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      ‘A huge opportunity’: California Republicans eye school board elections

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      ‘A huge opportunity’: California Republicans eye school board electionsIdeological divisions over the pandemic as well as race and LGBTQ+ issues see Republicans target school board positions In this year’s hotly-contested midterm elections, California Republicans have organized to tap into political divisions and anger over the pandemic to win seats in an office that previously was rarely on the radar of the wider public: the school board.Across the US, the nonpartisan boards responsible for overseeing public schools have attracted increased attention amid uproar over pandemic-era school shutdowns and sharpening ideological divisions over issues like race, gender and sexuality.How to beat a book ban: students, parents and librarians fight backRead moreIn deep blue California, where 2,500 school board positions overseeing the state’s 10,000 public schools are up for elections, Republican party organizers in the state have identified the boards as an opportunity to expand its footprint, setting up an organization to help parents run for office. “We saw a huge opportunity,” Jessica Millan Patterson, the California Republican party chair, told the Redding Record Searchlight. “Parents had awakened to what was happening in our schools.” Jessica Millan Patterson and California’s Republican party did not respond to a request for comment by publication deadline.Earlier this year, the Republican party launched the Parent Revolt program aimed at recruiting and supporting conservative parents to run for office. The program has offered workshops and virtual events with tips and advice on how to run for office and the various roles and responsibilities of education officials. At least 100 people attended virtual and in-person events in April and July put on by the party, which offers training but not financial support, CalMatters reported.On the its website, the program encourages parents to run against the “radical left”, leaning into the divisive language that has characterized the school debate at the national level. “Powerful interest groups control our public schools,” the program warns, urging parents to run if they want “school boards to prioritize what’s best for parents and students instead of the radical left”.Meanwhile, Reform California, a conservative Pac, has also led efforts to train school board candidates as part of a campaign to improve education and protect children from “from toxic and divisive curriculum” such as critical race theory, the academic practice of examining racism in US laws and society that conservatives sometimes use as a catch-all for curriculum related to race.The surge in interest in school boards in California is reflective of greater interest nationally, said John Rogers, a professor of education at UCLA, and a broader campaign for political power on the part of some conservative politicians, philanthropists and thinktanks.“There was a sense on the part of some conservatives that cultural issues as they were playing out in public schools and public frustration over the pandemic created a fertile ground for advancing a political effort,” Rogers said.School boards took on a higher profile across the US during the pandemic amid growing frustrations about school closures, becoming battlegrounds for culture wars as schools debated how to resume in-person classes. Rowdy parents disrupted meetings, refused to wear masks and even threatened school board members – some boards had to end meetings due to the disruptions.US students on why affirmative action is crucial: ‘They need our voices’Read moreFollowing the racial justice protests of 2020, local school board meetings, along with state legislatures, were the site of protests and tense debate about “critical race theory” and LGBTQ+ issues. The uproar, fueled in part by a conservative activist who has demonized curriculum related to race and sexuality, led to increased parent engagement in local school board meetings.Last year, the National School Board Association, a nonpartisan federation of state school board organizations and education lobbying group, asked the Biden administration for federal assistance in response to threats and violence against education officials over Covid restrictions and propaganda about curriculum related to race and diversity amid a panic over critical race theory.In California, Rogers said, “I think school boards were seen as a space in which the Republican party might be able to take some action and assert power. There’s a frustration on the part of parents that the Republican party thought it could tap into and parts of the state might be responsive to these culturally divisive arguments being advanced elsewhere.”It’s not yet clear how the effort will pay off, he said – school board elections don’t have polling and often fly under the radar, which could help Republicans: “School boards represent a site where it may be more likely they can gain some power precisely because those races have received less attention.”The participation of parents and community members in schools is important, Rogers added, but the politicization of the typically nonpartisan board could have worrying impacts, including less social trust and less desire to invest in public schools.Republicans’ classroom gagging bills are ‘attack on education’, report saysRead moreCalifornia’s school board association warned last year that officials were seeing an “unprecedented increase in hostility” in every corner of the state and deliberate attempts to shut down meetings.“We’ve never seen something occurring with this wide of a scope all across California,” Troy Flint, a CSBA spokesperson,said at the time. “The extreme partisanship that is increasingly a part of American life is rearing its head in school board discussions.”Some of the school board candidates running this year in the state have received attention for questioning the result of the 2020 election, opposing the Covid vaccine and are critical of teaching students curriculum about LGBTQ+ people. In Sacramento, a member of the Proud Boys who has pledged to “fight cultural Marxism” is running for the school board – the Republican party did not endorse him.TopicsUS educationRepublicansCaliforniaUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Republicans appear better positioned than ever ahead of midterms

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      Republicans appear better positioned than ever ahead of midtermsHistory shows that the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm, and Democrats seem likely to follow that pattern With just a few days left before polls close in America’s crucial midterm elections, Republicans appear better positioned than ever to regain control of the House of Representatives and potentially the Senate as well.History shows that the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections, and despite some optimistic signs over the summer, Democrats now seem likely to follow that pattern on 8 November.How Republicans’ racist attack ads wiped out Democrat’s lead in WisconsinRead moreRepublicans’ prospects have grown brighter as more voters identify the economy as their top priority, after many Democrats spent the summer campaigning on the importance of abortion rights following the supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade in June.An ABC News/Ipsos poll taken last week showed that 49% of Americans named the economy or inflation as the most important issue determining their vote for Congress, compared to 14% who said the same of abortion.Surveys show Republicans enjoy an advantage with voters when it comes to economic concerns, and the party’s candidates have gained steam in the polls as Americans fret over rising prices and the possibility of a recession. Republicans now hold a 1.3-point advantage over Democrats on the generic congressional ballot, according to the FiveThirtyEight average. One survey from the Republican polling firm Cygnal found the party with a three-point lead on the generic ballot, representing a four-point swing in five weeks.