secret payments to Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, ten years ago and emphasized “No mention of Ginni” on the documents, according to a new Washington Post investigation.In January 2012, Leo directed GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill the Judicial Education Project, a non-profit group he advises. He then ordered that money be used to pay Ginni Thomas, telling Conway that he wanted to “give” Thomas “another 25k”.“No mention of Ginni, of course,” Leo told Conway, who later became a senior adviser to Donald Trump, the Post reports. The subsequent bill sent to the JEP by Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, titled the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting”, according to documents reviewed by the Post.Later that year, the JEP filed an amicus brief in a case that challenged a civil rights law that sought to protect minority voters. In a 5-to-4 majority which Clarence Thomas was part of, the supreme court stripped away a formula in the Voting Rights Act that determined which states had to get federal permission before altering their voting rules and procedures.Following the Post’s revelations about the secret payments, Leo defended himself, telling the outlet:
      “It is no secret that Ginni Thomas has a long history of working on issues within the conservative movement, and part of that work has involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment. The work she did here did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues…
      As an advisor to JEP I have long been supportive of its opinion research relating to limited government, and The Polling Company, along with Ginni Thomas’s help, has been an invaluable resource for gauging public attitudes…
      Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni.”
      The investigation comes amid a handful of reports in recent weeks surrounding Clarence Thomas, who received luxury gifts, travel and tuition payments from the GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow without publicly disclosing them. He has since faced a slew of impeachment calls.In response to the reports, Democrats have been calling for investigations into Clarence Thomas and for tighter ethics standards for the supreme court justices, which Republicans have condemned as an “assault … well beyond ethics … [and] about trying to delegitimize a conservative court”.Meanwhile Leo himself has been accused of illegally misusing $73m from non-profit groups and diverting money to his businesses, according to a complaint from the non-profit watchdog organization, Campaign for Accountability.It’s slightly past 4pm in Washington DC. Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      Rightwing judicial activist Leonard Leo made secret payments to Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, ten years ago and emphasized “No mention of Ginni” on the documents, according to a new Washington Post investigation. The investigation comes amid a handful of reports in recent weeks surrounding Clarence Thomas, who received luxury gifts, travel and tuition payments from the GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow without publicly disclosing them. He has since faced a slew of impeachment calls.
      Kellyanne Conway has pushed back against the recent Washington Post investigation into Ginni Thomas, saying: “These people will stop at nothing,” referring to the slew of ethics advocates, protestors and Democratic lawmakers who have called for investigations into Clarence Thomas and his impeachment. “They want Clarence Thomas to resign. So Joe Biden, of all people, can replace him with one of his own,” Conway said.
      Lawmakers in North Carolina have passed a 12-week abortion ban, a change from the current 20-week ban in response to the supreme court’s overturn of Roe v Wade last year. The vote, which came on Thursday as a 29-20 party-line vote, was met with opposition from about 100 observers who watched the debate in the state senate, the Associated Press reports. The Democratic governor Roy Cooper has vowed to veto the bill.
      The Democratic senator and member of the senate judiciary committee Peter Welch has condemned the secret payments made to Ginni Thomas, calling it a “coverup” and “evasion”. Speaking to MSNBC on Friday, Welch said: “I use the word ‘deceit’. I used the word ‘coverup’. I’d use the word ‘evasion’ … it’s clear that Leonard Leo knew that if this saw the light of day, it would cause controversy. And the bottom line here is that the court is getting itself in this amount of trouble and that’s bad for our democracy.”
      Speaking to reporters on Friday, president Joe Biden accused Maga Republicans of trying to hold the debt “hostage to get us to agree to some draconian cuts”. “Whether you pay the debt or not doesn’t have a damn thing to do with what your budget is … let’s get it straight. They’re trying to hold the debt hostage to get us to agree to some draconian cuts, magnificently difficult, damaging cuts,” said Biden.
      Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says she is resigning effective 30 June. Walensky’s announcement comes as the World Health Organization today declared that the Covid-19 virus is no longer a global health emergency.
      The court in New York has released some material from defendant Donald Trump’s pre-trial deposition – the session in which he mistook plaintiff Carroll for his second wife, Marla Marples, despite saying the writer was “not his type”. And he says the picture was “very blurry”. It clearly shows Carroll. Trump is depicted next to his first wife, Ivana Trump. Trump points to a photograph he’s been shown and says: “It’s Marla, yeah, that’s my wife.”
      President Joe Biden has chosen Neera Tanden, the current White House staff secretary and senior adviser, to be his new domestic policy adviser, the Associated Press reports. Tanden, who has 25 years of experience of public policy, will be the first Asian American to lead any of the three major White House policy operations, he said. She will succeed Susan Rice who was previously a foreign policy expert.
      An investigation by ProPublica has found that South Carolina’s Democrat representative James Clyburn sought GOP assistance in protecting his district at a cost to Black Democrats. “Facing the possibility of an unsafe district, South Carolina’s most powerful Democrat sent his aide to consult with the GOP on a redistricting plan that diluted Black voting strength and harmed his party’s chances of gaining seats in Congress,” the outlet reported.
