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      Wind in Democrats’ sails as Sarah Palin humbled in Alaska special election

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      Wind in Democrats’ sails as Sarah Palin humbled in Alaska special electionMary Peltola’s victory delivers blow to Palin’s hopes of political comeback and prompts concern for Republicans in midterms A special election for Alaska’s only seat in the US House was won by the Democrat Mary Peltola, delivering a blow to the former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s hopes of a political comeback and putting wind in the sails of the Democratic party as it heads for November’s midterm elections.‘What’s this about?’: bodycam footage shows confusion as Florida man arrested for voter fraudRead morePeltola’s victory, by 51.5% to 48.5%, marks a stunning turnaround in a state known for its solid conservative leanings. The single House seat was held for almost 50 years by the Republican Don Young, until his death in March.Donald Trump, who endorsed Palin and campaigned for her at a rally in Anchorage, won Alaska by 10 points in the 2020 presidential election. That marks a swing of 13 points to Peltola’s three-point lead.Analysts pored over the results of the vote, which was held two weeks ago under a new ranked-choice system but finalized on Wednesday. It was being seen as a significant outcome on several levels – as a potential response to the recent US supreme court overturning of the constitutional right to abortion, to Trump’s enduring grip on the Republican party, and to Palin herself.The Washington Post pointed out that Democrats have shown gains over their 2020 margins in all five special elections held since abortion right enshrined in Roe v Wade in 1973 was slung out by the Trump-supercharged supreme court in June. Of the five contests, the Alaska result showed the biggest surge in Democratic support.Democratic strategists will seek to capitalize on this tendency going into the midterms. Prominent Republicans had hoped ending abortion rights would work in their favour but the exact opposite appears to be happening – a progressive wave, given overwhelming national support for the right to terminate a pregnancy in at least some circumstances.Palin, who left the Alaska governor’s mansion in 2009, had been hoping to use the special election as a stepping stone towards a return to the national political stage. The flamboyant conservative, who styled herself as a “mama grizzly” and who has been seen as a precursor of Trump’s populism, was thrown into the limelight as John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate against Barack Obama and Joe Biden in 2008.She leant on her celebrity status during the special election, but there were signs of Alaskan voters becoming weary of the cacophony that often surrounds her. Palin is running again for the House seat, which comes up for a regular election in November. It remains to see whether her special election defeat will lead to political support bleeding away.“Alaskans know I’m the last one who’ll ever retreat,” Palin said in a statement on Wednesday. “I’m going to reload.”Some Alaskans may, however, remember Palin’s resignation as governor in 2009, when as the Guardian reported, she gave “an at times rambling speech in which she … said only dead fish go with the flow”, prompting critics to “accuse her of a ‘flaky’ decision and walking away from her post”.After her victory was announced on Wednesday, Peltola, 49, who is Yup’ik and will be the first Alaska Native and woman to represent the state in the House, positioned the result as a reflection of voters’ desire to get back to normalcy after the rancour of the Trump years.“I think it reveals that Alaskans are very tired of the bickering and the personal attacks,” she told the Post.Parsing the results is difficult given the state’s adoption of ranked-choice voting. In the first round, Peltola won 40% of the votes while Palin took 31% and her Republican rival, Nick Begich, gained 29%.Oz campaign again mocks Fetterman’s health in Pennsylvania Senate raceRead moreThe first round indicated clear majority support for Republican candidates – 60% combined – in line with Alaska’s conservative bent. But under the new system, Begich was eliminated and his voters’ second choices were redistributed to Peltola and Palin.The preferences of Begich’s supporters was striking. Only about half opted as their second choice to back Palin. Almost a third voted for the Democrat and almost as many gave no second choice.That indicator is likely to increase jitters among Republican leaders concerned about the influence Trump is having on the upcoming midterm elections, which will determine which party controls Congress for the next two years.There is already intense pressure on several Trump-backed candidates running for the Senate – especially Blake Masters in Arizona, JD Vance in Ohio and the TV doctor Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.TopicsDemocratsRepublicansUS politicsAlaskanewsReuse this content More

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      Biden’s speech will deliver a hard truth: American democracy is under grave threat | Robert Reich

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      Biden’s speech will deliver a hard truth: American democracy is under grave threatRobert ReichThe essential political choice is no longer Democrat or Republican, left or right, liberal or conservative. It is democracy or authoritarian fascism On Thursday, Joe Biden will deliver a primetime speech outside the old Independence Hall, where the framers of the constitution met 235 years ago to establish the basic rules of our democratic form of government.His speech will focus on what the White House describes as the “battle for the soul of the nation” – the fight to protect that democracy.Trump team returns to court over request for special master – liveRead moreThe battle is already under way. A week after a team of FBI agents descended on his residence in Florida, Trump warned “people are so angry at what is taking place” that if the “temperature” isn’t brought down “terrible things are going to happen”.Yet Trump and his Republican allies are doing all they can to increase the temperature. Last Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham warned of “riots in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted.Trump spent much of Tuesday morning reposting messages from known proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory and from 4chan, an anonymous message platform where threats of violence often bloom.Several of Trump’s reposts were direct provocations, such as a photograph of President Biden, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi with their faces obscured by the words: “Your enemy is not in Russia.”Online threats are escalating against public servants. Bruce Reinhart, the federal magistrate judge who approved the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, has been targeted with messages threatening him and his family.How to respond to this lawlessness? With bold and unwavering law enforcement.If Trump has broken the law – by attempting a coup, by instigating an assault on the US Capitol, by making off with troves of top-secret documents – he must be prosecuted. If found guilty, he must be penalized, including by prison.Yes, such prosecutions might increase tensions and divisions in the short term. They might provoke additional violence.But a failure to uphold the laws of the United States would be far more damaging in the longer term. It would undermine our system of government and the credibility of that system – more directly and irreparably than Trump has already done.Not holding a former president accountable for gross acts of criminality will invite ever more criminality from future presidents and lawmakers.It is also important for all those in public life who believe in democracy to call out what the Republican party is doing and what it has become: not just its embrace of Trump’s