“I expect the GOP to add another one to two points to their generic lead in the closing week,” Brent Buchanan, Cygnal’s president and founder, said. “It’s much better to be a Republican candidate right now than a Democratic one.”Given Democrats’ narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republicans only need to flip a handful of House seats and a single Senate seat to regain control, and they are heavily favored to capture control of at least one if not both chambers.This week, the Cook Political Report moved another 10 House seats in Republicans’ direction, underscoring how Democrats have been forced to fight on an expanded map in the final weeks before election day. Congressional districts that Joe Biden won by double digits two years ago now appear to be in play, which has forced Democrats to defend seats previously considered to be safe. Republicans will also enjoy the benefits of a favorable round of redistricting following the 2020 census, which allowed the party to reconfigure the House map in a number of battleground states.On Wednesday, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super Pac supporting House Republicans, announced a $5.6m ad blitz in Democratic-held districts that had attracted little attention earlier in the campaign cycle. The CLF is spending $1.8m to try to unseat Congressman Sean Casten, whose seat was just moved from likely Democratic to lean Democratic by the Cook Political Report. Biden carried Casten’s district in the suburbs of Chicago by 11 points in 2020.“Enthusiasm behind Republicans’ fight to win the House majority continues to grow every day,” said Dan Conston, the president of CLF. “All cycle we made it our priority to expand the map as far as possible and late breakers are giving us the opportunity to press even deeper in the final stretch.”Democrats’ Senate prospects appear similarly grim. As of this week, FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans the narrowest of advantages to take back the Senate, marking the first since July that Democrats were not favored to maintain control of the upper chamber. Democratic incumbents previously expected to hold on to their seats have watched their polling advantages vanish in the past month.One poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center showed the Democratic senator Maggie Hassan trailing her Republican opponent, Don Bolduc, by one point, marking a seven-point swing in a month. On Thursday, Republican Herschel Walker also took the lead in the Georgia Senate race for the first time since June, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. The Democratic senator Raphael Warnock has been unable to establish a clear lead in the race, despite recent accusations that Walker pressured two women into having abortions.Democrats contend that early voting data provides a reason for optimism about keeping the Senate, as more than 35 million Americans have already cast their ballots. In states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, which could determine control of the Senate, Democrats make up a greater share of the early voting population than they did in 2018. But given Donald Trump’s attempts to raise baseless doubts about the legitimacy of voting by mail, more Republicans are expected to show up at the polls on election day, and that could erase Democrats’ early advantage.In a speech delivered near the Capitol on Wednesday, Biden sounded clear-eyed about his party’s midterm prospects. Expressing grave concern about the recent attack on the husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the rise in violent rhetoric among some Republican lawmakers, Biden urged Americans to consider the fate of their democracy as they head to cast their ballots.“This is no ordinary year. So I ask you to think long and hard about the moment we’re in,” Biden said. “In a typical year, we’re often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk. But this year, we are. This year, I hope you will make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote and how you vote.”As of now, Biden’s pro-democracy message does not appear to be resonating with enough voters to avoid a Democratic rout on Tuesday. If current trends hold, a Republican wave could crash over the country next week.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      How Michigan Republicans’ campaign is a ‘direct attack on democracy’

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      How Michigan Republicans’ campaign is a ‘direct attack on democracy’ As the key swing state heads into the midterms, Republicans have launched a coordinated effort to pack the process of overseeing electionsChristopher Thomas spent 36 years as director of Michigan’s elections, overseeing the laborious but uncontentious running of presidential vote counts.Then came 2020. Within hours of the polls closing in the presidential race, roving bands of Donald Trump’s supporters were moving from table to table at one of Detroit’s principal counting centres, flinging around accusations of vote rigging as they challenged and intimidated poll workers in the key swing state.US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead more“These folks rolled in as a result of social media telling them to get down there because everything was being stolen. So they all came in, pretty revved up. I’m not expecting that,” said Thomas.Several hundred descended on the convention centre where about 170,000 postal ballots were collated in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. Some yelled “stop the count”. Others taunted the vote counters. Groups of Trump supporters, locked out when the situation became too unruly, pounded on windows and doors.In the end, the count continued and Joe Biden overturned Trump’s slim victory in Michigan four years earlier, helping to push the then president out of the White House.But as Michigan heads into crucial midterm elections, and with the next presidential race swinging into view, both sides have learned lessons.The state’s Republicans have launched a coordinated effort to pack the process of overseeing elections with partisan poll monitors, while recruiting lawyers and sympathetic law enforcement officials ready to wade in to disputes, in what appears to be a strategy to create enough confusion and disagreement that unfavorable results are thrown into doubt. That potentially opens the way for the courts or, in the electoral college process for the presidential election, the Republican-controlled state legislature to intervene.All of this fits with the “precinct strategy” pushed by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist who has been sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress, to shoehorn grassroots Trump supporters into low-level positions across the country, such as election administration and on school boards, in order to take control “village by village … precinct by precinct”.Thomas, who retired as elections director in 2017 but continues to consult for the Detroit city clerk, is concerned.“I’m watching these efforts to enlist partisan poll workers with some scepticism,” he said.Michigan’s 83 elected county clerks oversee elections in their jurisdictions with some authority delegated to city and township election officials. They include Barb Byrum, a Democrat who has spent the past 10 years as Ingham county clerk after five years as a state legislator.“We really started seeing the attack on our elections over six years ago but it has really ramped up,” she said.“There’s a concerted effort by the Republicans to encourage individuals to be hired by local clerks to work the election but then also serve as spies basically for the Republican party. They have been encouraged to sneak cellphones into the absentee county boards and call select Republican attorneys during election day.”Byrum, who was once barred from speaking during an anti-abortion debate in the Michigan legislature for using the word “vasectomy”, said illicit cellphones, which are barred from the count, put the “secrecy of the ballot at risk”.Political parties also get to appoint challengers who can question whether a person is qualified to vote. Byrum said that opens another avenue for disruption if the challengers make bad faith interventions that create long lines in strongly Democratic areas and discourage people from voting.In June, Politico revealed video recordings of the Republican National Committee election integrity director for Michigan, Matthew Seifried, telling party activists that there was going to be “an army” of poll challengers at work in Detroit and beyond who would be kept in touch with legal teams ready to move in at any claim of irregularity.“We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?” he said.Politico also obtained recordings of the legal counsel to the Trump-aligned Amistad Project, Tim Griffin, discussing plans to mobilise sympathetic district attorneys to launch investigations into allegations of voter and counting irregularities.