      The former North Carolina representative Madison Cawthorn has been fined $250 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor following the discovery of a loaded gun in his carry-on luggage at Charlotte airport last year. According to the Associated Press, a judge in Mecklenburg county court where the hearing took place allowed Cawthorn to keep the 9mm gun, which Transportation Security Administration seized last year.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.The former North Carolina representative Madison Cawthorn has been fined $250 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor following the discovery of a loaded gun in his carry-on luggage at Charlotte airport last year.According to the Associated Press, a judge in Mecklenburg county court where the hearing took place allowed Cawthorn to keep the 9mm gun, which Transportation Security Administration seized last year.“I’m very happy and thankful that the judge gave a really clear ruling that sides with the law,” Cawthorn told reporters after the hearing, the Associated Press reports.In 2021, Cawthorn was found with an unloaded gun while trying to board a plane at Asheville Regional Airport. Cawthorn was eventually allowed to board but had his gun confiscated.Cawthorn served one term in Congress after winning the election at age 25, which made him one of the youngest members in Congress at the time. Cawthorn, a Trump supporter, lost the 2022 GOP primary to Chuck Edwards.“How Rep. James Clyburn Protected His District at a Cost to Black Democrats” is the alarming ProPublica headline.Here’s the investigative website’s standfirst to go with their scoop: “Facing the possibility of an unsafe district, South Carolina’s most powerful Democrat sent his aide to consult with the GOP on a redistricting plan that diluted Black voting strength and harmed his party’s chances of gaining seats in Congress.”According to ProPublica, a Clyburn spokesperson acknowledged that the office “engaged in discussions regarding the boundaries of the 6th Congressional District by responding to inquiries” but did not reveal the extent of Clyburn’s role.“Any accusation that Congressman Clyburn in any way enabled or facilitated Republican gerrymandering that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred is fanciful,” Clyburn’s office said in a statement to the outlet.President Joe Biden has chosen Neera Tanden, the current White House staff secretary and senior adviser, to be his new domestic policy adviser, the Associated Press reports.Tanden, who has 25 years of experience of public policy, will be the first Asian American to lead any of the three major White House policy operations, he said. She will succeed Susan Rice who was previously a foreign policy expert.“As Senior Advisor and Staff Secretary, Neera oversaw decision-making processes across my domestic, economic and national security teams. She has 25 years of experience in public policy, has served three Presidents, and led one of the largest think tanks in the country for nearly a decade,” Biden said in a statement.“She was a key architect of the Affordable Care Act and helped drive key domestic policies that became part of my agenda, including clean energy subsidies and sensible gun reform. While growing up, Neera relied on some of the critical programs that she will oversee as Domestic Policy Advisor, and I know those insights will serve my Administration and the American people well,” he added.The jury in the civil trial, where writer E Jean Carroll accuses Donald Trump of raping her and then defaming her by calling her a liar, is not sitting today, but there is still some news.The court in New York has released some material from defendant Trump’s pre-trial deposition – the session in which he mistook plaintiff Carroll for his second wife, Marla Marples, despite saying the writer was “not his type”.And he says the picture was “very blurry”. It clearly shows Carroll. Trump is depicted next to his first wife, Ivana Trump.Trump points to a photograph he’s been shown and says: “It’s Marla, yeah, that’s my wife.”He’s then told it’s actually Carroll. He responds, apparently nonchalantly: “I assume that’s Carroll, because it’s very blurry.”Carroll, second from left, laughing, does not appear blurry in this image.Hello again, US politics live blog readers, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have gone for tacos (truly) and the US supreme court’s right wing is once again in trouble. It’s a lively Friday, so stay with us.Here’s where things stand:
      Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), says she is resigning effective 30 June.
      Joe Biden accused Maga Republicans of trying to hold the debt ceiling negotiations “hostage to get us to agree to some draconian cuts”.
      Lawmakers in North Carolina passed a 12-week abortion ban, a change from the current 20-week ban in response to the supreme court’s overturn of Roe v Wade last year.
      Rightwing judicial activist Leonard Leo made secret payments to US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, 10 years ago and emphasized “No mention of Ginni” on the documents, according to a new Washington Post investigation.
      There was some confusion late morning, as Joe Biden, during his remarks about jobs figures and the economy, said he’d be holding an important press conference this afternoon (that reporters did not know about.). Turns out that’s not the case, the White House soon clarified. Meanwhile, Potus and Veep (Kamala Harris), unannounced, went out in town for some 5 May tacos together.
      Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says she is resigning effective 30 June.Walensky’s announcement comes as the World Health Organization today declared that the Covid-19 virus is no longer a global health emergency.President Joe Biden praised Walensky’s leadership at the CDC, saying:
      “Dr. Walensky has saved lives with her steadfast and unwavering focus on the health of every American. As Director of the CDC, she led a complex organization on the frontlines of a once-in-a-generation pandemic with honesty and integrity. She marshalled our finest scientists and public health experts to turn the tide on the urgent crises we’ve faced.Dr. Walensky leaves CDC a stronger institution, better positioned to confront health threats and protect Americans. We have all benefited from her service and dedication to public health, and I wish her the best in her next chapter.”
      Speaking to reporters on Friday, president Joe Biden accused Maga Republicans of trying to hold the debt “hostage to get us to agree to some draconian cuts”.
      “Whether you pay the debt or not doesn’t have a damn thing to do with what your budget is … let’s get it straight. They’re trying to hold the debt hostage to get us to agree to some draconian cuts, magnificently difficult, damaging cuts,” said Biden.
      “My predecessor, in the four years he was president, increased that total debt by 40%,” Biden said, adding: “Let’s be clear, this is no small part about paying our bills that we’ve accumulated, not by me, not by my administration, but by former presidents and previous Congresses … We’re not a deadbeat nation. We pay our bills.”
      The Democratic senator and member of the senate judiciary committee Peter Welch has condemned the secret payments made to Ginni Thomas, calling it a “coverup” and “evasion”.Speaking to MSNBC on Friday, Welch said:
      “I use the word ‘deceit’. I used the word ‘coverup’. I’d use the word ‘evasion’ … it’s clear that Leonard Leo knew that if this saw the light of day, it would cause controversy. And the bottom line here is that the court is getting itself in this amount of trouble and that’s bad for our democracy …
      Whatever the relationship is with Thomas and his benefactor, it’s a pretty shocking thing to be getting vacations on yachts in Greece, in New Zealand, to be flying on private chats and have that not be known. And obviously the whole Federalist Society relationship is something that’s extraordinarily important. It’s been very discouraging.”
      He went on to explain the extent that the Federalist Society has over the nomination process of supreme court justices, saying:
      “When these nominees are put forward, the judiciary committee is an afterthought. The Federalist Society is the interview that really matters for those folks to get the … approval on the Republican side. And that has been a long term concerted, unfortunately, effective effort by Leonard Leo.
      We have to have a supreme court in this country that people respect … Anything that any one of those justices does that erodes the confidence that our people are all entitled to …is wrong.”
