Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Do you have no shame?’: Tulsi Gabbard grills congressman-elect George Santos

      by

      ‘Do you have no shame?’: Tulsi Gabbard grills congressman-elect George SantosThe former presidential candidate called resume-inflating Santos’s claims ‘blatant lies’ in Fox News interview In a Fox News interview with former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday, Republican congressman-elect George Santos claimed he is not a “fraud” when questioned about the recent revelations – and his eventual admission – that his claims about his career and identity are riddled with lies and fabricated records.First Gen Z congressman Maxwell Frost says he’s part of the ‘mass shooting generation’Read moreThe Fox interview came the same day as fresh allegations that he falsely claimed a Jewish identity.Even though Santos told the New York Post that he never claimed to be Jewish, there is documentation proving otherwise. Santos had been loud about his identity as a “proud American Jew”, and enjoyed coverage in Jewish media where he was celebrated as the “only Jewish Republican member of New York’s House delegation”.He regularly attended events with rabbis and campaigned in Jewish neighborhoods, according to the New York Times.When asked about this, Santos told Gabbard that he has Jewish heritage but was raised Catholic. He said he has joked that he is “Jew-ish”.Santos, who has also admitted to lying about graduating from Baruch College and working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, said he was not “a fake” and that “everybody wants to nitpick” at him now.But Gabbard put Santos on the spot by asking him how he defines “integrity”.Santos initially talked about the role of integrity for politicians, but Gabbard pushed back: “What does it mean though? … Because the meaning of the word actually matters in practice.”In Tuesday’s interview, he claimed he was courageous to be admitting this on national television, but fell short of an apology.He insisted that somehow this “courage” in his admission would make him fit to serve his district, to which Gabbard asked: “Do you have no shame?”“Do you have no shame [inaudible] the people who are now you’re asking to trust you to go and be their voice for them, their families and their kids in Washington?” she asked, after clarifying that what he keeps referring to as “embellishments” on his resume are much bigger, “blatant lies”.Santos responded, once again deflecting the answer, this time to Democrats and Joe Biden, who he claimed has been “lying to the American people for 40 years”.When Gabbard confronted him further about his lies regarding his work at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and how he can expect his constituents to trust him, Santos said the lies on his resume are “debatable” and “not false at all”.He added that he could easily explain how things such as private equity work.“We can have this discussion that can go way above the American people’s head”, he said, “but that’s not what I campaigned on”.“Wow,” Gabbard responded. “You just kind of highlighted, I think my concerns and the concerns people at home have – you’re saying that this discussion will go way above the heads of the American people, basically insulting their intelligence.”As of Wednesday morning, Santos’s website no longer had information about his relations with Baruch College, Goldman Sachs or Citigroup.TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesNew YorkUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Arizona judge declines to sanction Kari Lake for lawsuit challenging election

      by

      Arizona judge declines to sanction Kari Lake for lawsuit challenging electionCase contesting race for governor was rejected and Republican candidate ordered to pay $33,000 to cover legal costs An Arizona judge declined a request on Tuesday to sanction Kari Lake for filing a lawsuit trying to overturn the result of the state’s gubernatorial race.Peter Thompson, a superior court judge in Maricopa county, rejected the case on Saturday, saying Lake, a Republican, had failed to prove there was intentional misconduct that cost her the race.‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismRead moreBoth Maricopa county and Governor-elect Katie Hobbs subsequently asked the court to sanction Lake, writing: “This matter was brought without any legitimate justification, let alone a substantial one.” But Thompson disagreed on Tuesday. Even though Lake did not win the case, it did not mean that her lawsuit was in bad faith.“There is no doubt that each side believes firmly in its position with great conviction,” he wrote. “The fact that Plaintiff failed to meet the burden of clear and convincing evidence required for each element of [Arizona statute] does not equate to a finding that her claims were, or were not, groundless and presented in bad faith.”While he declined to order sanctions, Thompson did order Lake to pay Hobbs about $33,000 to cover some legal costs in the case. Maricopa county and Hobbs had requested about $695,000 in costs from her.Lake, who lost the race by about 17,000 votes, was one of the most prominent spreaders of election misinformation in the 2022 campaign. She repeatedly said on the campaign trail, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen. Ahead of the gubernatorial race this year, she declined to say whether she would accept the results if she lost.Lake is appealing her loss in the case as well as the order to pay legal fees. She has indicated she will take the case all the way to the Arizona supreme court, though any appeal would have to move quickly since Hobbs is set to be sworn in on Tuesday, the Arizona Republic reported.TopicsArizonaThe fight for democracyUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Who should pay?’: student debt relief in limbo as supreme court decides fate of millions

