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      Republicans thought they had midterms in the bag. Voters just rejected them again | Lloyd Green

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      Republicans thought they had midterms in the bag. Voters just rejected them againLloyd GreenTuesday’s special election in New York state was more evidence that voters are furious about Republican attacks on abortion rights – and going to the polls to boost Democrats Abortion and Donald Trump will both appear on November’s ballot. On Tuesday, Pat Ryan, a Democrat and a decorated Iraq war veteran, upset Republican Marc Molinaro in a special congressional election in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley. Ryan won 52-48 after pre-election polls had painted him as the clear underdog.“This is a huge victory for Dems in a bellwether, Biden +1.5 district,” according to Dave Wasserman, the doyen of congressional-race watchers, with the key words being “huge” and “bellwether”. Said differently, Republican efforts to convert the contest into a referendum on the Democrats and inflation failed.On the campaign trail Ryan made abortion a central issue. “Choice is [on] the ballot, but we won’t go back,” he posted to Facebook hours before the polls opened. “Freedom is under attack, but it’s ours to defend.”Usually, midterms spell disaster for the “in” party that controls the White House. From the looks of things, 2022 may be different.There is a clear backlash against the US supreme court’s evisceration of the rights to privacy and personal autonomy. At the same time, nonstop reports of Trump’s mishandling of top-secret documents, and possible obstruction of justice charges against the 45th president, cloud his party’s future.The end of Roe v Wade is not the blessing Republicans had assumed it would be. Looking back, the defeat of Kansas’s anti-abortion referendum was not a one-off event.For the court’s majority, it appears that being “right” was more important than being smart. Ginni Thomas’s husband and four of his colleagues could have upheld Mississippi’s abortion law without demolishing a half-century of precedent.Chief Justice Robert’s concurrence made that reality crystal clear. Yet around the country, Republican candidates still appear hellbent on doubling-down.Tudor Dixon, Michigan’s Republican candidate for governor, spoke of the upside of a 14-year-old rape victim carrying the child to term. “The bond that those two people made and the fact that out of that tragedy there was healing through that baby, it’s something that we don’t think about,” Dixon told an interviewer.Meanwhile, in Florida, an appellate court affirmed a lower court’s order that barred a parentless 16-year-old from ending her pregnancy. The unnamed mother-to-be had failed to demonstrate that she was “sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy”.On the other hand, the learned judges and the Republican state legislature believed her to be sufficiently adult to deliver and raise a child.And then there is Texas. Later this week, physicians who perform abortions stand to face life in prison and fines of at least $100,000. Under Texas’s current law, abortions are banned after six weeks, and the state’s statute contains no exceptions for rape or incest.Heading into the fall, Democrats will also be bolstered by Joe Biden’s slowly rising approval numbers, tamer inflation figures, and the emergence of democracy’s precarity as a campaign issue. According to a recent NBC poll, the threat to US democracy has overtaken the cost of living as the No 1 issue for voters.Or, in the words of Congressman-elect Ryan, “Our democracy is fragile, but we will fight for it.”Adding to Republican woes is the poor performance of Trump-endorsed Senate candidates in pre-election trial heats. In Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia, they all lag.By the numbers, forecasters give the Democrats better than a three-in-five chance of continuing to control the upper chamber and leaving their imprimatur on Biden judicial nominations. These days, even Senator Mitch McConnell concedes that the odds of him again becoming majority leader are iffy: “Flipping the Senate … It’s a 50/50 proposition … I think the outcome is likely to be very, very close either way.”He also reminded Republicans that running for Senate is not the same thing as running for a House seat albeit with a louder and larger microphone. “Senate races are statewide,” McConnell observed. “They’re just different in nature from individual congressional districts.”Apparently, Senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the Republican National Senatorial Committee, has not yet noticed. First, he burned-through a pile of campaign cash. Now, he has been spotted vacationing on a luxury yacht off the coast of Italy while Americans struggle.On Monday, Scott tweeted: “Another week of President Biden vacationing in Delaware vs. working at the White House.” Cluelessness is not just the province of Justices Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh.
      Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsDemocratsOpinionRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressRoe v WadeAbortionNew YorkcommentReuse this content More

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      ‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book says