      Lawmakers in North Carolina have passed a 12-week abortion ban, a change from the current 20-week ban in response to the supreme court’s overturn of Roe v Wade last year.The vote, which came on Thursday as a 29-20 party-line vote, was met with opposition from about 100 observers who watched the debate in the state senate, the Associated Press reports.“Abortion rights now!” some observers shouted while others yelled: “Shame!” The state House passed the bill on Wednesday evening on a similar party-line vote.Meanwhile, the Republican state senator Joyce Krawiec hailed the bill on Thursday, saying: “Many of us who have worked for decades to save unborn babies for the sanctity of human life, we saw it as an opportunity to put forth a very pro-life, pro-woman legislation.”“This is a pro-life plan, not an abortion plan,” she said.The Democratic state senator Sydney Batch pushed back against the bill, saying, “This bill is an extreme and oppressive step backwards for our society and one that will deny women the right to make decisions about their own health care and future.”Democratic governor Roy Cooper has vowed to veto the bill, saying it is an “egregious, unacceptable attack on the women of our state”.The bill also includes additional medical and paperwork requirements for patients and physicians, as well as increased licensing requirements for abortion clinics that would make the procedure more difficult to attain.Meanwhile, across the state are growing fears as Mark Robinson, an extreme Republican who once labeled the transgender movement “demonic” and called Muslims “invaders”, runs for the governor’s office.“We have bills right now going through our general assembly to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. We have a ban against trans athletes or young people competing in sports right now. We have a lot of discriminatory, just persecuting our own citizens-type of legislation happening in our state,” Anderson Clayton, chair of the state’s Democratic party, told the Guardian.“And Mark Robinson is only going to be the person who’s going to make that worse.”Kellyanne Conway has pushed back against the recent Washington Post investigation into Ginni Thomas, saying: “These people will stop at nothing,” referring to the slew of ethics advocates, protestors and Democratic lawmakers who have called for investigations into Clarence Thomas and his impeachment.Speaking to Fox News on Friday, Conway said:
      “These people will stop at nothing. They want Clarence Thomas to resign. So Joe Biden, of all people, can replace him with one of his own …
      Ginni Thomas was one of my contractors and she had worked with the Heritage Foundation, she … is part of the grassroots. She had worked in the Reagan administration. This is a serious person who for years had worked in public policy At the Polling Company, we did public opinion research and data analytics. We had no business before the court.”
      Rightwing judicial activist Leonard Leo made secret payments to Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, ten years ago and emphasized “No mention of Ginni” on the documents, according to a new Washington Post investigation.In January 2012, Leo directed GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill the Judicial Education Project, a non-profit group he advises. He then ordered that money be used to pay Ginni Thomas, telling Conway that he wanted to “give” Thomas “another 25k”.“No mention of Ginni, of course,” Leo told Conway, who later became a senior adviser to Donald Trump, the Post reports. The subsequent bill sent to the JEP by Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, titled the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting”, according to documents reviewed by the Post.Later that year, the JEP filed an amicus brief in a case that challenged a civil rights law that sought to protect minority voters. In a 5-to-4 majority which Clarence Thomas was part of, the supreme court stripped away a formula in the Voting Rights Act that determined which states had to get federal permission before altering their voting rules and procedures.Following the Post’s revelations about the secret payments, Leo defended himself, telling the outlet:
      “It is no secret that Ginni Thomas has a long history of working on issues within the conservative movement, and part of that work has involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment. The work she did here did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues…
      As an advisor to JEP I have long been supportive of its opinion research relating to limited government, and The Polling Company, along with Ginni Thomas’s help, has been an invaluable resource for gauging public attitudes…
      Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni.”
      The investigation comes amid a handful of reports in recent weeks surrounding Clarence Thomas, who received luxury gifts, travel and tuition payments from the GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow without publicly disclosing them. He has since faced a slew of impeachment calls.In response to the reports, Democrats have been calling for investigations into Clarence Thomas and for tighter ethics standards for the supreme court justices, which Republicans have condemned as an “assault … well beyond ethics … [and] about trying to delegitimize a conservative court”.Meanwhile Leo himself has been accused of illegally misusing $73m from non-profit groups and diverting money to his businesses, according to a complaint from the non-profit watchdog organization, Campaign for Accountability.Good morning, US politics readers. A prominent conservative judicial activist arranged for Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work over ten years ago and emphasized “no mention of Ginni” on the payments, according to a new report.An investigation by the Washington Post revealed that Leonard Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society who led campaigns to support the nominations of a handful of conservative supreme court justices, directed GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway in 2012 to bill the Judicial Education Project, a non-profit Leo advises.Leo then told Conway, a former advisor to Donald Trump, that he wanted to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25k”, according to documents reviewed by the Post. “No mention of Ginni, of course,” Leo emphasized.The $25,000 bill Conway sent to the Judicial Education Project listed the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting” the Post reports.The investigation comes amid a handful of reports in recent weeks surrounding Clarence Thomas, who received luxury gifts, travel and tuition payments from the GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow without publicly disclosing them.Here are other developments in US politics:
      North Carolina lawmakers have passed a 12-week abortion ban, which Democratic governor Roy Cooper promised to veto.
      New York mayor Eric Adams and police are facing increasing criticism from protestors for a lack of action over 30-year-old Jordan Neely’s death.