      by

      ‘Who should pay?’: student debt relief in limbo as supreme court decides fate of millions Over 26m student loan borrowers are waiting for the country’s highest court to decide if they can receive debt reliefDebt-laden borrowers will be nervously watching the US supreme court come February when the justices hear arguments for two cases that will ultimately decide the fate of over 26 million student loan borrowers who have applied for loan forgiveness.US student debt relief: borrowers in limbo as lawsuits halt cancellation programRead moreThough the future of student loan forgiveness is uncertain in the hands of a deeply conservative court, two researchers who have studied public opinion on student debt and college accessibility see room for optimism, even amid uncertainty around the issue.The millions of Americans who applied were set to get at least $10,000 (£8,320) in relief for their loans under a plan that Joe Biden released over the summer. But the plan’s rollout was halted in November by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, putting the possibility of forgiveness into question.“[Student loan forgiveness] is something that five years or 10 years ago, we wouldn’t have seen. It shows that there’s movement for politicians and the public to do something about student debt that has meaningful effects for a lot of people,” said Natasha Quadlin, a professor at University of California, Los Angeles who co-wrote a book this year, Who Should Pay?: Higher Education, Responsibility and the Public that documents the change in public opinion on how much the government should pay for higher education.Quadlin, along with her co-author Brian Powell, a professor at Indiana University, started administering surveys in 2010 asking people who should pay for college: parents, students or the government.In 2010, nearly 70% of respondents believed that only parents and students should be funding higher education. In 2019, the number dropped to 39%. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who believe the government, both federal and state, should primarily fund college rose from 9% in 2010 to 25% in 2019. All other respondents indicated that the government should help parents or students pay for college.When Quadlin and Powell set off to do this decades-long research in 2010, they did not realize how dramatically people’s perspectives on who should pay for college would change.“When we started working on the book and collecting data, the idea of loan forgiveness was not even really part of the American consciousness,” Powell said.The researchers note a few factors that went into this rapid shift. First, student debt nearly doubled in size between 2010 and 2015, reaching $1.3tn (£1tn) by the end of 2015. The cost of college was also rising, especially since states were slashing higher education budgets during the Great Recession.Fight against inflation raises spectre of global recessionRead more“It became apparent that the current generation that was going through higher education just wasn’t getting a very good deal in terms of the returns they were seeing,” Quadlin said.Some respondents also noted that the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, showed them that government can offer broad support for certain areas of life.“Several people said: ‘If we can do this for something as important as healthcare, and ensure health insurance, then we should be able to do that for education as well,’” Powell said.Sentiment had changed so much that some states were discussing the possibility of free college, a policy that Quadlin and Powell did not even consider putting on their survey in 2010. By 2019, over 20 states offered programs that either reduced or eliminated the cost of public college. Nearly 40% of respondents on the survey strongly and 32% somewhat agreed that public college should be free for those who are qualified to attend.Loan forgiveness and free college, while similarly addressing accessibility to higher education, are ultimately two different issues. While the researchers note that both should be pursued simultaneously, it appears that much of the current focus is on addressing debt forgiveness as the immediate problem.How quickly either will be addressed is unclear, but “the costs and burden [of student debt] is so high and so widespread”, Quadlin said.“There is a recognition that college is necessary for such a large percentage of the problem … and [its] not getting fixed,” she said.Throughout the book, Quadlin and Powell note how quickly public opinion had changed on same-sex marriage in a short amount of time. Powell, who has studied this change in opinion, noted that Congress just recently passed a bill protecting same-sex marriage with bipartisan support. In 2010, Gallup reported 28% of Republican support same-sex marriage. In 2021, the percentage rose to 55%.While Republicans have largely been against Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, there is some evidence that there could be Republican support one day. In 2014, Tennessee, under a Republican governor, created a scholarship program for free community college – an initiative that is still thought to be too radical at the federal level.“We’ve had examples of bipartisan support. Education is one of those areas that people believe in – the American Dream, that people can be able to have the education they need to have a fulfilling life and successful career,” Powell said. “It’s hard to envision the changes in the past year without the dramatic change in public opinion that occurred in a really short period of time.”TopicsUS student debtHigher educationUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsBiden administrationDebt relieffeaturesReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      New York congressman-elect admits lying about college and work history