big lie but its moves toward voter suppression, takeovers of the machinery of elections, ending of reproductive rights, book bans, restrictions on what can be taught in classrooms, racism and assaults on LGBTQ people.While today’s Republican party does not have its own paramilitary, such as the Nazi’s Brownshirts, Republicans are effectively outsourcing these activities to violent fringe groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others who descended on the Capitol on January 6 2021 and who continue to threaten violence.With the notable and noble exceptions of Liz Cheney and a few other courageous Republicans – most of whom are being purged – the Republican party is rapidly morphing into an anti-democracy movement.The essential political choice in America, therefore, is no longer Democrat or Republican, left or right, liberal or conservative.It is democracy or authoritarian fascism.There can be no compromise between these two – no halfway point, no “moderate middle”, no “balance”. To come down squarely on the side of democracy is not to be “partisan”. It is to be patriotic.Yet Democrats cannot and must not take on this battle alone. They must seek common ground with independents and whatever reasonable Republicans remain.We must continue to appeal to truth, facts, logic, and common sense. We must be unwavering in our commitment to the constitution and the rule of law.We must be clear and courageous in exposing the authoritarian fascist direction the Republican party has now chosen, and the dangers this poses to America and the world.It is also important for Democrats to recognize – and to take bold action against – the threat to democracy posed by big money from large corporations and the super-wealthy: record amounts of campaign funding inundating and distorting our politics, serving the moneyed interests rather than the common good.The two threats – one, from an increasingly authoritarian-fascist Republican party; the second, from ever-larger amounts of corporate and billionaire money in our campaigns and elections – are two sides of the same coin.Americans who know the system is rigged against them and in favor of moneyed interests are more likely to give up on democracy and embrace an authoritarian fascist demagogue who pretends to be on “their side”.The battle to preserve and protect democracy is the most important battle of our lifetimes. If we win, there is nothing we cannot achieve. If we lose, there is nothing we can achieve.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsJoe BidenOpinionUS politicsDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Trump ‘knowingly put national security at risk’ by stashing classified documents, Schiff says – as it happened

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      Adam Schiff, a senior Democrat who led the first House impeachment of Donald Trump, says the former president and his allies “knowingly put our national security at risk” by stashing highly classified documents at his Florida residence.The California congressman gave his assessment in a series of Tweets following the justice department’s legal filing that suggests Trump obstructed an investigation into his improper retention of the documents, lied about having them and tried to conceal them.The government’s brief is devastating. The legal arguments are compelling, but what is most striking are the facts outlining how the former president and his team knowingly put our national security at risk.Here’s what stands out to me:(1/7) pic.twitter.com/VTS69C22hb— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) August 31, 2022
      “The legal arguments are compelling, but what is most striking are the facts outlining how the former president and his team knowingly put our national security at risk,” Schiff wrote.“This is Trump’s counsel swearing there were no more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. That was obviously false. Someone isn’t telling the truth,” he posted alongside an image of the filing in which Trump’s team claims a “diligent search” failed to turn up documents later recovered by the FBI.“It’s no wonder they wouldn’t allow a look inside the boxes – there were still lots of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago [Trump’s Palm Beach residence and resort].“The deception was deliberate. The government found classified papers in multiple locations throughout Mar-a-Lago, a public hotel. Considering the secret markings, this is reckless in the extreme”.Most damning of all, Schiff added, the documents “so sensitive, so protected that senior FBI agents and DOJ attorneys couldn’t even initially review them. [They] were kept at a public resort. Potentially available to God knows who”.It is not the first time Schiff, a frequent critic of Trump, has accused him of selling out his country. During his fiery closing argument to Trump’s first Senate trial in February 2020, Schiff, the House impeachment manager, said: “He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again.“You can’t trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can’t. He will not change and you know it”.The Republican majority in the Senate subsequently acquitted Trump of obstructing Congress and abuse of power.We’re closing the US politics blog now, thanks for joining us. Donald Trump put the security of the country at risk by illegally stashing highly classified documents at his Florida residence and lying about having them, senior Democrat Adam Schiff said.The California congressman was among a number of political figures reacting Wednesday to the sensational justice department court filing stating its opposition to the former president’s request for an independent “special master” to oversee the investigation into his hoarding. Trump claims without evidence he “declassified” the documents before leaving office, an assertion the justice department is seeking to debunk.Here’s what else we followed today:
      Bloomberg News reported that federal prosecutors are likely to wait until after the November election to announce any charges against Trump, if they determine he broke laws. But the news website says it’s not clear a determination will have been made by then.
      There will be enough Covid-19 boosters for everyone who wants one, the White House says, after the FDA approved shots of new multi-variant vaccines. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said shots could be in arms as early as next week.
      Secretary of state Antony Blinken paid tribute to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died aged 91, as “a man who changed the course of human history”. Jean-Pierre said it was not decided if the government would send a representative to Gorbachev’s funeral in Russia, especially since most administration officials are banned from the country.
      Charlie Crist, who last week won the Democratic nomination for governor of Florida, resigned from Congress on Wednesday to concentrate on his campaign to try to unseat Republican Ron DeSantis.
      Please join us again tomorrow as Joe Biden prepares to deliver a primetime address to the country on “saving the soul of our nation”.The Biden administration says there will be enough Covid-19 boosters for everyone who wants one, and that shots of the new multi-variant vaccines approved by the FDA this morning could start going into arms as soon as next week.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at an afternoon briefing that both the both the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech retooled vaccines targeting the BA.4/BA.5 Omicron coronavirus subvariants will shortly be shipped to “tens of thousands” of sites nationwide.She said the last step was final authorization from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which she indicated was imminent:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Teams are have already started the process of packing and shipping doses across the country and pending CDC action we expect shots in arms to begin in earnest starting after Labor Day weekend.