      Senate Democrats are criticizing House Republicans’ proposal to raise the government’s borrowing limit in exchange for spending cuts. More

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      The conservative scholar who lit a match to the US right’s education wars

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      When two US senators – a Texas Republican and a Delaware Democrat – introduced a bill in June 2022 to expand grants for civics education, most observers saw it as something of an olive branch between the parties.But despite initial momentum, three now-familiar letters stopped the bill in its tracks: CRT.A mostly unknown conservative scholar writing in the National Review claimed the bill would “allow the Biden administration to push Critical Race Theory (CRT) on every public school in the country”, calling the Republican co-sponsors “naive” victims of a hidden leftist agenda.Critical race theory, which posits that racism permeates American institutions, has become rightwing shorthand for any classroom discussion of race.Senator John Cornyn, who proposed the legislation and is the former GOP majority whip, dismissed the allegations, writing on Twitter that “the false, hysterical claims are untrue and worthy of a Russian active measures campaign, not a serious discussion of our bill”.But truthful or not, the criticisms spread like wildfire.The National Review op-ed racked up thousands of interactions on social media, far-right Breitbart News ran an article whose headline pulled word-for-word from the editorial and Florida governor Ron DeSantis released a press release warning the $1bn federal civics bill would “award grants to indoctrinate students with ideologies like critical race theory.” High-profile commentators urged their followers to call lawmakers opposing what they described as “Trojan horse garbage” sponsored by “Rinos”, or Republicans in name only.The senators’ “Civics Secures Democracy Act” went no further.But how did this firestorm start?The story begins years prior and revolves around Stanley Kurtz, the author of the op-ed that lit the match and a little-noticed power player shaping the right’s recent offensives in the education culture wars.A campaign against ‘woke civics’Though his writings are regularly shared by GOP heavy hitters including Fox News analysts, groups like Parents Defending Education and sitting US senators, Kurtz has flown mostly under the radar.A 69-year-old former university instructor and longtime conservative commentator, Kurtz has spearheaded a quiet but influential campaign to cleanse classrooms of what he calls “woke civics” – a term that extends to any hands-on civics lessons entailing student contact with elected officials.He declined a phone interview, saying he “prefer[s] to comment by email”. In written messages, the scholar explained he believes hands-on civics projects “tilt overwhelmingly to the left”.“Any sort of political protest or lobbying done by students is subject to undue pressure from the biases of teachers, peers and non-profits working with schools. Political protest and lobbying ought to be done by students outside of school hours, independently of any class projects or grades,” said Kurtz.Neal McCluskey, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, has documented over 3,400 ideological “battles” in public schooling – over issues like controversial books or sex education – for more than a decade and said he has yet to see “compelling evidence” that liberal bias in civics classes has become a widespread problem. A 74 review of McCluskey’s tracker revealed that only a handful of incidents concerned civics.The argument amounts to a fabricated “boogeyman”, University of South Carolina law professor Derek Black said.The idea that leftist teachers could “create little warrior bands of students to go out and fight their political wars for them has become a captivating concern for some on the right”, Black said.A national networkIn 2021, Kurtz penned model legislation stipulating that students should be banned from receiving class credit for “lobbying” or “advocacy” at the local, state or federal level.At least eight bills proposed in five states pulled from the document, according to a Pen America report. The conservative Manhattan Institute included the legislation’s anti-lobbying provisions in its own model bill presented at the American Legislative Exchange Council, an annual forum to swap rightwing law-making proposals.Linda Bennett, a recently retired GOP South Carolina state representative, introduced a 2021 bill by the exact same name as Kurtz’s “Partisanship Out of Civics Act”.“No need to reinvent the wheel if somebody’s got it right,” she told The 74.Bennett insisted that her office had become flooded with young students, coerced by their educators, demanding that she “please support allowing teachers to teach critical race theory”. But she could not name a specific school or teacher that had influenced students to take an activist stance.In Texas, a provision from Kurtz’s model bill found its way into the state’s 2021 anti-CRT law and resulted in an unprecedented restriction on students’ civic engagement. The legislation banned assignments involving “direct communication” between students and their federal, state or local lawmakers.In the two years since passage, Texas educators say they have been forced to abandon time-honored assignments such as having students attend a school board meeting or advocate for local causes like a stop sign at an intersection near campus.Sarai Paez, a recent high school graduate from a suburb outside Austin, said the new law is “a step backwards”. Students in her ninth-grade civics class passed a 2018 city ordinance calling for youth representation in their local government – advocacy that would now be outlawed.“There’s no need to take away something that has affected … a group of people in a positive way,” she said.Kurtz and the rightwing lawmakers and advocates who have helped translate his policy agenda into practice are linked by more than just shared philosophy. They’re also connected by money.His employer, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative thinktank “dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy”, has a dozen funders in common with the Manhattan Institute, tax filings reveal, including mega-donors like the Charles Koch Foundation.Texas state representative Steve Toth, co-sponsor of the 2021 legislation restricting civics assignments, also receives campaign funds from the Koch Foundation.Neither Toth nor the Ethics and Public Policy Center responded to requests for comment.Governor DeSantis, in Florida, also shares at least one donor, Fidelity Investments, in common with Kurtz’s think tank.The issues of interest to Kurtz have repeatedly found their way to DeSantis’s bully pulpit. The governor recently doubled down on civics education rooted in “patriotism” and his rejection earlier this year of the College Board’s AP African American Studies curriculum came just a few months after Kurtz began writing critically about the issue. Kurtz named two authors specifically in his September article, Robin Kelley and Kimberlé Crenshaw, who the Florida department of education later objected to.Education department press secretary Cassie Palelis said Florida’s concerns with the course were the “result of a thorough review” and its correspondence with the College Board had begun in early 2022. When asked whether officials referenced Kurtz’s work during that process and, if so, what role it played, Palelis did not address the question.As for the Kurtz model legislation, its influence continues to spread.In January, a district outside of Colorado Springs voted to adopt a new social studies curriculum that bans awarding course credit for service learning or action civics.“We are in it for the long haul,” said David Randall, research director at the National Association of Scholars, which published Kurtz’s model bill. “Our mission is to inspire as many Americans as possible to join this work.