“Remember, guys, we’re trying to build out a nationwide district attorney network. Your local district attorney, as we always say, is more powerful than your congressman,” Griffin told activists. “They’re the ones that can seat a grand jury. They’re the ones that can start an investigation, issue subpoenas, make sure that records are retained, etc.”Last year, Michigan’s Republican party chose a Trump supporter, who said he would not have certified Biden’s election victory, to serve on the body that certifies elections in Detroit and its surrounding county. Robert Boyd said he regards the 2020 presidential election results as “inaccurate” because of events at the disrupted Detroit count.Boyd, who has blamed the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol on Black Lives Matter and antifa “agitators”, is one of two Republicans on the Wayne county board of canvassers alongside two Democrats. If they deadlock on whether to certify future elections, that could open the way for legal challenges to the result and the intervention of the state legislature. The Republican legislature has the authority to overturn the popular vote and appoint its own choice of delegates to the electoral college for the president, although it would be an unprecedented move that it declined to take in 2020.Still, Byrum said Republican attitudes had hardened and she saw a concerted effort to create disruption and disputes to open the way for legal and political intervention to challenge election results they don’t like.“I think this is a direct attack on our democracy because this is a concerted effort to undermine the integrity of our elections, and ultimately, attack our democracy,” she said.In response to the disruption, the state’s elections board has tightened regulations to prevent groups of poll monitors from roaming around from one counting table to another to prevent intimidation. Thomas said there are already regulations in place to prevent frivolous or repeated challenges against voters. They have rarely been used in the past.“We have certainly reorganised how we control the environment there compared to 2020 having never seen anything like that in the years before,” he said.Thomas took some comfort from the relatively smooth passing of August’s primary elections.“There’s one group, called Election Integrity Group, they can be a bit on the obnoxious side. But we can all tolerate a little bit of obnoxiousness. They didn’t interfere with the process,” he said.“Of course, the Republicans didn’t really have much at stake in the city of Detroit in the August primary. So we’ll see when stakes go up as we get to the general.”Justin Roebuck, the Republican county clerk and chief elections officer for Ottawa county, said the atmosphere was fraught, with his office still dealing with a flood of freedom of information requests looking for evidence of fraud in the presidential election.“Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen the level of disinformation that came out of the 2020 election cycle has really amplified and solidified in some ways. That misinformation has really taken root in a certain percentage of our population,” he said.“Folks are still asking to see all sorts of things like the voted ballots from the 2020 election. They’re asking to see the digital imaging of our software that was used to programme the 2020 election. They’re coming from all over the place, and not just voters here in my jurisdiction or in Michigan. They’re coming from around the country.”Roebuck, like clerks in other counties, has sought to reassure voters with greater transparency about how the counting process works and in the training of poll workers. He said that many of them are persuaded of the legitimacy of the vote once they see the system at work. But, like Thomas, he said there was a small hardcore intent on challenging any outcome they do not like.“There’s probably about a 10% portion of the population that has truly bought into the notion that our elections were stolen, and I’m not sure how successful I will be in convincing those folks because I have had a lot of those conversations where it’s just very difficult to get through to people with the facts,” he said.The democratic process is also under pressure from some local officials spreading false accusations that the elections they are overseeing may be rigged.Last year, Michigan’s bureau of elections stripped the Republican clerk of Adams township, Stephanie Scott, of her authority to run the municipal election after she refused to submit a vote tabulating machine for routine testing.“The county clerk’s office and now secretary of state are demanding I drop off my machine for unfettered access, and God only knows doing what to it,” she told the Bridge Michigan news site.“When you have the fox guarding the henhouse, somebody’s got to stand up and guard those hens.”The township supervisor, Mark Nichols, backed Scott, saying that voting machines “have been a tool to steal our elections” and 2020 was “the year of the lie” .The Michigan bureau of elections director, Jonathan Brater, wrote to Scott accusing her of making “numerous false statements” when she questioned the integrity of the vote at a township public meeting.“By communicating false or misleading information about elections in Michigan, you risk not only undermining confidence in democracy in your community, but also amplifying threats and intimidation of your fellow election officials across our state which, fueled by misinformation, continue unabated,” Brater told Scott.‘The Trump playbook’: Republicans hint they will deny election resultsRead moreBrater also had to warn local election officials to ignore a cease and desist letter from the Republican candidate for Michigan attorney general next month, Matthew DePerno, demanding they cancel planned voting machine maintenance because it could “destroy or alter” voting records he alleges are fraudulent. DePerno beat two Republican rivals after Trump backed him in the primary election.One Michigan county clerk hired a Trump supporter to recruit poll workers who was filmed urging people to storm the Capitol in Washington on 6 January 2021 and joined white nationalist Proud Boys rallies at the state legislature.All of this leaves Roebuck despairing of his own party: “Our voters deserve honesty. Sometimes it can be a political advantage for candidates to go down a different path to use talking points about election integrity or election misinformation, but I don’t think it’s an advantage to our society in the long term,” he said.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022MichiganUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      National security adviser visits Kyiv as US announces $400m in aid to Ukraine – as it happened

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      National security adviser Jake Sullivan visited Kyiv on Friday to “underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine” while announcing a $400 mn infusion in new weapons, including tanks and drones, the White House announced.“National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, head of the office of the president Andriy Yermak, Minister of Defense Reznikov, and others in Kyiv today to underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine and its people as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity,” national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.“To that end, Mr Sullivan announced an additional $400m security assistance package, which includes refurbished T-72 tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and the refurbishment of 250 HAWK surface to air missiles for eventual transfer to Ukraine. He also affirmed the continued provision of economic and humanitarian assistance, as well as ongoing efforts with partners to hold Russia accountable for its aggression.” Opinion polls, extremist trials and finger pointing were all in the news on the last Friday before Tuesday’s midterm election, in which Democrats are fighting to maintain their majorities in the House and Senate for another two years. Meanwhile, one of Donald Trump’s top fundraisers was acquitted of obstruction and false statement charges by a jury, while the former president appeared to blow a deadline to answer a subpoena from the January 6 committee.Here’s a rundown of what happened today:
      Elon Musk made good on plans to enact major layoffs at Twitter, the extent of which are still not clear.