      We’ve been working with providers, clinics, clinicians, local health departments and other critical groups, and we’ve been doing all of this preparation despite the lack of funding from Congress.She answered “yes” when asked directly if there would be enough vaccines for anyone who wants, or needs one.Karine Jean-Pierre is more comfortable talking about Joe Biden’s prime time address to the country on Thursday night entitled “the battle for the soul of the nation”, although she says she won’t “get ahead” of his comments.But she is happy to talk about the rightwing ‘Make America Great Again’ wing of the Republican party that Biden has taken to attacking in recent weeks, and will no doubt go after again tomorrow night in Philadelphia:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The president thinks there is an extremist threat to our democracy. He is as clear as he can be on that when we talk about democracy, when we talk about our freedoms.
      The way that he sees it, the Maga Republicans are the most energized part of the Republican Party. That extremism is an extreme threat to our democracy, our freedom to our rights. They just don’t respect the rule of law.
      The president is not going to shy away, to call out what he clearly sees is happening in this country. We’re calling it the soul of the nation. He takes it very seriously when it comes to our democracy.Other reporters will try, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just shot down the first question about the justice department’s filing in the Donald Trump classified documents investigation at her afternoon briefing.Had Joe Biden seen the photo of secret papers strewn on Trump’s floor at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence? Has the president been briefed on the status of the inquiry?Jean-Pierre was resolute:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As I’ve said many times… we’re just not going to comment on the investigation. Anything, any underlying pieces of investigation, any content of the investigation.
      This is an ongoing, as you all know, investigation of the department of justice. We are not going to politically interfere, we are not going to comment on anything connected to the investigation. And we’re just going to keep it there.So that’s a no, then.Another one of the former president’s men has appeared before the special grand jury sitting in Georgia.The grand jury is hearing evidence related to allegations that Donald Trump illegally attempted to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election result and prevent Joe Biden from taking power.John Eastman follows hot on the heels of Rudy Giuliani in making an appearance in that case.Trump lawyer John Eastman appeared before the Fulton County grand jury today and pleaded the fifth, according to a statement from his lawyers. He also asserted attorney-client privilege. pic.twitter.com/Z7YF2b2Tm9— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) August 31, 2022
      In addition to utilizing his right against self-incrimination, Eastman, who was part of Trump’s campaign to stay in office despite losing the November 2020 election, the one-time lawyer to Trump also invoked invoked attorney-client privilege his non-response to some questions asked today in the criminal investigation.Eastman “is one of a group of Trump allies who were subpoenaed by that panel, which is hearing testimony in Atlanta,” CNBC noted.The Guardian’s Chris McGreal reported at the weekend that of all the legal investigations into Trump and his business, in Washington, DC, New York and Florida, the Georgia case might have him in the greatest legal peril.Of all the legal threats Trump is facing, is this the one that could take him down?Read moreHere’s John Eastman on January 6, 2021.Bloomberg is reporting that federal prosecutors are likely to wait until after the November election to announce any charges against Donald Trump, if they determine he broke laws.The news website cites “people familiar” with the justice department’s investigations into the former president, one over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, and the more recent inquiry into his improper retention of top secret documents at his Florida residence.“Under long-standing department policy, prosecutors are barred from taking investigative steps or filing charges for the purpose of affecting an election or helping a candidate or party, traditionally 60 days before an election,” Bloomberg says.“This year, that would be by Sept 10, which makes it unlikely anything would be announced until after November 8.”Bloomberg said its sources asked to remain anonymous when speaking about potential justice department actions.It further notes that it is not clear if any of the investigations into Trump will have reached the point by November that a decision on charging him could be made.Secretary of state Antony Blinken paid tribute to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died aged 91, as “a man who changed the course of human history”.In a statement posted to the state department’s website, Blinken gave Gorbachev credit for several “massive achievements” of the last century – including the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and reductions in nuclear arms:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We join people around the world in mourning the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev. Perhaps no word is more closely associated with Mr Gorbachev than glasnost, or openness. That’s fitting for a man whose openness changed the course of human history.
      Mr Gorbachev was open to acknowledging his country’s history – not just its triumphs, but its tragedies – what he called the ‘blank spots’ of the Soviet Union’s past. He created space for dissenting views, and freed dissidents who had spent years in exile or prison. He was also open to working with other nations, including adversaries like the United States, driven by the conviction that dialogue was in the interest of his people – and all people.
      It’s tempting to see the massive achievements of that engagement – including the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first-ever agreement to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the US and USSR – as inevitable. But those achievements would have been unimaginable without the courage and determination Mr Gorbachev brought to his pursuit of openness, and the trust he built with presidents Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.
      He never lost faith in the transformative power of such engagement, even as some of his greatest accomplishments were weakened. In 2018, he wrote, ‘Is it too late to return to dialogue and negotiations? I don’t want to lose hope … We must not resign, we must not surrender’.
      He was right, and his life is a powerful reminder of all that can be achieved when we make those ideals a reality.Donald Trump is repeating his assertion, debunked in the justice department’s legal filing, that he “declassified” the top secret documents seized by the FBI in their raid on his Florida home.Among a series of posts by the former president on his favored Truth Social platform on Wednesday, he also accused federal agents of “haphazardly” scattering the documents on the floor to photograph them:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see.
      Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified!As the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, Trump has produced no paperwork that might confirm the insistence of himself and allies that he issued some sort of a standing order when he was president that any materials he took to Mar-a-Lago were declassified. The justice department, meanwhile, noted in the filing that at no time in the months during which national archives officials were seeking the documents’ return did Trump’s lawyers make any argument he declassified them. Trump’s predictable response echoes the reaction on Wednesday by Republicans, at least those willing to comment publicly. They attacked the FBI and justice department, and glossed over the fact that numerous top secret documents were recovered, some in his desk, after Trump’s legal team claimed a “diligent search” had failed to yield any.Vocal Trump acolyte Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, told Fox and Friends: “The one thing I’ve heard across this country Republicans, Democrats, the public, they don’t trust the [department of justice] and they want this to be transparent.“Hiding these documents and this information, keeping it within the DoJ is wrong. It needs to be transparent so people can start to build trust back in the FBI and the DoJ and what they’re doing”.Donald Trump boasted to close associates that he knew secrets about Emmanuel Macron’s sex life from US intelligence sources, it has been reported.The report in Rolling Stone magazine comes in the wake of the release of court documents on the classified and national defence documents found in a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on 8 August, which mention a file referred to as “info re: President of France”.It is unclear whether the file on Macron was classified or what it contained. But Rolling Stone claimed that its mention in the official inventory of what was seized at Mar-a-Lago caused a “transatlantic freakout” between Paris and Washington.A French embassy spokesperson said: “We do not comment on legal proceedings in the US and … the embassy has not asked the administration for any information concerning the documents retrieved at former President Trump’s residence.”Neither the state department nor Trump’s office have so far responded to a request for comment.The Rolling Stone report said that during and after his presidency, Trump claimed to some of his closest associates that he knew details of Macron’s private life, which he had gleaned from “intelligence” he had seen or been briefed on.Macron initially courted Trump, inviting him to the Bastille Day military parade in 2017 just two months after he was elected, inspiring the US president to badger his own generals to stage a similar show of military pageantry in Washington.Relations soon soured between the two leaders, particularly after Macron’s failure to persuade Trump to stay in the nuclear deal with Iran. Trump took the US out of the deal in 2018, and it has unravelled since then.Read the full story:Trump boasted he had ‘intelligence’ on Macron’s sex lifeRead moreAdam Schiff, a senior Democrat who led the first House impeachment of Donald Trump, says the former president and his allies “knowingly put our national security at risk” by stashing highly classified documents at his Florida residence.The California congressman gave his assessment in a series of Tweets following the justice department’s legal filing that suggests Trump obstructed an investigation into his improper retention of the documents, lied about having them and tried to conceal them.The government’s brief is devastating. The legal arguments are compelling, but what is most striking are the facts outlining how the former president and his team knowingly put our national security at risk.Here’s what stands out to me:(1/7) pic.twitter.com/VTS69C22hb— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) August 31, 2022
      “The legal arguments are compelling, but what is most striking are the facts outlining how the former president and his team knowingly put our national security at risk,” Schiff wrote.“This is Trump’s counsel swearing there were no more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. That was obviously false. Someone isn’t telling the truth,” he posted alongside an image of the filing in which Trump’s team claims a “diligent search” failed to turn up documents later recovered by the FBI.“It’s no wonder they wouldn’t allow a look inside the boxes – there were still lots of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago [Trump’s Palm Beach residence and resort].“The deception was deliberate. The government found classified papers in multiple locations throughout Mar-a-Lago, a public hotel. Considering the secret markings, this is reckless in the extreme”.Most damning of all, Schiff added, the documents “so sensitive, so protected that senior FBI agents and DOJ attorneys couldn’t even initially review them. [They] were kept at a public resort. Potentially available to God knows who”.It is not the first time Schiff, a frequent critic of Trump, has accused him of selling out his country. During his fiery closing argument to Trump’s first Senate trial in February 2020, Schiff, the House impeachment manager, said: “He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again.“You can’t trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can’t. He will not change and you know it”.The Republican majority in the Senate subsequently acquitted Trump of obstructing Congress and abuse of power.Charlie Crist, who last week won the Democratic nomination for governor of Florida, resigned from Congress on Wednesday to concentrate on his campaign to try to unseat Republican Ron DeSantis.Crist, himself a former Florida governor as a Republican, was House representative for St Petersburg, on the state’s west coast where he has his campaign headquarters, since 2017.He told the Tampa Bay Times in a brief statement that his resignation from Washington DC would be effective at the end of Wednesday.He gave no reason for his decision, but there are fewer than 10 weeks left before the November election in which he faces an uphill battle to topple DeSantis, a popular figure in Republican circles for his “culture war” agenda and a likely candidate for the party’s nomination in the 2024 presidential election.Representing the people of his district, Crist said, was “an honor and a privilege”.His resignation erodes Democrats’ working majority in the House, i.e. only voting members, to just three votes. As a first-time presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly demanded that Hillary Clinton be sent to jail. “Lock her up” emerged as a battle cry for the 45th president and his fans. He also pledged that his presidency would properly handle the nation’s secrets.“In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” Trump intoned at a 2016 rally in North Carolina. “No one will be above the law.” As promises go, this one aged badly – much like his commitment to release his tax returns.On Tuesday night, the government filed its 36-page opposition to the ex-reality-show host’s demand that a special master be appointed. (A special master is an independent mediator appointed to go through documents and determine which may be protected by privilege.)Trump’s gambit backfired, however. Once again, he looks like a liar. Beyond that, his lawyers became his lackeys. Christina Bobb meet William Barr.New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeys | Lloyd GreenRead more More

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      New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeys | Lloyd Green