      This report was first published by The 74, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news site covering education in America More

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      Fears grow in North Carolina as ultra-extreme Republican eyes governor’s mansion

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      To Mark Robinson, gay and transgender people are “filth”, homosexuality is an abominable sin, and the transgender movement is “demonic” and “full of the spirit of the antichrist”.Muslim Americans, meanwhile, are invaders, and Robinson is not afraid to dabble in antisemitism: in his mind an international cabal of Jewish financiers make up a modern-day “four horsemen of the apocalypse”, who rule the banks in “every single country”.Lots of people have offensive and conspiracy-minded beliefs. But not all of them are running, as Robinson is, to be governor of North Carolina.And to people who don’t share Robinson’s views, the problem is that it looks like he could win – furthering the Republican party’s years-long lunge to what was previously rightwing fringe politics.“Mark Robinson would be the most extreme gubernatorial candidate but also governor that we’ve ever seen in our history,” said Anderson Clayton, the chair of the North Carolina Democratic party.The risk Robinson would pose if elected in November 2024 – polling is scarce at this stage, but experts believe the race between Robinson and Josh Stein, his expected Democratic opponent, is a toss-up – is real. Republicans control both the state house and senate, and the GOP expanded its lead in last year’s elections.Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor whose tenure is forced term limits to come to an end in 2023, has vetoed 52 bills from becoming law in his six years in office, the Assembly reported, including laws that would have rolled back gun control and reduced abortion access.With a Republican in the governor’s office – particularly a governor like Robinson – there would be no one to hold back a wave of rightwing bills.“We have bills right now going through our general assembly to ban gender affirming care for trans youth. We have a ban against trans athletes or young people competing in sports right now. We have a lot of discriminatory, just persecuting our own citizens-type of legislation happening in our state,” Clayton said.“And Mark Robinson is only going to be the person who’s going to make that worse.”There was a time, not that long ago, when North Carolina was seen as a future Democratic state.Barack Obama won there, narrowly, in 2008, and Democrats giddily held their national convention there in 2012, with the hope they could triumph in North Carolina for years to come. It didn’t happen, and Republicans have won every presidential election since.Republicans have super-majorities in the state legislature, yet Chris Cooper, a professor of political science at Western Carolina university, said elections for state positions like governor have tended to be close.“North Carolina has been right on the razor’s edge between Democrat and Republican. We were the bluest red state in the country in 2020 – of all states that Trump won, his margin was among the smallest in North Carolina,” he said.“I think it is the definition of a purple state in that it’s right in the middle. What it has not done at the presidential level is to swing – so it is a purple state but not a swing state.”Taken in isolation, Robinson’s back story is compelling. One of 10 children who grew up poor in Greensboro, he was elected North Carolina’s lieutenant governor in 2020, becoming the first Black person to hold the position.A former furniture manufacturer who has been declared bankrupt three times, Robinson credits his political career to a moment in April 2018: “My life changed when I gave a speech to the Greensboro city council that went viral,” he writes on his website.That speech gave a flavor of what was to come.There had been more than 50 mass shootings between January and March 2018, according to the Gun Violence Archive, but Robinson used his speech to rail against stricter gun control laws, claiming: “We need to drop all this division we have going on here.”“When are you all going to start standing up for the majority. And here’s who the majority is. I’m the majority,” Robinson said.“I’m a law abiding citizen who’s never shot anyone, never committed a serious crime, never committed a felony. I’ve never done anything like that. But it seems like every time we have one of these shootings, nobody wants to blame… put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter’s feet. You want to put it at my feet.”Polls have shown that most North Carolinians support stricter gun control laws, but it hasn’t stopped Robinson crowing about the issue.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe spoke at the National Rifle Association’s Texas convention in May 2022 – the gun lobbying event was held days after 19 students and two adults were killed in a school shooting in the state. In another event that month Robinson told a crowd that he owns an AR-15 – the assault-style rifle used in a majority of recent mass shootings – “​​in case the government gets too big for its britches”.Guns are far from Robinson’s only passionate issue.Gay rights and trans rights – specifically, the idea that the groups should have fewer – have dominated his communications in the past. After the 2016 shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Robinson wrote on Facebook that he would “pray for the souls” of those killed and wounded, but added: “However, homosexuality is STILL an abominable sin.”In June 2021, Robinson told a crowd at a Baptist church: “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth,” and two months later declared that the transgender movement “is demonic and is full of the spirit of the antichrist”.Robinson has also said Muslim-Americans are “invaders” who “refuse to assimilate to our ways while demanding respect they have not earned”, and responded: “That’s exactly right,” when it was put to him by a pastor that the Rothschild family of “international bankers that rule every single national or federal reserve-type style of central bank in every single country”.Since becoming lieutenant governor Robinson has been accused of hypocrisy over his admission that he paid for his now wife to have an abortion in 1989, given he supports banning the procedure from six weeks after fertilization, but little seems to have dented his popularity – he is firmly the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.Robinson’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but in the days following his 2020 election to lieutenant governor, Robinson declined to distance himself from several of his past remarks, which also include claiming Obama is an “anti-American atheist” and suggesting “half of black Democrats don’t realize they are slaves”.“He’s cut right out of the Trump mold, in that he is rhetorically extreme,” Cooper said.“He has a penchant for making extreme, bombastic and offensive statements, particularly about the LGBTQ community. He’s a candidate who is very comfortable in the culture wars and stoking the flames of the culture wars.”Given his history, and the looming threat of what he might do in office, Clayton said a victory for Robinson could have ramifications similar to those North Carolina experienced in 2016.Back then businesses, performers and even the National Basketball Association ditched the state after it passed a law which banned transgender people from using the public bathrooms that match their gender identities.If Robinson wins the Republican primary – which is “bordering on a certainty”, Cooper said – it could potentially cause problems for the Republican party at large, highlighting the extreme anti-LGBTQ views that lurk within the GOP.“He’s a risky candidate in a lot of ways,” Cooper said.“He will have ramifications up and down the ballot. But he’ll also motivate some voters, much like Trump motivated Republicans and Democrats, Mark Robinson’s going to do the same.” More

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      Proud Boys: four found guilty of seditious conspiracy over Capitol attack

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      Four members of the Proud Boys extremist group, including its former leader Enrique Tarrio, were on Thursday convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in planning and leading the January 6 Capitol attack, in a desperate effort to keep Donald Trump in power after his 2020 election defeat.The verdicts handed down in federal court in Washington marked a major victory for the US justice department in the last of its seditious conspiracy cases related to the January 6 attack. Prosecutors previously secured convictions against members of the Oath Keepers, another far-right group.Seditious conspiracy is rarely used but became the central charge against the Proud Boys defendants after the FBI identified them as playing crucial roles in helping storm the Capitol in an effort to interrupt and stop the congressional certification of electoral results.“Evidence presented at trial detailed the extent of the violence at the Capitol on January 6 and the central role these defendants played setting into motion the unlawful events of that day,” attorney general Merrick Garland later said at a news conference at justice department headquarters.