      The latest government employment data was surprisingly good in October, despite the economy’s ongoing struggles with high inflation.
      A majority of Americans fear political violence, though are divided on which party is responsible, according to a poll.
      House Republicans plan to press for answers about the business dealings of Hunter Biden as soon as the midterm elections are over.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan paid a visit to Ukraine, and announced another $400 mn in weapons to fend off Russia’s invasion.
      Georgia poll shows Warnock vs Walker is tiedPolls are polls, of course: i.e. they can be unreliable. But another suvey on Georgia’s intense senate battle between scandal-prone Republican ex-football player Herschel Walker and Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock shows the race is likely a nail-biter.To many observers that might be a surprise, given Walker’s litany of bad press, especially allegations that he has paid for abortions. But in the 2022 midterms it seems that very little can be taken for granted.The Hill has more: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and his Republican rival, Herschel Walker, are heading into Election Day deadlocked, according to a new Marist College poll. The poll, released Friday, shows the two candidates tied at 48 percent each among voters who say they will “definitely” vote in the 2022 midterm elections. With a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points, the race could swing either way come Election Day.Warnock performs slightly better among registered voters overall, taking 49 percent support to Walker’s 45 percent. He also has the edge among independents; 48 percent of those voters are backing Warnock, while 36 percent are supporting Walker. And there are also signs that some GOP voters could cross party lines to cast their ballots for Warnock. Eight percent of Republicans say they are supporting the Democratic incumbent, while only 1 percent of Democrats are behind Walker, the Marist poll found. Notably, neither candidate is breaching the 50 percent threshold needed to win the election outrightSupreme court to hear Navajo Nation water caseThe US Supreme Court has said says it will hear a water dispute involving the American government and the Navajo Nation.AP has the details: The high court said Friday it would review a lower court ruling in favor of the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The government signed treaties with the Navajo Nation in 1849 and 1868 that established the reservation. It was later expanded westward to the Colorado River, which forms the reservation’s western boundary. At issue in the case is water from the Colorado River, which itself is shrinking in part because of overuse and drought.The case dates back to 2003, when the tribe sued, alleging that the federal government in its Colorado River projects had failed to consider or protect water rights of the tribe. Most recently, a trial court dismissed the case but a federal appeals court allowed it to proceed. The federal government is challenging that result.The case of David DePape, who is accused of attacking Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi last week, is beginning its journey through the court system, and the Associated Press reports the judge presiding over the opening proceedings disclosed a connection to the Pelosi family.Loretta “Lori” Giorgi, a superior court judge in San Francisco, said in a hearing today that she worked with Christine Pelosi in the San Francisco city attorney’s office in the 1990s. Christine is one of Nancy Pelosi’s five adult children, the AP said. While there was no immediate effect on the trial, the disclosure could lead to either the defense or prosecution moving to have another judge take the case.Here’s more from the AP:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In court filings released earlier this week, officials said DePape broke into the home, carrying zip ties, tape and a rope in a backpack. He woke up Paul Pelosi and demanded to talk to “Nancy,” who was out of town. Two officers who raced to the home after Paul Pelosi’s 911 call witnessed DePape hit him in the head with the hammer.
      No one objected during Friday’s hearing to Giorgi’s ties to the Pelosi family but either side could in the future and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the case might be heard by another judge regardless. The public defender’s office did not immediately have a comment.
      “I do want to make a disclosure on the record that the daughter of Mr. Pelosi, Christine Pelosi, and I were in the city attorney’s office together in the 90s,” Giorgi told the court. “And I have disclosed to counsel the interactions that I had when she and I were together. I haven’t seen or heard or talked to Ms. Pelosi after she left the office. I do see her here today.”
      Giorgi worked in the city attorney’s office from 1985 to 2006, when she was appointed to the bench. She rose to the rank of deputy city attorney and was the office’s public integrity chief.