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      New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeysLloyd Green‘I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,’ Trump once vowed. As promises go, that one aged badly As a first-time presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly demanded that Hillary Clinton be sent to jail. “Lock her up” emerged as a battle cry for the 45th president and his fans. He also pledged that his presidency would properly handle the nation’s secrets.Justice department details conclusions from FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago – liveRead more“In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he intoned at a 2016 rally in North Carolina. “No one will be above the law.” As promises go, this one aged badly – much like his commitment to release his tax returns.On Tuesday night, the government filed its 36-page opposition to the ex-reality-show host’s demand that a special master be appointed. (A special master is an independent mediator appointed to go through documents and determine which may be protected by privilege.)Trump’s gambit backfired, however. Once again, he looks like a liar. Beyond that, his lawyers became his lackeys. Christina Bobb meet William Barr.In early June, Trump and Bobb, Trump’s attorney and a former marine, delivered to the government a packet of documents in a sealed folder. A certificate signed by Bobb attested to the fact that “any and all responsive documents accompany this certification”.Apparently not. Instead, the government subsequently “developed evidence” that “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation”. Who was involved in the conspiracy is an unanswered question.Regardless, it is now official: Trump will be on the midterm ballot even if his name does not appear. The upcoming congressional elections won’t be a normal referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency. Instead, 2022 will sound a lot like a rerun of 2020. A once anticipated red tsunami is now looking more like a “puddle”.On that score, ask media mogul Rupert Murdoch; he can tell you. Just hours before the government filed its latest round of paperwork, Murdoch’s New York Post published an editorial that decried the reemergence of Trump in the national spotlight and its likely impact on Republicans’ chances.“He lost in 2020 because too many Americans – especially moderates – had gotten sick of his self-indulgent behavior,” the Post wrote. “Since then, his egomania has only grown.”In case anyone forgot, in Fire and Fury, the first installment of Michael Wolff’s trilogy of Trump tell-alls, Murdoch referred to Trump as “a fucking idiot” after the two men had ended a phone call. And Fox’s Sean Hannity is caught saying, of Trump: “What the fuck is wrong with him?”These days, Fox News and its corporate parent are defendants in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems in connection with the network’s alleged role in spreading the “big lie”. According to reports, Murdoch, his son Lachlan, Hannity, and Tucker Carlson are all expected to testify at deposition.Meanwhile, Trump and his minions are threatening violence if things don’t go their way. “There literally will be riots in the street,” Senator Lindsey Graham told interviewers. Trump shared a clip of Graham’s interview on his beleaguered social media vehicle, Truth Social.Said differently, the Republican party is in the process of losing its reputation for law, order and national security. On the right, the drumbeat for defunding the FBI grows louder. Beyond that, Republicans’ relationship to democracy grows more strained.Larry Hogan, Maryland’s outgoing Republican governor, said as much the other day. In an interview with CBS, he acknowledged that authoritarianism had found a nesting place in what was once the party of Abraham Lincoln. “There’s no question we see some signs,” Hogan said.It has been years in the making. Republican politicians have embraced Trump as strongman-lite. In a 2016 radio broadcast, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, made Trump’s authoritarian streak a selling point. “Our constitution is not only broken,” LePage declared, “but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country.” The Republican party knew who it was getting.Whether the Democrats can find a message that resonates with swing-voters remains to be seen. Upstairs-downstairs coalitions are inherently unstable.Yet outrage at the US supreme court’s anti-abortion rights decision in Dobbs has spurred voter registration among women and younger Americans. In a recent special election in rural upstate New York, a Democrat pulled off an upset. Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh are not as wise as they fancy themselves.Sadly, the conditions that led to Trump’s electoral college win in 2016 remain – even if he eventually winds up behind bars. On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the sharpest drop in US life expectancy in a century, and that drug overdoses reached a record high.America ails; Trump is but one more symptom. On Thursday, the court will hear arguments on his motion. Don’t expect any indictments – if any – until after the fall’s elections. Thanksgiving and Christmas stand to be interesting.
      Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionRepublicansUS politicsMar-a-LagocommentReuse this content More

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      Oz campaign again mocks Fetterman’s health in Pennsylvania Senate race

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      Oz campaign again mocks Fetterman’s health in Pennsylvania Senate raceDemocratic frontrunner refuses debate with TV doctor, saying: ‘Dr Oz’s team … think it is funny to mock a stroke survivor’ John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for US Senate in Pennsylvania, said he would not debate Mehmet Oz next week, after the Republican’s campaign mocked his health again.Fetterman hits back at Oz for ‘vegetable’ remark: ‘Politics can be nasty’Read more“Dr Oz’s team … think it is funny to mock a stroke survivor,” Fetterman said.Fetterman suffered a stroke in May and returned to the campaign trail this month. He leads Oz by about nine points in polls.Oz, a heart surgeon, made his name as a TV doctor (who admitted in Senate testimony to promoting diet pills which “don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact”). His campaign has chosen to question Fetterman’s health. On Tuesday, it invited the Democrat to a debate next week.The campaign said: “Dr Oz promises not to intentionally hurt John’s feelings at any point. We will allow John to have all of his notes in front of him along with an earpiece so you can have the answers given to him by his staff in real time.“At any point John Fetterman can raise his hand and say bathroom break … We will pay for any additional medical personnel who might need to have on standby.”Fetterman said: “As I recover from this stroke and improve my auditory processing and speech, I look forward to continuing to meet with the people of Pennsylvania.“Today’s statement from Dr Oz’s team made it abundantly clear that they think it is funny to mock a stroke survivor. My recovery may be a joke to Dr Oz and his team, but it’s real for me.”Fetterman also said he was “proud of my record as mayor [of Braddock] and as lieutenant governor and I’m eager to put my record and my values up against Dr Oz’s any day of the week”.He looked forward, he said, to “a productive discussion about how we can move forward and have a real conversation [about debates] once Dr Oz and his team are ready to take this seriously”.Oz distanced himself from the debate invite, telling KDKA, a Pittsburgh radio station: “The campaign has been saying lots of things.“My position – and I can only speak to what I’m saying – is that John Fetterman should be allowed to recover fully and I will support his ability, as someone who’s gone through a difficult time, to get ready.”Oz’s campaign has indeed been saying lots of things.Last week, responding to Fetterman’s mockery of a video in which Oz complained about the price of crudités, a senior adviser said: “If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke and wouldn’t be in the position of having to lie about it constantly.”Fetterman said: “I had a stroke. I survived it. I know politics can be nasty, but even then, I could never imagine ridiculing someone for their health challenges.”TopicsUS politicsPennsylvaniaUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Maybe US mainstream media should begin using the term ‘fascism’ | Robert Reich