“We have secured the convictions of leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy, specifically conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power. Our work will continue,” Garland said.Those convicted now await sentencing. The verdicts were partial, and hours after the initial four were found guilty of seditious conspiracy, the jury found another Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola, who smashed a window to gain entry to the Capitol, not guilty of seditious conspiracy.Tarrio, who was not in Washington for the Capitol attack, as well as Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl were also convicted of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. All five were convicted of obstructing an official proceeding.The trial, which lasted more than three months and tested the scope of the sedition law, was particularly fraught for the defense, the prosecution and the presiding US district court judge, Timothy Kelly. Clashes in court and motions for mistrial were frequent.Trump played an outsized role in the trial, given the reverence the Proud Boys accorded the former president. In closing arguments, the prosecution said they acted as “Donald Trump’s army” to “keep their preferred leader in power” after rejecting Joe Biden’s victory.The former president has long been considered the lynchpin for the involvement of the Proud Boys and others in the Capitol attack when he called for a “wild” protest on 6 January 2021 in an infamous December 2020 tweet and told supporters to “fight like hell” for his cause.More than a thousand arrests have been made in connection to the Capitol attack and hundreds of convictions secured. Trump was impeached a second time for inciting an insurrection but acquitted by Senate Republicans. He still faces state and federal investigations of his attempted election subversion.In court, prosecutors said Tarrio and his top lieutenants used Trump’s December tweet as a call to arms and started putting together a cadre that they called the “Ministry of Self-Defense” to travel to Washington for the protest, according to private group chats and recordings of discussions the FBI obtained.Around 20 December 2020, Tarrio created a chat called “MOSD Leaders Group” – described by Tarrio as a “national rally planning committee” – that included Nordean, Biggs and Rehl. The chat was used to plan a “DC trip” where all would dress in dark tones, to remain incognito.The prosecution argued that Tarrio’s text messages about “Seventeen seventy six”, in reference to the year of American independence from Britain, suggested the leadership of the Proud Boys saw their January 6 operation as a revolutionary force.Lacking evidence in the hundreds of thousands of texts about an explicit plan to storm or occupy the Capitol, the prosecution used two cooperating witnesses from the Proud Boys to make the case that the defendants worked together in a conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power.The first witness, Jeremy Bertino, told the jury the Proud Boys had a penchant for violence and there was a tacit understanding that they needed to engage in an “all-out revolution” to stop Biden taking office, testimony meant to directly support a sedition charge.The second witness, Matthew Greene, told the jury he did not initially understand why the Proud Boys marched from the Washington monument to the Capitol to be among the first people at the barricades surrounding Congress, instead of going to Trump’s speech near the White House.Once the Proud Boys led the charge from the barricades to the west front of the Capitol, Pezzola using a police riot shield to smash a window, Greene said he realized there may have been a deliberate effort to lead the January 6 riot.The prosecution persuaded the judge to allow them to use a novel legal strategy: that though the Proud Boys leaders did not really engage in violence themselves – Tarrio was not even in Washington – they got other rioters to do so, using them as “tools” of their insurrection conspiracy.The defense protested the ruling allowing prosecutors to show the jury videos of other low-level Proud Boys and random rioters committing violence at the Capitol, saying that it amounted to making the five defendants guilty by association.Notwithstanding the other evidence, the defense’s complaint was that if the jury had to assess whether the defendants’ limited use of violence alone met the threshold to “destroy by force the government of the United States”, the outcome might have been affected. More

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      Proud Boys leader and three others convicted of seditious conspiracy for January 6 attack – as it happened

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      From 6h agoFormer Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio has been convicted of seditious conspiracy.The conviction follows a seven-day jury deliberation on five members of the far-right neo-fascist organizations who have been accused of conspiring against the peaceful power transition between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in January 2021.Three other members of the Proud Boys – Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl – have also been convicted after facing a slew of charges including conspiracy charges, evidence tampering and obstruction of the Electoral College vote.Member Domic Pezzola was also charged but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on his seditious conspiracy charge.Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6, 2021 during the deadly Capitol riots but prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol where 5 people died.Since the riots, Tarrio became a top target of the largest investigation by the justice department in American history.Defense lawyers argued that there was no plan to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. One of Tarrio’s lawyer tried to divert the blame on Trump, saying that the former president incited the attack after he told the mob to “fight like hell,” the Associated Press reports.The seditious conspiracy charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.It’s 4pm in Washington DC today. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      A grandnephew of Clarence Thomas, whom the supreme court justice described as a “son”, had his private school tuition paid for by billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow, according to a new investigation by ProPublica. Financial documents reviewed by ProPublica showed that in July 2009, a payment was made by Crow’s company to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in northern Georgia where tuition ran over $6,00 monthly.
      Former Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio has been convicted of seditious conspiracy. The conviction follows a seven-day jury deliberation on five members of the far-right neo-fascist organizations who have been accused of conspiring against the peaceful power transition between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in January 2021.
      Donald Trump is seeking to move his his criminal case by Manhattan’s district attorney to federal court, his lawyers said on Thursday. Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said that Trump’s defense team is planning to file a motion on Thursday that will transfer the case involving hush-money payments from state court to federal court.
      New York City mayor Eric Adams has criticized representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her remarks that condemned the death of a homeless subway rider. “I don’t think that’s very responsible at the time where we are still investigating the situation,” Adams said on CNN on Wednesday night after Ocasio-Cortez called the death of Jordan Neely a “murder.”
      In the latest behind-the-scenes video of Tucker Carlson published by the progressive watchdog Media Matters for America, the now fired Fox News host asks a makeup artist about what women do in the bathroom and if they ever have pillow fights. The footage of the insinuating comments follows the leak of video of Carlson making coarse remarks about a woman and Fox News viewers in general.
      Following vice president Kamala Harris’s meeting today with CEOs of tech companies including Microsoft and Google, Harris said the private sector has a “legal responsibility” to ensure the safety of AI products. “As I shared today with CEOs of companies at the forefront of American AI innovation, the private sector has an ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products. And every company must comply with existing laws to protect the American people,” said Harris in a statement.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has declined to comment on the recent reports surrounding supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s acceptance of undisclosed luxury gifts. Jean-Pierre told reporters: “Right now…as it relates to the ethics, as it relates to that process, the senate is clearly moving forward with their own senate procedural process. I’m going to leave it there for now,” she said.
      Following the verdict delivered earlier today that found three members and the leader of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys guilty of seditious conspiracy, the White House declined to comment on the case,” saying that it does not want to “interfere.” Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “We have seen the verdict but while the verdict has been reached in this case, we are also mindful that there are other similar cases pending and so we don’t want to interfere with those.”
      Democratic senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the senate finance committee, has announced that he is urging Harlan Crow “for answers” on his luxury gifts to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. “I’m pushing Harlan Crow for answers on his lavish gifts to Clarence Thomas. If he doesn’t comply by May 8, I will absolutely explore other tools at the Finance Committee’s disposal to shed more light on what appears to be blatant corruption,” he said.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Democratic senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the senate finance committee, has announced that he is urging Harlan Crow “for answers” on his luxury gifts to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. On Thursday, following reports that Thomas accepted private school tuition payments made to his grandnephew by the GOP billionaire donor, Wyden tweeted:
      “I’m pushing Harlan Crow for answers on his lavish gifts to Clarence Thomas. If he doesn’t comply by May 8, I will absolutely explore other tools at the Finance Committee’s disposal to shed more light on what appears to be blatant corruption.”