      Christine Pelosi attended Friday’s hearing but seemed to leave through a back door in order to avoid media waiting in the hallway. She entered the courtroom right before the proceeding started and sat in the front row away from reporters.National security adviser Jake Sullivan visited Kyiv on Friday to “underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine” while announcing a $400 mn infusion in new weapons, including tanks and drones, the White House announced.“National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, head of the office of the president Andriy Yermak, Minister of Defense Reznikov, and others in Kyiv today to underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine and its people as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity,” national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.“To that end, Mr Sullivan announced an additional $400m security assistance package, which includes refurbished T-72 tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and the refurbishment of 250 HAWK surface to air missiles for eventual transfer to Ukraine. He also affirmed the continued provision of economic and humanitarian assistance, as well as ongoing efforts with partners to hold Russia accountable for its aggression.” Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes took the witness stand today in his seditious conspiracy trial, telling jurors he is a patriotic American as he tries to counter allegations that his far-right extremist group planned an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power, the Associated Press reports.Rhodes began his testimony after prosecutors spent weeks laying out evidence they say proves Rhodes was behind a violent far right plot to keep Democrat Joe Biden out of the White House and Republican Donald Trump in in 2021.Rhodes’ decision to testify carries risks for him, opening the way for intense cross-examination from prosecutors, who will get a chance to question him after the trial resumes next week. Rhodes has yet to get into the details of January 6, when his followers pushed through a mob of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol in military-style stack formation.Rhodes, wearing a dark suit and tie, faced jurors as he described his military experience and decision to start the Oath Keepers in 2009. Rhodes, whose stint as an Army paratrooper was cut short by a training accident, said he considers himself a patriotic person.Rhodes portrayed the Oath Keepers as peaceful and disciplined despite a mountain of evidence showing him rallying his band of extremists to prepare for violence and discussing the prospect of a “bloody” civil war ahead of January 6. Asked whether he believed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, Rhodes falsely described Biden’s victory as “unconstitutional” and “invalid.”“You really can’t have a winner of an unconstitutional election,” Rhodes said.Rhodes’ trial is the biggest test so far for the Justice Department’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the attack on the Capitol, a violent assault that challenged the foundations of American democracy.Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, and his co-defendants are the first people arrested in the January 6 attack to stand trial on the charge of seditious conspiracy. The Civil War-era charge, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years behind bars upon conviction, is rarely brought and can be hard to prove.Five days – that’s all we’ve got. That’s not a version of a David Bowie song, that was the message from US vice president Kamala Harris last night at a historic event to get out the vote for Democrats in New York.“Everything is on the line,” Harris said, warning repeatedly that with five days to go until the midterm elections on Tuesday, the stakes are high but there’s still enough time to make a difference.Five was also an interesting number from the point of view of the women leading the event, held at Barnard College, the private woman’s liberal arts college in uptown Manhattan that’s also part of the Columbia University family.As Harris told the audience herself: “You’ve witnessed a lot of history on this stage this afternoon…a whole lot of firsts…yes, we may be the first, but we are committed to not being the last.”The five firsts were the vice president herself, the first woman in that role.Our Vice President.Black women lead. pic.twitter.com/NO2F9fv12y— Tish James (@TishJames) November 3, 2022
      She was headlining the event to get out the vote for New York state governor Kathy Hochul, the first woman in that role.Proud to be fighting alongside strong women like @KamalaHarris and @HillaryClinton.Let’s secure a stronger future for women and girls everywhere at the ballot box — vote by November 8! pic.twitter.com/JDWyddrb9r— Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul) November 3, 2022
      Other headliners were Hillary Clinton, the first woman to lead her party’s nomination for president, when she got close to winning the White House in 2016 but, catastrophically for Democrats, was beaten by Donald Trump.New York: Have you voted for @KathyHochul yet? https://t.co/tTgeqy51PU https://t.co/fql5hsJAKN— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 4, 2022
      And Letitia James, who’s the first woman in New York to be elected as attorney general, the first Black woman to be elected to statewide office in New York, and the first African American to serve as attorney general.If you need a great job done, then give it to a woman.I’ve done my job since you placed your trust in me, and so has @KathyHochul. We’re running for re-election to finish the work. Now it’s your turn. Go vote! pic.twitter.com/QXuWXpYxrq— Tish James (@TishJames) November 3, 2022
      Finally, the warm-up for the event was led by veteran New York congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in the US Congress.A week after the attack on her husband, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi has struck an optimistic note about the party’s chances of hanging on to the House in the upcoming midterms, Punchbowl News reports.“I believe that this race is very winnable. As I’ve said to you before, in the month of October, I was probably in 21 states, some of them more than once, twice, some of them three times. I’ve seen the enthusiasm, I’ve seen the determination, I’ve seen the courage of our candidates, the dedication of our grassroots,” Pelosi told supporters in a private event of which Punchbowl obtained a recording.“The Republicans have put in tons of money against our candidates and cut our lead in some cases, but they have not taken this. These are races, in many cases, too close to call, in margin of error. But in every case, winnable because of the grassroots. And so I think that what we are doing is not only to win an election, but to strengthen our democracy.”Democrats currently have a slim majority in Congress’s upper chamber, and would defy both historical trends and numerous polls if the manage to keep it. The party holding the White House tends to lose seats in their first midterm, while Republicans have the lead in enough race to regain a majority, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.Pelosi also spoke about her husband Paul Pelosi’s recovery from Friday’s attack by a hammer wielding assailant who said he was looking for the speaker.“It’s going to be a long haul, but he will be well, and it’s just so tragic how it happened. But nonetheless, we have to be optimistic. He’s surrounded by family. So that’s a wonderful thing,” she said.The swing district most prone to swinging in all of the United States is located on Virginia’s coast, where Democratic House representative Elaine Luria is fighting for another term in office.A former Navy commander who was part of the January 6 committee, Luria’s closing argument to voters is that she and other Democrats need to be re-elected if America’s democracy is to survive. Considering polls showing voters are this year most motivated by concerns over inflation, crime and abortion, it’s a risky strategy.The Associated Press joined Luria on the campaign trail, and had this to say:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Virginia Democrat, quoting the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, pointed toward the girl and said: “Our children are a window into the future that we will never see.” That future, Luria argued, will look much bleaker if her Republican challenger wins one of the most contested House races in the country.