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      Maybe US mainstream media should begin using the term ‘fascism’Robert ReichMy tweet about Ron DeSantis provoked outrage in rightwing media – perhaps it hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican party? I’ve been watching the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for some time. Last Tuesday I tweeted: “Just wondering if ‘DeSantis’ is now officially a synonym for ‘fascist’.”I was surprised at the outrage my little tweet provoked in rightwing media.The Washington Examiner, for example, called me an “ultra-leftwing elitist” who wrote an “insulting slur”, which is “what leftwing ideologues do when they discuss Republican politicians who pose any threat to the existence of their political ideology … Anyone the Democrats don’t like or disagree with is a fascist.”This was among the kindest responses.After a half-century in and around politics, I’ve got a thick skin. But the size of the blowback on my little tweet makes me think I struck a nerve.DeSantis is the most likely rival to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024. The Harvard and Yale educated DeSantis (what do they teach at Harvard and Yale?) has been called “Trump with a brain”.DeSantis is the nation’s consummate culture warrior. Lately he has been campaigning on behalf of Republican election-deniers around the country, including gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and US Senate candidate JD Vance in Ohio.In Florida, discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity are now barred in schools. Math textbooks have been rejected for what officials call “indoctrination”. Claiming tenured professors in Florida’s public universities were “indoctrinating” students, DeSantis spearheaded a law requiring them to be reviewed every five years.Teachers are limited in what they can teach about racism and other tragic aspects of American history. DeSantis has got personally involved in local school board races, endorsing and campaigning for 30 board candidates who agree with him (so far, 20 have won outright, five are going to runoffs).Abortions are banned after 15 weeks. (DeSantis recently suspended an elected prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce the anti-abortion law.)A new state office has been created to investigate “election crimes”.Florida’s Medicaid regulator is considering denying state-subsidized treatments to transgender people. Its medical board may ban gender-affirming medical treatment for youths.Disney (Florida’s largest employer) has been stripped of the ability to govern itself in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on LGBTQ+ conversations with schoolchildren.Florida’s congressional map has been redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.DeSantis also spews culture-war rhetoric. “We are not going to surrender to woke,” he said last Tuesday. “Florida is the state where woke goes to die.”He describes an America under assault by leftwing elites, who “want to delegitimize our founding institutions”.He calls the state of Florida a “citadel of freedom” and says his job as governor is to fight critical race theory, “Faucian dystopia”, uncontrolled immigration, big tech, “leftwing oligarchs”, “Soros-funded prosecutors”, transgender athletes and the “corporate media”.He charges – using a standard racist dog whistle – that “we’re not letting Florida cities burn down … In Florida, you’re not going to get a slap on the wrist. You are getting the inside of a jail cell.”So, is it useful to characterize DeSantis’s combination of homophobia, transphobia, racism and misogyny, along with his efforts to control the public schools and universities and to intimidate the private sector (eg, Disney), as redolent of fascism?America’s mainstream media is by now comfortable talking and writing about “authoritarianism”. Maybe it should also begin using the term “fascism”, where appropriate.Even Joe Biden, never known as a rhetorical bomb-thrower, last Thursday accused the Republican party of “semi-fascism”.Authoritarianism implies the absence of democracy, a dictatorship. Fascism – from the Latin fasces, denoting a tightly bound bundle of wooden rods typically including a protruding axe blade, adopted by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s to symbolize his total power – is different.Fascism also includes hatred of “them” (people considered different by race or religion, or outside the mainstream, or who were born abroad), control over what people learn and what books they are allowed to read, control over what had been independent government units (school boards, medical boards, universities and so on), control over women and the most intimate and difficult decisions they’ll ever make, and demands that the private sector support the regime.Perhaps my “just wondering” tweet about DeSantis hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican party?Or is DeSantis’s own nascent presidential campaign behind the outsized reaction to my tweet?After all, if you’re seeking a presidential nomination in today’s GOP, there’s nothing like an accusation of fascism to rally Trump supporters. It might be a particularly useful strategy if your primary opponent in 2024 will be Trump.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsRon DeSantisOpinionRepublicansUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      Kellyanne Conway seeks to shore up Trump support as legal troubles grow

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      Kellyanne Conway seeks to shore up Trump support as legal troubles growEx-White House counselor said on Fox News that Republicans should stick with her former boss as Democrats gain ground Donald Trump’s former White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, does not think Republicans should move on from her former boss, despite signs his control of the party could cost it the chance to take Congress in November.Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office | Austin Sarat and Dennis AftergutRead moreSpeaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Conway said: “Those who want to move on from Trump: You go first.”Democrats are increasingly confident they can capitalize on Trump’s dominance of the Republican party, their own legislative successes and the need to protect abortion rights and hold the House and Senate.So much so, they have controversially boosted extremist Trump-endorsed candidates, including election deniers, in order to give independents and Republican moderates a stark choice at the polls.But Conway, who remains close to Trump, doubled down on the appeal of the Trumpist agenda.“Anytime Democrats tell you which Republican should be your nominee, run in the other direction, because they know that they’re fixing to make that person unpalatable,” she said.Democrats think Trump and his supporters are unpalatable given his refusal to admit defeat in 2020 and his lie about electoral fraud; his legal jeopardy on that front and over his business affairs; and his furious reaction to an FBI search at his Mar-a-Lago home, over his retention of classified White House material.Democrats have performed strongly in special elections, particularly by focusing on the supreme court’s removal of the right to abortion. In conservative Kansas, a ballot measure came out in favor of the right to choose. In key Senate races including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona and Georgia, Trump-backed candidates are struggling.Conway claimed voters were aligned with Republicans on key issues. Those obsessed with Trump, she said, “don’t spend a minute learning what the 74 million Trump-Pence voters want in these midterm elections. That’s what I study every single day.”More than 74 million Americans voted for Trump and Mike Pence in 2020. Unsaid by Conway: more than 81 million voted for Joe Biden.“When Trump is the leader of the party, when he’s involved in the conversation,” Conway said, Republicans enjoy results such as in 2018, when they celebrated “four [Senate] pick-ups from blue to red, the first time since John Kennedy in 1962 that a president in power’s party picked up a single Senate seat in a midterm election”.Republicans also lost the House in 2018, losing 40 seats under a so-called blue wave.On Fox News, the pollster Mark Penn contested Conway’s comments.“There’s a very hefty group, 10%, who voted for [Biden] last time who don’t like him this time,” he said. “Why aren’t they flocking [to Republicans]? They care about inflation. They care about crime, they care about immigration.“They’re not flocking because of Donald Trump, guns and abortion. Those three are Democratic core issues for them. And so that’s why this race is right now a lot closer than you would normally expect it to be.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsKellyanne ConwayRepublicansJoe BidenDemocratsFox NewsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden ‘determined to ban assault weapons’ as he lays out crime prevention plans – live

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      Joe Biden says he is “determined” to achieve an assault weapons ban in the US.The push to reenact such a ban forms a centerpiece of the Safer America Plan that the president is laying out in an address Tuesday afternoon in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.He is reminding the crowd that in 1994, as chair of the Senate judiciary committee, he helped engineer the original assault weapons ban that later lapsed:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined.