      by

      New York congressman-elect admits lying about college and work historyRepublican George Santos, elected to represent parts of Long Island and Queens, admits ‘embellishing résumé’ George Santos, the New York Republican congressman-elect at the center of a storm over his apparently fabricated résumé, has admitted he lied about his job experience and college education during his successful US House campaign.I’m a Pulse survivor. Rightwing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric made the Club Q massacre inevitableRead moreSantos first ran for Congress in 2020. In November this year he was elected to represent parts of northern Long Island and north-east Queens.His exaggerations were first identified by the New York Times, which questioned claims including that he had worked at two prominent Wall Street banks; had obtained degrees in finance and economics from two New York colleges; that he was Jewish; and that four employees of his company were killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016.On Monday, Santos told the New York Post: “My sins here are embellishing my résumé. I’m sorry.”Santos, 34, also said he “campaigned talking about the people’s concerns, not my résumé … I intend to deliver on the promises I made during the campaign”.But he acknowledged he “didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my résumé. I own up to that. … We do stupid things in life”.Democrats including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have suggested Santos is unfit to sit in Congress. Some have called for him to resign his seat before taking it.Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, said on Twitter: “George Santos, who has now admitted his whopping lies, should resign. If he does not, then [Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader] should call for a vote to expel” him.Joaquin Castro, from Texas, said allowing Santos to enter office would set a dangerous precedent.“We’ve seen people fudge their résumé but this is total fabrication,” Castro said, suggesting Santos “should also be investigated by authorities”.Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming Democratic House leader, has said Santos “appears to be a complete and utter fraud”.Republican officials began to publicly respond to Santos’ remarks on Tuesday. Joe Cairo, chairman of the Nassau county GOP on Long Island, said the congressman had “broken the public trust” but “must do the public’s will in Washington”.Santos, Cairo said, “has a lot of work to do to regain the trust of voters and everyone who he represents in Congress”.Santos said he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Neither company could find relevant records. Santos told the Post he “never worked directly” for either firm and had used a “poor choice of words”. He said LinkBridge, an investment company where he was a vice-president, did business with both.The Times also uncovered Brazilian court records showing Santos was once charged with fraud for using a stolen checkbook.“I am not a criminal here – not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world,” Santos told the Post. “Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”Santos said he experienced financial difficulties that left him owing landlords and creditors.Another news outlet, the Jewish American site the Forward, questioned a claim on Santos’s website that his grandparents “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium and again fled persecution” during the second world war.“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish’.”Cairo said: “The damage that his lies have caused to many people, especially those who have been impacted by the Holocaust, is profound.”The Daily Beast has reported that Santos, who has identified as gay, was divorced from a woman in September 2019.“Though the past marriage isn’t necessarily at odds with his sexuality,” the site noted, Santos has never acknowledged that relationship and his biography says he lives with his husband, Matt, and four dogs.“I dated women in the past. I married a woman. It’s personal stuff,” Santos told the Post, adding that he was “OK with my sexuality. People change”.Revising claims that a company he worked for “lost four employees” in the Pulse nightclub shooting, Santos said the four were in the process of being hired.TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsNew YorknewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Arizona governor-elect asks court to sanction Kari Lake after suit dismissed