      Following the verdict delivered earlier today that found three members and the leader of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys guilty of seditious conspiracy, the White House declined to comment on the case,” saying that it does not want to “interfere.”Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “We have seen the verdict but while the verdict has been reached in this case, we are also mindful that there are other similar cases pending and so we don’t want to interfere with those.”“I would refer you to the department of justice for comment on this case….but we’re going to be mindful as we know there are other pending issues here,” she added.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has declined to comment on the recent reports surrounding supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s acceptance of undisclosed luxury gifts. When asked by a reporter during Thursday’s press briefing on why she has not commented on any stories related to Thomas and his code of conduct, Jean-Pierre replied:“Right now…as it relates to the ethics, as it relates to that process, the senate is clearly moving forward with their own senate procedural process. I’m going to leave it there for now,” she said.Last month, following reports of Thomas’s acceptance of undisclosed luxury gifts including travel and private school tuition from GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow, senate Democrats urged supreme court chief justice John Roberts to investigate the undisclosed luxury trips.Earlier this week, senate Democrats called for tighter rules on the supreme court justices surrounding ethics standards but met resistance from Republicans who condemned Democrats’ efforts as an “assault.”Republican senator Lindsey Graham condemned Democrats, labeling their efforts as an attempt to “delegitimize a conservative court.”Following vice president Kamala Harris’s meeting today with CEOs of tech companies including Microsoft and Google, Harris said the private sector has a “legal responsibility” to ensure the safety of AI products.
      “As I shared today with CEOs of companies at the forefront of American AI innovation, the private sector has an ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products. And every company must comply with existing laws to protect the American people,” said Harris in a statement.
      She added that she is working alongside president Joe Biden are working on advancing potential new regulations and supporting new legislation “so that everyone can safety benefit from technological innovations.”More lunchtime reading, this time from Poppy Noor, who considers the considerable political challenges facing Republicans over strict abortion bans passed after the downfall of Roe v Wade …In one state, Republican women filibustered to block a near total abortion ban introduced by their own party.In another, the Republican co-sponsor of a six-week abortion ban tanked his own bill. On the federal level, a Republican congresswoman warns that the GOP’s abortion stance could meaning “losing huge” in 2024.As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show.READ ON:Our regular guest columnist, the Vermont senator and former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, would like a word about American workplace culture and particularly the toll of so spending so many hours in the office, factory, shop or other place of gainful employ …In 1938, as a result of a massive grassroots effort by the trade union movement, the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted by Congress to reduce the work week to 40 hours. Back then, the American people were sick and tired of working 80, 90, 100 hours a week with very little time for rest, relaxation or quality time with their families. They demanded change and they won a huge victory. That’s the good news.The bad news is that despite an explosion in technology, major increases in worker productivity, and transformational changes in the workplace and American society, the Fair Labor Standards Act has not been reformed in 80 years. The result: millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, with the average worker making nearly $50 a week less than he or she did 50 years ago, after adjusting for inflation. Further, family life is suffering, as parents don’t have adequate time for their kids, life expectancy for working people is in decline, and increased stress is a major factor in the mental health crisis we are now experiencing.Compared with other countries, our workplace record is not good. In 2021, American employees worked 184 more hours than Japanese workers, 294 more hours than British workers, and 442 more hours than German workers. Unbelievably, in 2023 there are millions of Americans who work at jobs with no vacation time.It’s time to reduce the work week to 32 hours with no loss in pay. It’s time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life. It’s time to make sure that working people benefit from rapidly increasing technology, not just large corporations that are already doing phenomenally well.READ ON:In the latest behind-the-scenes video of Tucker Carlson published by the progressive watchdog Media Matters for America, the now fired Fox News host asks a makeup artist about what women do in the bathroom and if they ever have pillow fights.The footage of the insinuating comments follows the leak of video of Carlson making coarse remarks about a woman and Fox News viewers in general; a discussion of sexual technique with Piers Morgan; disparaging remarks about the Fox Nation streaming service; and comments about a lawyer who deposed Carlson in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit, who the host called a “slimy little motherfucker”.That suit, over Fox News’ broadcast of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 US election, was settled last month for $787.5m. Shortly after that, Carlson was surprisingly fired.Speculation and reporting about why Carlson was fired continues.Earlier this week, the New York Times published a racially inflammatory text message Carlson sent after the Capitol attack. That message was redacted in Dominion filings but other message, including abusive comments, were released. Carlson’s comments about Fox News executives were reportedly linked to his firing, including one in which he is reported to have called a female executive a “cunt”. A former booker on his show also filed suit, alleging a misogynistic working atmosphere.Fox News has not commented on why Carlson was fired. It has called the suit from the former booker, Abby Grossberg, “unmeritorious” and “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees”.Last week, a person close to Carlson told the Guardian the firing was not over abusive messages or crude comments.“An elderly Australian man” – the Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, 92 – “fired his top anchor with no warning because he was so offended by a dirty word? Stupidest explanation ever. Please. A big decision requires a powerful motive. Naughty words in text messages don’t qualify.”In the footage released on Thursday, Carlson is seen on-set, having makeup applied by an unidentified woman.He says: “Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer, it’s personal.”The woman indicates assent.Carlson says: “I’m not speaking of you, but more in general with ladies, when they go to the ladies room and ‘powder their noses’, is there actually nose-powdering going on?The woman says: “Sometimes.”Carlson says: “Oooh. I like the sound of that.”The woman says: “Most of the time, it’s lipstick.”Carlson says: “Do pillow fights ever break out? You don’t have to, you don’t have to –”The woman says: “Not in the bathroom.”Carlson says: “OK. Not in the bathroom. That’d be more a dorm activity.”After an unintelligible remark off camera, Carlson apologises.“I’m sorry,” he says. “You are such a good sport. Such a good person. Thank you. I know you do, but you do not deserve that. And I mean it with great affection.”New York City mayor Eric Adams has criticized representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her remarks that condemned the death of a homeless subway rider.“I don’t think that’s very responsible at the time where we are still investigating the situation,” Adams said on CNN on Wednesday night.“Let’s the DA conduct his investigation with the law enforcement officials. To really interfere with that is not the right thing to do,” he continued.Adams’ remarks comes after Ocasio-Cortez condemned the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year old Black homeless person who died after a 24-year-old former marine placed him in a chokehold on the subway.