      In her first two congressional races, Luria, a former Navy commander, would more likely have been seen in settings with a military backdrop or theme. But this time she is in Suffolk, a new part of her district and one that has a Black population of 40% whose votes could well determine if she gets a third term.
      “If Luria is going to have a chance at winning, she absolutely needs to win over Black voters,” said Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director at the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University. “Even in our polling, we see that Black voters are more likely to say they’re undecided than white voters, and that suggests that there’s some vulnerability there for Luria and a need to reach out.”Poll master Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report believes her re-election would be a sign that Tuesday may not be so bad of a night for Democrats:Here’s my rough thinking early on Election Night:- If #VA02 Luria (D) holds on, better night for Dems than expected- If #IN01 Mrvan (D) or #VA07 Spanberger (D) lose, Rs likely winning 20+ seats- If #NH02 Kuster (D) or #VA10 Wexton (D) lose, Rs likely winning 30+ seats https://t.co/XNIp07Sj0y— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 4, 2022
      A prime example of the tensions among Democrats over their message on the economy is the child tax credit.Expanded last year as part of Joe Biden’s marquee American Rescue Plan spending bill to help the economy recover from the pandemic, the program lowered child poverty by sending monthly payments to many families. It expired at the end of 2021 after Democrats failed to agree on extending it, and HuffPost reports that the party is basically avoiding the subject on the campaign trail.Here’s more from their report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When it comes to economic policy, Democrats have been more likely to talk about the original Social Security ― the beloved retirement benefit for seniors ― than the monthly benefit parents received last year through the expanded child tax credit.
      Democratic campaign ads have highlighted the party’s support for reducing costs for the middle class, and any mention of “middle class tax cuts” could semi-plausibly be a reference to the child tax credit, since the monthly payments the IRS sent out last year technically were, in fact, tax credits.
      But out of hundreds of campaign ads this cycle, few mention the child tax credit by name. According to a new analysis of campaign ads published Thursday by the Wesleyan Media Project, just 0.2% of federal campaign ads in the general election have mentioned the child tax credit.
      Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley hit his Democratic challenger, Mike Franken, for opposing the child tax credit because he favored repealing the 2017 Republican tax cuts, which expanded the credit before Democrats built on that expansion last year.
      Another ad, from a super PAC boosting Evan McMullin, the independent challenging incumbent Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), calls out Lee for having opposed the Democratic child tax credit last year.
      Neither of those got into any specifics about the child tax credit. From July through December, most parents in the U.S. received as much as $300 per child each month, a taste of the kind of child benefit that other developed countries have long provided. As a result of the payments, child poverty fell to nearly half its rate before the cash payments began.
      But reducing child poverty, apparently, does not make great campaign fodder. The payments were modestly popular, but much less so than empowering Medicare to negotiate cheaper prescription drugs ― another, more recent Democratic policy achievement that has been the centerpiece of plenty of campaign ads.The election isn’t even over, but something of a blame game has begun among Democrats over which tactics the party should have chosen in their quest to defy history and maintain their tiny majorities in Congress. In an interview with The Guardian’s Erum Salam, Bernie Sanders – an independent senator who caucuses with Democrats – weighs in on how the party could have better defended their record on the inflation-wracked economy:Bernie Sanders has criticized Democrats for not doing enough to motivate voters around the economic issues that have an impact on everyday life, as he warned next week’s midterm elections are the most “consequential” in modern American history.In an interview with the Guardian in Texas, the leftwing Vermont senator said: “Obviously, everybody should be turning out for what is the most consequential midterm election in the modern history of this country. Democracy is on the ballot. Women’s right to control their own bodies is on the ballot. Climate change is on the ballot, so everybody should come out.”But Sanders said he worried “very much that Democrats have not done a good enough job of reaching out to young people and working-class people and motivating them to come out and vote in this election”.‘They haven’t tried’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ economic messagingRead moreTom Barrack, a onetime private equity executive and fundraiser for former US president Donald Trump, was found not guilty by a jury on Friday of unlawfully acting as an agent of the United Arab Emirates, dealing a setback to the US Justice Department, Reuters writes. Barrack was also acquitted of obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI agents in 2019 about his interactions with Emirati officials and their representatives.The verdict followed a six-week trial in federal court in Brooklyn. Barrack, who was prosecuted by the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn, had faced a total of nine criminal counts.More when we get it. More

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      The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itself | Jonathan Freedland

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      The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itselfJonathan FreedlandMost candidates from the GOP in these midterm elections refuse democracy’s most basic tenet: accepting the voters’ verdict As in all the best horror movies, at first glance everything looks normal. It’s a classic scene of the American autumn: campaign rallies outside community centres, battle buses emblazoned with candidates’ smiling faces, kids wearing badges and holding up signs, while TV screens fill with debates, punditry and an endless loop of focus-grouped ads. Even the predicted outcome of Tuesday’s US midterm elections fits a template as familiar as falling leaves. Most experts agree that the Democrats will take a hit, losing control of at least one or perhaps both chambers of Congress, because they are the incumbent party – and incumbent parties almost always suffer in midterm – and because times are unusually tough. Inflation, interest rates, petrol prices, fear of crime: they’re all up. Couple that with a president set to turn 80 this month whose approval ratings have often plumbed the depths, and all the elements are in place for the Democrats to take a midterm beating, losing ground even in states they once counted as solidly their own.But look closer and you see something else. Because next week’s results will decide more than just whether the red team or the blue team takes control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, on which hangs Joe Biden’s ability to get things done. Next week’s elections will also help determine whether, and for how much longer, the US will remain a genuine democracy.It sounds hyperbolic and that, too, is an American tradition. Candidates always tell the crowds, “This is the most important election of my lifetime” and plenty will have heard Biden’s warning, delivered on Wednesday, that democracy itself is on the ballot in that same spirit. They will have assumed that when the president said, “In our bones, we know democracy is at risk” it was so much campaign talk. But Biden was scarcely exaggerating.More than 370 Republican candidates for some of America’s highest offices have joined Donald Trump in his big lie of election denial, either casting doubt on or wholly rejecting the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential result. That means a majority of Republicans running for those key positions refuse democracy’s most basic act: accepting the verdict of the voters.It’s comforting to pretend they’re doing it solely to soothe Trump’s ego, to avoid angering him by conceding that the ex-president lost to Biden fair and square. Keeping Trump sweet is a necessary tactic in a Republican party where he remains the dominant figure, reportedly set to launch another presidential bid later this month, whose endorsement or disapproval is enough to make or break a career. But Republicans’ election denialism is not confined to the past; it applies to the future, too. Several of the party’s candidates have refused to say that they will accept the outcome of Tuesday’s vote should they lose. “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” is how Kari Lake, would-be governor of Arizona, puts it. Some might spin that as mere election eve bullishness, but without losers’ consent democracy cannot function.More sinister still, several of these democracy deniers are running for the very state-level posts that will oversee and certify future elections, including the presidential contest of 2024. And they are brazen in their admission that they will abuse the powers of those offices to boost their side and shut out their opponents. “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor,” is the promise of one Tim Michels, who seeks to lead that state – and it was not a promise that he would be popular. It’s worth recalling that it was in Wisconsin two years ago that a group of Republican office holders moved to ignore the democratic choice of that state’s voters, who had backed Biden, and instead declare Wisconsin for Trump in the electoral college. If they were to try that trick again in 2024, they might have an ally in the governor’s mansion.If all of this seems too abstract, consider the Republicans’ new attitude to political violence. Once it would have been a matter of bland consensus that no political objective should ever be secured by brute force. But only a handful of Republicans could bring themselves to hold even that fundamental position following the storming of Capitol Hill and the attempted insurrection of 6 January 2021. The rest refused to vote for the impeachment of Trump for his role in fomenting that violence and, if they condemned the rioters themselves, it was usually in terms qualified and mealy-mouthed.We’ve seen it again in the last week, after the vicious assault in his home of the 82-year-old husband of House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Paul Pelosi had his skull fractured with a hammer, the alleged assailant a man whose head had been filled with far-right shibboleths including the supposedly stolen election of 2020. And yet the likes of Lake saw the attack as a laughing matter, while other Republicans (and their ally Elon Musk) concocted or spread conspiracy theories that cast doubt on the attack. This in an era when recorded threats against members of Congress rose tenfold in the five years after Trump was elected in 2016.The Republican party’s shift away from democratic norms is no longer confined to one man, even if he embodies it and accelerates it. It is embedded in the ethos of the party now. Reversing that trend is a daunting prospect because of another shift, one that has been apparent for a while but which is taking especially vivid form in these midterm elections. It is the polarisation of information, so that Americans now exist in two distinct spheres of knowledge, each one barely touching the other.I witnessed it for myself this week, as I covered an especially intense senate race in Georgia. News came that, in a previous age, would have been devastating for a candidate. A second woman stepped forward to say, on camera, that the staunchly anti-abortion Republican Herschel Walker had pressured her to have an abortion and had paid for it. Yet when I put that news to Republicans gathering at a Walker rally in Madison, not one of them was fazed by it. They just assumed it was the false concoction of the “mainstream media”.This poses its own danger for democracy. Because there can be no collective decision-making – which is what democracy amounts to – without a collective, agreed-upon basis of facts. If we can’t first agree that the house is on fire, we can’t begin to talk about putting out the flames.Whatever the outcome on Tuesday and in the long days of counting that may follow, this is a moment of peril for the United States. The world’s most powerful democracy is losing the reflexes and habits that make democracy possible. And, as in all the most terrifying horror movies, the threat is coming from inside the house.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. Listen to his Politics Weekly America podcast here
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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate race

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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate raceTV host who launched Republican’s career on her daytime talkshow had previously said election was up to Pennsylvanians Oprah Winfrey sprang a November surprise for Democrats in the midterm elections as the US TV host endorsed their candidate John Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate race, snubbing his Republican rival Mehmet Oz whom she originally made famous on her daytime talkshow.Until now, Winfrey had said she would leave the election to Pennsylvanians, but on Thursday evening she changed that position in an online discussion on voting in next Tuesday’s election.‘A lens of empathy’: disability advocates on John Fetterman and leadershipRead more“I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania … but I will tell you all this, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said, before going on to urge listeners to vote for Democrats running for governor and Senate in various states.The Pennsylvania seat has for months been seen as the most likely pickup opportunity for Democrats in the evenly divided Senate.Polls show a close race between Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, and Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon who is endorsed by former president Donald Trump.In a sign of how high the stakes are, Trump will return to Pennsylvania on Saturday to campaign for Oz, while Joe Biden and the former two-term Democratic president Barack Obama will campaign for Fetterman that same day.Oz left Oprah’s show after five years and 55 episodes to start his own daytime TV program, The Dr Oz Show, which ran for 13 seasons before he moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to run for the Senate.The Senate seat is being vacated by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey.Fetterman’s race is among those that have grown tighter in recent weeks as polls showed rising support for Oz, who has made much of the fact that Fetterman had a stroke this spring during the campaign and spent much of the summer convalescing.Fetterman has been declared fit for work by his medical experts but has needed some adjustments to accommodate auditory processing.At a recent debate, in order to accommodate Fetterman’s condition, which he said was improving daily, two 70-inch monitors were placed above the heads of the moderators, which showed the transcribed text of their questions, and the text of Oz’s responses.The candidates fiercely clashed over abortion rights, with Fetterman strongly pro-choice.His endorsement by Winfrey – an icon to many Americans, particularly women and African Americans – is seen as a useful boost to Democrats’ chances in that race.Fetterman celebrated with the kind of witty burn on social media he has become well-known for, especially over the summer when he was physically absent from the campaign trail but repeatedly taunted Oz’s New Jersey connections.#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/mla50A5HWa— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) November 4, 2022
      TopicsOprah WinfreyPennsylvaniaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The fight for blue collar voters in Ohio: Politics Weekly America midterms special

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      In the second episode of our special series, Jonathan Freedland travels to Youngstown, Ohio, to see who voters are more excited by in the state’s crucial Senate race – the Trump-backed Republican, JD Vance, or the Democrat Tim Ryan, who analysts say is running one of the best campaigns in the country.