      by

      Arizona governor-elect asks court to sanction Kari Lake after suit dismissedThe Republican election denier failed to overturn November’s election – and now may face a penalty for a ‘frivolous’ lawsuit The Democratic governor-elect of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, asked a court on Monday to sanction her defeated Republican rival, Kari Lake, over her failed effort to overturn the election result.Kari Lake: Arizona judge throws out challenge to defeat in governor raceRead moreIn legal filings, Hobbs also pointed to a now-deleted tweet from Lake in which the Republican suggested the judge overseeing her lawsuit had acted unethically.On Saturday, Judge Peter Thompson rejected Lake’s lawsuit challenging the counting and certification of the November election in an attempt to be declared the winner despite a lack of evidence of voter fraud.Hobbs subsequently joined a motion by Maricopa county for sanctions against Lake and her attorneys, in which the county deputy attorney, Thomas P Liddy, said the Republican filed a “groundless” lawsuit for a “frivolous pursuit”.“Enough really is enough,” Liddy wrote in the motion. “It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials.”The motion had “no basis in law or fact”, lawyers for Lake said on Monday evening, asking the court to deny the request.“Trust in the election process is not furthered by punishing those who bring legitimate claims as plaintiff did here. In fact, sanctioning plaintiff would have the opposite effect.”Sanctions would be in the form of a financial penalty imposed for violation of a court rule or for misconduct.Lake targeted Hobbs, currently Arizona’s secretary of state but governor from next week, along with top officials in Maricopa county. The Republican’s suit claimed “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election” in the state’s most populous county.In a separate filing, Hobbs asked the superior court in Maricopa county to award her more than $600,000 to compensate for fees and expenses accrued in defending Lake’s lawsuit.Kari Lake: defeated governor candidate challenges Arizona election resultRead moreLake, a former TV news anchor, was one of the most high-profile Republicans in the midterm elections to embrace Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud in 2020. She lost but refused to concede and continued making unconfirmed claims about election improprieties.Lake posted the later-deleted tweet on Monday morning, the Hill reported. It suggested Marc Elias, founding partner of the election law firm representing Hobbs, sent Thompson an email telling him “what to say” in his dismissal.The tweet quoted Rachel Alexander, who made the suggestion in an opinion piece for Townhall.com.“The dismissal of Kari Lake’s election lawsuit shows voter disenfranchisement no longer matters,” the Hill quoted the now-deleted tweet as saying. “Legal experts believe his decision [by Judge Thompson] was ghostwritten, they suspect top leftwing attorneys like Marc Elias emailed him what to say.”Lake’s camp maintained in court papers she had “simply retweeted” Alexander, and said: “Tweets, especially those authored by others, do not support sanctions under Arizona law.”Elias commented, tweeting: “I’ve had a lot of lies told about me today – more than usual … More than even after the 2020 election. I always first point them out and ask for them to be deleted. Honorable people do so. But, the people still lying about me are doing it on purpose. But I’m done. Goodnight.”TopicsArizonaUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      As Trump’s star wanes, rivals signal presidential nomination campaigns