      “Jordan Neely was murdered. But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It’s disgusting,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
      “It is appalling how so many take advantage of headlines re: crime for an obsolete ‘tough on crime’ political, media, & budgetary gain, but when a public murder happens that reinforces existing power structures, those same forces rush to exonerate & look the other way. We shouldn’t,” she added.
      Donald Trump is seeking to move his his criminal case by Manhattan’s district attorney to federal court, his lawyers said on Thursday.Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said that Trump’s defense team is planning to file a motion on Thursday that will transfer the case involving hush-money payments from state court to federal court.The announcement comes a month after Trump appeared at a Manhattan courtroom for his arraignment as prosecutors accused him of committing 34 felony counts involving an alleged cover up of an extramarital sex scandal involving adult star Stormy Daniels.Trump has pleaded not guilty.Trump’s attempt to transfer the case to federal court will likely be a “long shot,” the New York Times reports, and will not have any immediate impact on the current state case.A federal judge will decide whether to approve the request or not.Former Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio has been convicted of seditious conspiracy.The conviction follows a seven-day jury deliberation on five members of the far-right neo-fascist organizations who have been accused of conspiring against the peaceful power transition between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in January 2021.Three other members of the Proud Boys – Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl – have also been convicted after facing a slew of charges including conspiracy charges, evidence tampering and obstruction of the Electoral College vote.Member Domic Pezzola was also charged but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on his seditious conspiracy charge.Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6, 2021 during the deadly Capitol riots but prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol where 5 people died.Since the riots, Tarrio became a top target of the largest investigation by the justice department in American history.Defense lawyers argued that there was no plan to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. One of Tarrio’s lawyer tried to divert the blame on Trump, saying that the former president incited the attack after he told the mob to “fight like hell,” the Associated Press reports.The seditious conspiracy charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.Several political advocacy organizations have issued statements condemning Clarence Thomas in light of recent reports surrounding his failure to disclose luxury gifts. Stand Up America, a nonprofit grassroots organization focusing combatting corruption and voter suppression, has called for a “thorough investigation” into Thomas. In a statement to the Guardian, Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs, said:
      “This ethical crisis at the Supreme Court just keeps getting worse… We don’t yet know the full extent of Justice Thomas’ ethical violations, but the existing evidence of a corrupt relationship is overwhelming and should alarm every American.
      Congress must hold this Court in check and restore public trust in our justice system by conducting a thorough investigation into Thomas’ financial dealings with Crow and finally passing a code of ethics for the Supreme Court. The American people should have confidence that their highest court is free from corruption.”
      Similarly, Acccountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog organization that sheds light on special interests and unchecked power, has called for “urgent reform” in the supreme court.In a statement to the Guardian, Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig said:
      “Billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow didn’t just bankroll Thomas’s luxury travel, his mother’s house, and his wife’s job — he also covered his kid’s private school tuition, which he conveniently didn’t disclose.
      Over decades, these two have maintained a highly problematic financial relationship that has facilitated what looks like corruption at the highest levels. Meanwhile, Chief Justice Roberts has completely dodged responsibility by refusing to take action while the Court’s legitimacy crisis grows. We need urgent reform to restore public trust in our Court.”
      A new investigation by ProPublica revealed that billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow paid the tuition of Mark Martin, a grandnephew of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.According to ProPublica, Mark Martin, whom Thomas obtained legal custody over when Martin was 6-years old, attended a private boarding school in northern Georgia called Hidden Lakes Academy for about a year.During his time at the school, his tuition was paid for by Crow, former school administrator Christopher Grimwood told ProPublica. A bank document reviewed by the investigative outlet from 2009 showed a wire transfer of $6,200 to the school from Crow’s company. The transfer was labeled with “Mark Martin.”The investigation also found that before and after Martin’s time at Hidden Lake Academy, he attended Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia, another boarding school. “Harlan said he was paying for the tuition at Randolph-Macon Academy as well,” Grimwood recalled Crow telling him during a visit to the real estate magnate’s estate in the Adirondacks.Despite disclosing a gift of $5,000 for Martin’s education from another friend several years earlier, Thomas did not disclose Crow’s tuition payments, according to ProPublica.Crow’s spokespersons have defended Crow’s payments, telling ProPublica in a statement:
      “Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth… he and his wife have supported many young Americans through scholarship and other programs at a variety of schools…
      Harlan and Kathy have particularly focused on students who are at risk of falling behind or missing out on opportunities to better themselves… Tuition and other financial assistance is given directly to academic institutions, not to students or to their families. These scholarships and other contributions have always been paid solely from personal funds, sometimes held at and paid through the family business.”
      The report follows last month’s bombshell report by ProPublica that revealed Thomas had accepted luxury travel from Crow annually for decades without publicly disclosing them.The revelations have caught the ire of many lawmakers and ethics experts.Earlier this week, Democrats called for tighter rules and ethics standards for the supreme court justices, which Republicans pushed back against, calling Democrats’ efforts an “assault…[and] about trying to delegitimize a conservative court.”Good morning, US politics readers. A great-nephew of Clarence Thomas, whom the supreme court justice described as a “son”, had his private school tuition paid for by billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow, according to a new investigation by ProPublica.Financial documents reviewed by ProPublica showed that in July 2009, a payment was made by Crow’s company to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in northern Georgia where tuition ran over $6,00 monthly. The payment of $6,200 was labeled with the name of Thomas’s great-nephew, Mark Martin.Martin, who was taken into legal custody by Thomas when he was six years old, had his tuition paid for entirely by Crow during his time at Hidden Lake Academy, which was about a year, according to a former school administrator Christopher Grimwood.Thomas did not report Crow’s tuition payments on his annual financial disclosures, ProPublica revealed in its investigation. This investigation follows another ProPublica report last month which revealed that Thomas accepted luxury travel from Crow for decades without disclosing them on his financial reports.Here are other developments in US politics:
      A New York judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit that accused the New York Times of an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records.
      Vice president Kamala Harris will meet with Google and Microsoft CEOs today to discuss AI risks.
      Iowa lawmakers have passed a Republican-led bill that allows teenagers to work longer hours and take previously banned jobs. More