      He heads to Cleveland to talk to a union leader about who workers want to win, and then to a Vance event with other prominent Republicans.

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: CSPAN, CBS, Fox News Subscribe to the Guardian’s new pop culture podcast, which launches on Thursday 3 November Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Abortion might help Democrats in the midterms in two major ways | Laurel Elder, Steve Greene and Mary-Kate Lizotte

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      Abortion might help Democrats in the midterms in two major waysLaurel Elder, Steve Greene and Mary-Kate LizotteIf young pro-choice voters turn out in higher numbers than forecast models are expecting, it could provide a bounce to Democrats in key races Political science-based forecasting models offer a clear prediction for the 2022 midterm elections – the results will be very bad for Democrats. Based solely on the fundamentals like the state of the economy, the type of election (ie midterm) and having an unpopular Democrat in the White House, a model by political scientists Charles Tien and Michael Lewis-Beck, generated months before 8 November, predicts a 44-seat loss for Democrats in the House and a five-seat loss for Democrats in the Senate.The forecasting models produced by FiveThirtyEight are not quite as grim about the prospects for Democrats, predicting that the party will most likely lose majority control of the House of Representatives, but have a small (and shrinking) edge in holding on to their minuscule advantage in the Senate. Unlike the political science models, FiveThirtyEight’s predictions also incorporate polling data and therefore pick up on the ground-level reality that Republicans have put forth weak candidates in key races.Abortion is a bread-and-butter economic issue. We need to treat it that way | Rebecca SolnitRead moreBut there is a plausible case to be made that even models incorporating polling data are underestimating Democratic strength in the 2022 midterms. The issue of abortion may help Democrats in two important ways that are not being picked up in either of the models discussed above.Predicting the outcome of elections is considerably more difficult than other types of polling (eg issue polling), as it requires making assumptions about who is actually going to turn out to vote. Among these well-founded assumptions is that young people have the lowest turnout of all age groups – especially so in midterm elections. Thus current likely voter models assume that young people will once again underperform as voters in 2022.For those who have interacted with young women recently – the anger about the Dobbs decision is undeniable. Outrage at the idea that “old white men” are making decisions about their bodies has made abortion a priority for young women. A recent poll of Gen Z Americans in swing states supports this, providing empirical evidence that young people are energized to vote and continue to rank abortion as their top issue, even while the issue has slipped in importance for older Americans. Young people’s passion on issues has failed to translate into actual action in the voting booth in the past; however, if young pro-choice women actually do turn out in higher numbers than forecasting models are expecting, this could provide a multi-point bounce to Democratic candidates in key House and Senate races.Additionally in our research we found there are a lot of cross-pressured Republicans on the question of abortion legality. While there are a small number of Democrats who hold positions on abortion in tension with their party – eg less than 10% approve the overturning of Roe v Wade – the percentage of Republicans uncomfortable with their party’s policies on abortion reaches anywhere from 30-50%. When abortion policy was more or less settled law, it was easy for cross-pressured Republicans to ignore the conflict between their party’s position and their own, but now that Republicans are enacting highly restrictive laws and outright abortion bans, such contradictions will be harder to ignore. How will cross-pressured Republicans respond?The Kansas referendum over the summer suggests that the threat of abortion bans has the power to mobilize low-propensity voters and entice cross-pressured Republicans to abandon their party’s position. Voting for a Democratic candidate, however, is not as likely as voting in disagreement with one’s party on a referendum, especially in today’s polarized climate. The more likely possibility is that at least some cross-pressured Republicans may simply opt out of the electoral process.Losing the House and especially the Senate would be a major political blow for the Democrats with important and lasting policy consequences, but should that happen, the impact of the Dobbs decision will likely have staved off much larger losses. And should the Democrats defy historical odds and hold on to the House, or, more likely, the Senate, they will almost surely have the Dobbs decision to thank and its ability to mobilize young voters and to demobilize cross-pressured Republicans.
      Laurel Elder is a professor of political science at Hartwick College
      Steven Greene is a professor of political science at North Carolina State University
      Mary-Kate Lizotte is a professor of political science at Augusta University
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionAbortionRoe v WadeUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More