      by

      As Trump’s star wanes, rivals signal presidential nomination campaignsRepublicans vying for the party’s nomination have taken the ex-president’s midterm losses as a sign for them to step up Potential rivals to Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination will this week be reading the runes of political fortune with their families ahead of the New Year – typically the time that nomination contenders begin to make themselves formally apparent.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreAmid a lackluster start to Trump’s own campaign and a string of scandals and setbacks to hit the former US president due to his links to far-right extremists and his own legal problems, a field of potential rivals is starting to emerge for a contest that only a few months ago many thought was Trump’s alone for the taking.They include multiple ex-members of Trump’s own cabinet, including his own former vice-president, his former UN ambassador and his former spy chief. Adding to that are a raft of rivals with their own political power bases, such as Florida’s increasingly formidable right-wing governor, Ron DeSantis.Now the hints of ambitions to taking on Trump are coming thick and fast, especially in the wake of the defeat of a host of Trump-backed candidates in November’s midterm elections which have triggered a reckoning with Trump’s grip on the Republican party.“I can tell you that my wife and I will take some time when our kids are home this Christmas – we’re going to give prayerful consideration about what role we might play,” former vice-president Mike Pence, 63, told CBS’ Face the Nation last month.Maryland’s term-limited Republican governor Larry Hogan, and Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s former governor and US ambassador to the UN, have said the holidays would also be a time for deliberation.“We are taking the holidays to kind of look at what the situation is,” Haley said in November. Hogan, a fierce critic of Trump, told CBS last week “it won’t be shocking if I were to bring the subject up” with his family during the break. Come January, he said, he would begin taking advice to “try to figure out what the future is”.“I don’t feel any pressure or any rush to make a decision … things are gonna look completely different three months from now or six months from now than they did today,” Hogan, 66, added.Others in the running are also readily apparent. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s team has reached out to potential campaign staff in early primary states, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. “We figured by the first quarter next year, we need to be hard at it if we’re going to do it,” Pompeo, 58, said in an interview with Fox News.Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is reportedly talking to donors to determine his ability to fund the 18-month “endurance race” of a nomination process. Hutchinson has said that Trump’s early declaration, on 15 November, had “accelerated everyone’s time frame”.“So the first quarter of next year, you either need to be in or out,” the outgoing, 72-year-old governor told NBC News earlier this month.New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu, 48, said this week he doesn’t believe Trump could win in 2024. He’s voiced concerns that the Republican party could repeat the nomination experience of 2016, when he was a contender, when a large, divided field allowed Trump’s “ drain the swamp” insurgent candidacy to triumph.“We just have to find another candidate at this point,” Sununu told CBS News. While Trump could be the Republican nominee, he added, he’s “not going to be able to close the deal”.Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, 56, has said he’s “humbled” to be part of the 2024 discussions but in the convention of most candidates, he’s focused on his day job.Youngkin telegraphed his fiscal conservative credentials to wider Republican big-money interests by pushing $4bn in tax cuts through the Virginia legislature and meeting with party megadonors in Manhattan in June.“2024 is a long way away,” he recently told Fox News. “We’ll see what happens”.Helping to break the gender-lock on potential candidates is also South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. Her name has emerged as a potential Trump running mate, but she recently said he did not present “the best chance” for Republicans in 2024.“Our job is not just to talk to people who love Trump or hate Trump,” Noem, 51, told the New York Times in November. “Our job is to talk to every single American.”The biggest dog in the potential race – aside from Trump himself – is by far Florida’s DeSantis, who recently won re-election in his state by a landslide. Some of the Republican party’s biggest donors have already transferred their favors from Trump, 78, toward the 44-year-old governor.Republican mega donor and billionaire Ken Griffin, who moved his hedge fund Citadel from Chicago to Miami last year, described Trump as a “three-time loser” to Bloomberg a day after the former president’s declaration.“I don’t know what he’s going to do. It’s a huge personal decision,” Griffin said of DeSantis. “He has a tremendous record as governor of Florida, and our country would be well-served by him as president.”Similarly, Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of private-equity giant Blackstone, told Axios he was withdrawing his support from Trump for 2024 but stopped short of backing DeSantis. “America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” he said. “It is time for the Republican party to turn to a new generation of leaders.”DeSantis has yet to rule a run in or out, but has signaled his interest by beginning to plant ads on Google and Facebook that target an audience beyond Florida.But in the post-midterm political environment, with Trump-backed candidates performing poorly in most contests, and the former president besieged by investigations and questions about his associations, the running is open.Maryland’s Hogan has described Trump as vulnerable, and “he seems to be dropping every day”. Hutchinson has said “you never know when that early front-runner is going to stumble”. Polls suggest Trump trails DeSantis in a nomination head-to-head, but leads over Pence and Haley.Other potential names in the pot include Texas governor Greg Abbott, 65; Florida senator Rick Scott, also 65; former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, 60; and Texas senator Ted Cruz, 52, who ran for the Republican nomination in 2016.In a provocatively titled “OK Boomers, Let Go of the Presidency” column last week, former George W Bush advisor Karl Rove warned that 2024 may resemble 1960 when voters were ready for a generational shift. In that year, they went for the youngest in the field, John F Kennedy, aged 43.“Americans want leaders who focus on the future,” Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “The country would be better off if each party’s standard bearer came from a new generation … It’s time for the baby boomers and their elders to depart the presidential stage. The party that grasps this has the advantage come 2024”.TopicsRepublicansDonald TrumpRon DeSantisUS politicsNikki HaleyMike PompeoMike PencefeaturesReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Jamie Raskin: electoral college is a ‘danger to the American people’