      I did it once before. And I’ll do it again. For many of you at home, I want to be clear. It’s not about taking away anybody’s guns. In fact, we should be treating responsible gun owners as examples, how every gun owner should be.
      Over 48,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021 in the United States of America. Over 26,000 by suicide.”Biden also attacked the National Rifle Association, touring the success of the bipartisan gun control law he signed into law this year..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We beat the NRA. We took them on and we beat ‘em straight up.
      You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials. The NRA was against it, which means a vast majority. The vast majority of Republicans in Congress couldn’t even stand up and vote for it.
      Law enforcement supported it. Faith leaders, teachers supported it. Victims of gun violence and their families supported it. Young people in this country, like the students of this great university, supported it.
      And the NRA, the vast majority of congressional Republicans, voted against it, saving lives and keeping America safe. But guess what? We took on NRA we’re gonna take them on again. And we won and we will win again. We’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country.The US politics blog is closing now and will resume tomorrow. It’s been a busy day in news from Washington, DC, and beyond of a political nature, finishing with US president Joe Biden’s speech in Pennsylvania on gun safety and law enforcement.Here’s how the day went:
      Joe Biden said he is “determined” to achieve an assault weapons ban in the US. The push to reenact such a ban formed a centerpiece of the Safer America Plan that the president laid out in an address this afternoon in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
      The US president made a case for how funding the police – a deliberate rebuffing of the progressive cause of defunding the police (switching funds from policing to a spectrum of social services) – provides “peace of mind” to the American public.
      The Biden administration announced it is sending more monkeypox vaccines to certain states and cities in an effort to combat further spread of the disease.
      Victor Madrigal-Borloz, United Nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, warned that LGBTQ+ equality in the US ‘not yet within reach’ because of states that have passed legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights.
      The DoJ tightened rules around some staff attending election events when attorney general Merrick Garland issued a memo saying that political appointees at the US Department of Justice will be barred from attending election campaign events or fundraisers.
      And the public still awaits the DoJ’s legal response to Donald Trump’s request for a “special master” to oversee its review of classified documents seized by the FBI in a raid on his Florida home. The deadline for the latest filing in federal court in West Palm Beach is today.
      We’ll be closing this US politics blog shortly. By now you will probably have heard or read that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died. The Guardian has launched a separate live blog to cover details and reaction, which you can follow here. And here is the current main news story. There will be a lot more coverage on this huge event from the Guardian.Joe Biden closed his remarks with a vociferous attack on Republicans who defended the January 6 insurrection incited by Donald Trump at the US Capitol, and called the deadly riot that claimed several lives, including police officers, “sickening”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}What I find even more incredible is the defense. Cops attacked, assaulted. Speared with flag poles. Sprayed with mace. Stomped on. Dragged. Brutalized. Police lost their lives as a result of that day.
      Let me say this to my Maga Republican friends in Congress. Don’t tell me you support law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on January 6. Don’t tell me. For God’s sake, whose side are you on?
      You can’t be pro law enforcement and pro insurrection. You can’t be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6 patriots. You can’t do it.Biden also condemned Republicans who have called for the FBI to be defunded after the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that resulted in the seizure of classified documents the former president was hoarding:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the lives of law enforcement agents and their families for simply carrying out the law and doing their job.
      I want to set it out as clear as I can. There is no place in this country, no place, for endangering the lives of law enforcement. No place, no, never, period.Biden recalls a long list of mass shootings in the US.“More children in America die from guns than active duty police and active duty military in the United States,” he says. “We have to act for those families of Buffalo, Uvalde, Newtown, El Paso, Parkland, Charleston, Las Vegas, Orlando … I’ve been to every one of those. Sat down with those parents. I spent four hours last time with every single one of the parents and families who have lost someone, and seen the looks in their faces.”“Think about it. Think about the devastation that’s occurred. We have to act for all those kids gunned down on our streets every single day that never make the news. There’s a mass shooting every single day in this country.”Joe Biden says he is “determined” to achieve an assault weapons ban in the US.The push to reenact such a ban forms a centerpiece of the Safer America Plan that the president is laying out in an address Tuesday afternoon in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.He is reminding the crowd that in 1994, as chair of the Senate judiciary committee, he helped engineer the original assault weapons ban that later lapsed:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined.
      I did it once before. And I’ll do it again. For many of you at home, I want to be clear. It’s not about taking away anybody’s guns. In fact, we should be treating responsible gun owners as examples, how every gun owner should be.
      Over 48,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021 in the United States of America. Over 26,000 by suicide.”Biden also attacked the National Rifle Association, touring the success of the bipartisan gun control law he signed into law this year..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We beat the NRA. We took them on and we beat ‘em straight up.
      You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials. The NRA was against it, which means a vast majority. The vast majority of Republicans in Congress couldn’t even stand up and vote for it.
      Law enforcement supported it. Faith leaders, teachers supported it. Victims of gun violence and their families supported it. Young people in this country, like the students of this great university, supported it.