      by

      Jamie Raskin: electoral college is a ‘danger to the American people’Democratic congressman says recent changes to electoral college laws are unlikely to stop another January 6 Recent reforms to the laws governing the counting of electoral college votes for presidential races are “not remotely sufficient” to prevent another attack like the one carried out by Donald Trump supporters at the Capitol on January 6, a member of the congressional committee which investigated the uprising has warned.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreIn an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, the Maryland House representative Jamie Raskin on Sunday renewed calls echoed by others – especially in the Democratic party to which he belongs – to let a popular vote determine the holder of the Oval Office.“We should elect the president the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else – whoever gets the most votes wins,” Raskin said. “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year exporting American democracy to other countries, and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, ‘Oh, that electoral college that you have, that’s so great, we think we will adopt that too’.”After Trump served one term and lost the Oval Office to Joe Biden in 2020, he pressured his vice-president Mike Pence to use his ceremonial role as president of the session where both the Senate and House of Representatives met to certify the outcome of the race and interfere with the counting of the electoral college votes.Pence refused, as supporters of the defeated Trump stormed the Capitol and threatened to hang the vice-president on the day of that joint congressional session in early 2021. The unsuccessful attack was linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers who ultimately restored order.Raskin was one of nine House representatives – including seven Democrats – who served on a panel investigating the January 6 uprising.The committee recently released an 845-page report drawing from more than 1,000 interviews and 10 public hearings that, among other findings, concluded Trump provoked the Capitol attack by purposely disseminating false allegations of fraud pertaining to his defeat as part of a plot to overturn his loss. Committee members also recommended that federal prosecutors file criminal charges against Trump and certain associates of his.Hundreds of Trump’s supporters who participated in the Capitol attack have been charged, with many already convicted.Raskin said the US insistence on determining presidential winners through the electoral college facilitated the attempt by Trump supporters to keep him in power.“There are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the electoral college that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief,” Raskin told Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, adding that the institutions which prevented the Trump-fueled Capitol attack “just barely” did so.As part of a government spending package passed Friday, Congress updated existing federal election laws to clarify that the vice-president’s role in the proceedings to certify the results of a race is just ceremonial and merely to count electoral votes. It also introduced a requirement for 20% of the members of both the House and Senate to object to a state’s electoral college vote outcome when it had previously taken just one legislator from each congressional chamber to do so.Raskin on Sunday said those corrective measures are “necessary” yet “not remotely sufficient” because they don’t solve “the fundamental problem” of the electoral college vote, which in 2000 and 2016 allowed both George W Bush and Trump to win the presidency despite clear defeats in the popular vote.Another House Democrat – Dan Goldman of New York – went on MSNBC’s the Sunday show and made a similar point, saying that US lawmakers “need to be thinking about ways that we can preserve and protect our democracy that lasts generations”.Many Americans are taught in their high school civics classes that the electoral college prevents the handful of most populated areas in the US from determining the presidential winner because more voters live there than in the rest of the country combined.‘Hatred has a great grip on the heart’: election denialism lives on in US battlegroundRead moreStates generally determine their presidential electoral vote winner by the popular vote.But most give 100% of their electoral vote allotment to the winner of the popular vote even if the outcome is razor-thin. Critics say that, as a result, votes for the losing candidate end up not counting in any meaningful way, allowing for situations where the president is supported only by a minority of the populace.Meanwhile, such scenarios are preceded by a convoluted process that most people don’t understand and whose integrity can be assailed in the court of public opinion by partisans with agendas. That happened ahead of the Capitol attack even though Trump lost both the popular and electoral college votes to Biden handily.“I think,” Raskin said, “that the electoral college … has become a danger not just to democracy, but to the American people.”TopicsUS politicsElectoral reformUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpDemocratsRepublicansUS voting rightsnewsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Kari Lake: Arizona judge throws out challenge to defeat in governor race

      by

      Kari Lake: Arizona judge throws out challenge to defeat in governor raceTrump supporter has refused to concede to Democrat Katie Hobbs but Maricopa judge says no evidence of misconduct A judge on Saturday threw out Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to the Democrat Katie Hobbs, rejecting her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on election day were the result of intentional misconduct.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThe Maricopa county superior court judge, Peter Thompson, who was appointed by then-Republican governor Jan Brewer, said the court did not find clear and convincing evidence of the widespread misconduct Lake alleged affected the result of the 2022 election. Lake will appeal, she said.Lake’s witnesses did not have any personal knowledge of intentional misconduct, the judge said, adding: “The court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence.”Lake, who lost by more than 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal Republican midterm candidates promoting Donald Trump’s election fraud lie. While most other election deniers conceded after losing in November, Lake has not. Instead, she asked the judge to either declare her the winner or order a revote in Maricopa county.Judge Thompson acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were inconvenienced but noted that setting aside the results of an election “has never been done in the history of the United States”.“This court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” he said. “It is to subject plaintiff’s claims and defendants’ actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.”Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa county, home to more than 60% of Arizona voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by on-site tabulators. Lines backed up in some areas, amid confusion.County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted, since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at elections department headquarters. They are in the process of investigating the cause of the printer problems.Lake’s attorneys claimed the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing. They claimed workers put their own mail ballots into the pile, rather than sending their ballots through normal channels, and also that paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots was missing. The county disputes the claim.Lake faced extremely long odds in her challenge, needing to prove not only that misconduct occurred but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did result in the wrong woman being declared the winner.Her attorneys pointed to a witness who examined ballots on behalf of her campaign and discovered 14 that had 19in (48cm) images of the ballot printed on 20in paper, meaning the ballots wouldn’t be read by a tabulator. The witness insisted someone changed those printer configurations, a claim disputed by elections officials.County officials say the ballot images were slightly smaller as a result of a shrink-to-fit feature being selected on a printer by a tech employee looking for solutions to election day issues. They say about 1,200 ballots were affected and that those ballots were duplicated so they could be read and counted.A pollster testified on behalf of Lake, claiming technical problems disenfranchised enough voters that it would have changed the outcome of the race. But an expert called to testify by election officials said there was no evidence to back up the claim that 25,000 to 40,000 people who would normally have voted did not cast ballots as a result of election day problems.A witness called on behalf of Lake acknowledged that that people who had their vote rejected by tabulators or ballot-on-demand printers – an occurrence for many voters – could still cast a ballot and have it counted.“The BOD printer failures did not actually affect the results of the election,” the judge said.Thompson previously dismissed eight of 10 claims Lake raised in her lawsuit. Among those was the allegation that Hobbs, as secretary of state, and the Maricopa county recorder, Stephen Richer, engaged in censorship by flagging social media posts with election misinformation for possible removal by Twitter.Thompson also dismissed Lake’s claims of discrimination against Republicans and that mail-in voting procedures are illegal.Hobbs takes office as governor on 2 January.On Friday, another judge dismissed the Republican Abraham Hamadeh’s challenge of results in his race against the Democrat Kris Mayes for state attorney general. The court concluded that Hamadeh, who finished 511 votes behind Mayes and has not conceded, did not prove the errors in vote counting he alleged.A court hearing is scheduled on Thursday to present results of recounts in the races for attorney general, state superintendent and a state legislative seat.TopicsArizonaRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US politicsnewsReuse this content More