      And the NRA, the vast majority of congressional Republicans, voted against it, saving lives and keeping America safe. But guess what? We took on NRA we’re gonna take them on again. And we won and we will win again. We’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country.Joe Biden is laying into Republicans who refused to back the American Rescue Plan in congress last year, which he says provided $350bn to states to help make their communities safer..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Guess what? Every single Republican member of Congress, every single one voted against us support law enforcement. They talk about how much they love it. They voted against the funding. Flat out. Flat out. Every Republican in the House. Every Republican in the Senate. Every single one.
      And know we expect so much of our law enforcement officers, so we need to support them. That’s why my crime plan to help communities recruit, hire and train nationwide more than 100,000 additional officers for community policingJoe Biden is talking up his crime prevention plans during a speech in Pennsylvania, and says funding the police is the pathway to providing American families with peace of mind.During an address at which he is also expected to call for an assault weapons ban, the president is laying out his Safer America Plan. A series of deadly mass shootings have destroyed Americans’ sense of security, he says:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Peace of mind [is] knowing your kids can go to school, or the playground, or movies, at a high school game, and come home safely. Not have to think about it for too long. So many families haven’t had that peace of mind.
      They watch the news and they see kids being gunned down in schools and on the streets. Almost every single night you turn the news on that’s what you see. They see their neighbors lose their loved ones to drugs like fentanyl, which is a flat killer.
      They see hate and anger and violence. Just walking the streets of America and they just want to feel safe again. They want to feel a sense of security. That’s what my crime plan is all about.Turning to funding law enforcement funding, which some Republicans accuse Democrats of wanting to scrap, Biden was clear:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When it comes to public safety in this nation, the answer is not defund the police. It’s to fund to the police. We expect them to do everything. We expect them to be protect us, to be psychologist to be sociologists. I mean, we expect you to do everything. We ask so much of you.The Biden administration has announced it is sending more monkeypox vaccines to certain states and cities in an effort to combat further spread of the disease.The White House national monkeypox response team said at a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon that the aim was to “protect individuals most at risk of contracting the virus.”Additional vaccines and support will be sent to states and cities holding events that convene large groups of LGBTQI+ individuals, specifically gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, officials said.They also announced a pilot to “surge” vaccine availability and other prevention resources to communities of color in light of recent CDC data showing the disproportionate reach of the virus among Black and Latino gay, bisexual, and other men.New Orleans, Louisiana; Atlanta, Georgia; and Oakland, California are among the first cities benefiting from the additional vaccines. The White House released a monkeypox fact sheet to accompany the briefing. Three Arizona Republicans, including secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem and congressman Paul Gosar, must pay $75,000 in attorney fees for filing a defamation suit against a former Democratic lawmaker “primarily for purposes of harassment”, a judge has ruled.The Associated Press reports that the Republicans filed the lawsuit last year against former state representative Charlene Fernandez after she and other Democrats called for an investigation of their roles in the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol. The judge, Levi Gunderson, dismissed the lawsuit in April, saying Fernandez’s request was protected by the first amendment’s rights to free speech and to petition the government.On Tuesday, Gunderson ruled that the lawsuit appeared to have been “written for an audience other than the assigned trial court judge” as it made irrelevant references to open borders and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.The lawsuit “was brought for an improper purpose, having been filed against a political opponent primarily for purposes of harassment,” he added.Fernandez and 41 other Democratic lawmakers signed a letter in January 2021 urging the justice department to investigate Finchem, Gosar and then state representative Anthony Kern, allies of Donald Trump who were in or around the US Capitol at the time of the riot. All deny wrongdoing.States that have passed legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights have come under attack from an independent United Nations expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.Speaking at a UN briefing on discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities in New York on Tuesday, Victor Madrigal-Borloz said he looked at a cross-section of key indicators from housing to health care access:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Equality is not yet within reach, and in many cases not within sight of LGBT communities and populations in the US. All outcomes in the sectors I mentioned are inferior, and in many cases significantly inferior, for the LGBT population.
      I am extremely concerned about a series, and I would say a concerted series, of actions at state level, both legislative and administrative, that tend to base on prejudice and stigma, to attack and to rollback the rights of LGBT persons.00:47Numerous US states have passed, or have been contemplating restrictive anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in recent months, none more so than Florida. Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a “don’t say gay” bill that outlaws most classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation topics, as well as a law banning transgender athletes.Political appointees at the US Department of Justice (DoJ) will be barred from attending campaign events or fundraisers, according to new guidance issued by attorney general Merrick Garland today, ahead of November’s midterm elections, Reuters reports..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I know you agree it is critical that we hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards to avoid even the appearance of political influence as we carry out the department’s mission. It is in that spirit that I have added these new restrictions on political activities by non-career employees,” Garland wrote in a memo.While it is common for the justice department to remind its staff to tread carefully about political activities ahead of election seasons, Garland’s memo contains among the most restrictive policies in recent times.Federal employees in general are subject to the Hatch Act, a law which limits some of their political activities to ensure the government is free from partisan influence.Previously, political appointees at the department were permitted to attend partisan events in their personal capacity, as long as they sought prior approval.Under the new guidance, however, there will be no exceptions – including on the evening of election day itself.The change comes at a time when the justice department is under a national microscope over its extraordinary decision to search the Florida estate of former Republican president Donald Trump earlier this month.This was part of an ongoing criminal investigation into whether he illegally retained government records, including some marked as top secret.In addition to the pressure the department has faced over its investigation into Trump, some of its political appointees have also faced criticism for attending political functions.Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas in July called for an investigation after Rachael Rollins, an outspoken progressive prosecutor who serves as the US attorney for Massachusetts, attended a Democratic fundraiser that month that was also attended by first lady Jill Biden.Rollins in a tweet following news reports on her attendance said she had “approval to meet Dr. Biden & left early to speak at 2 community events”.A spokesperson for Rollins did not immediately respond to a request for comment on today. More