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      ‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysFormer New York mayor’s ex-wife describes breakdown Trump helped hide, years before mutual White House drama Depressed and drinking to excess after the failure of his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Rudy Giuliani secretly recovered at the Florida home of a close friend and ally – Donald Trump.Trump stash retrieved from Mar-a-Lago runs to hundreds of classified filesRead more“We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,” Giuliani’s third wife, Judith Giuliani, says in a new book.Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, by Andrew Kirtzman, will be published in September. The Guardian obtained a copy.In 2018, Giuliani told the New York Times he “spent a month at Mar-a-Lago, relaxing” after the primary a decade before. He has not otherwise discussed the period.Giuliani initially polled well in 2008 but won just one delegate and dropped out after placing fourth in Florida.The former mayor, Kirtzman writes, had “dreamed of becoming president from a young age, [but] blew his big moment when it arrived”.Judith Giuliani tells Kirtzman her husband fell into “what, I knew as a nurse, was a clinical depression”.“She said he started to drink more heavily,” Kirtzman writes. “While Giuliani was always fond of drinking scotch with his cigars while holding court at the Grand Havana or Club Mac, his friends never considered him a problem drinker. Judith felt he was drinking to dull the pain.”Giuliani has repeatedly denied having a drinking problem. But reports of his drinking while fulfilling his late-career role as Trump’s personal attorney are legion, whether regarding his behavior around reporters or in his presence at the White House on election night in 2020, when he exhorted Trump to declare victory before all results were counted.In testimony to the House January 6 committee, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” that night.Kirtzman’s reporting of Giuliani’s little-known 2008 stay at Mar-a-Lago – a period when in Giuliani’s ex-wife’s words he was both speaking to therapists and “always falling shitfaced somewhere” – also prefigures Giuliani’s current role in American public life, as a chaotic, picaresque Trump booster seemingly impervious to personal or political embarrassment.Trump is a lifelong teetotaler but also a longtime Giuliani ally. In 2008, Kirtzman says, as Giuliani was struggling even to get out of bed, Trump came to his rescue.The former mayor and his wife, Kirtzman writes, moved into a bungalow across the street from Mar-a-Lago but connected by a tunnel underneath South Ocean Boulevard, one of many little known passages and rooms beneath the expansive resort. The secret route allowed the couple to come and go from Trump’s home without the media knowing.As Kirtzman’s book nears publication, underground rooms at Mar-a-Lago are in the news, after the FBI searched some for classified material taken from the White House at the end of Trump’s four years as president.Giuliani eventually emerged from seclusion to appear on Saturday Night Live. He made “self-deprecating jokes about the failure of his campaign”, Kirtzman writes, but “his makeup barely hid a large scar above his right eyebrow”. According to Judith Giuliani, the scar was the result of a fall when getting out of a car.Kirtzman writes that Giuliani’s third wife “was known to exaggerate, and the depth of his depression [during his secret spell at Mar-a-Lago] is something that only she and Giuliani knew for certain”. But the author also quotes friends, among them the 2013 Republican New York mayoral candidate Joe Lhota, as saying the Giulianis were out of touch at the time in question.Kirtzman recounts Giuliani’s career from his days as a hard-charging New York prosecutor to two terms as a controversial mayor, the 9/11 attacks and Giuliani’s widely praised leadership in the immediate aftermath.The author also covers Giuliani’s business deals after leaving office and his failed Senate run against Hillary Clinton in 2000.04:35In Giuliani’s meltdown after the primary in 2008, Kirtzman finds the seeds of a relationship which ultimately saw Giuliani contribute to Trump’s first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine for political dirt, and to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Those efforts resulted in Trump’s second impeachment, over the Capitol riot, and extensive professional and legal jeopardy for Giuliani.Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in GeorgiaRead moreAs reported by the New York Times, Kirtzman ultimately describes a Giuliani associate’s failed request that Trump pardon his ally in the aftermath of the Capitol attack – and give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom while he was at it.Giuliani and Trump had “a compelling kinship”, Kirtzman writes. “The former mayor and the famous developer were two New York colossuses, dinosaurs from another time and place.” Judith Giuliani tells Kirtzman Trump and his own third wife, Melania Trump, “kept a protective eye” on their friends.Judith, Kirtzman writes, “contends that, eight years before Washington began talking about Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump in the same breath, the future president took the failed candidate under his protective wing at a vulnerable moment.“What’s clear is the two men’s friendship survived when a hundred other Trump relationships died away like so many marriages of convenience. Giuliani would never turn his back on Trump, much to his detriment.”TopicsBooksRudy GiulianiUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansPolitics booksBiography booksnewsReuse this content More

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      New York primaries: Nadler beats Maloney in bitter Democratic fight

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      New York primaries: Nadler beats Maloney in bitter Democratic fightHouse judiciary chair declared the winner over House oversight chair in heavyweight bout as gerrymandered map causes upheaval In an unpleasant end to a bitter New York Democratic primary on Tuesday, allies of two powerful House committee chairs traded nasty barbs – before one saw a long career in Congress brought to an untimely end.Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House oversight committee, said her opponent in New York’s 12th district, Jerrold Nadler, was “half-dead”, possibly senile and unlikely to finish his next term in Washington, CNN reported. Allies of Nadler, the judiciary chair, called Maloney “kooky” and “not entirely sober”.Florida: Charlie Crist wins Democratic primary to challenge Ron DeSantisRead moreIn the end, Nadler’s political career remained wholly alive. With nearly 90% of results in when the race was called, he had taken 56% of the vote to 24% for Maloney. A third candidate, Suraj Patel, brought up the rear.Speaking before the vote, Nadler told CNN: “It’s obviously not true that I’m half-dead, it’s obviously not true that I’m senile … Let them flail away.”In his victory speech, Nadler said he and Maloney “have spent much of our adult lives working together to better both New York and our nation. I speak for everyone in this room tonight when I thank her for her decades of service to our city.”Nadler and Maloney, both septuagenarians with 30-year Washington careers, were forced into their undignified fight to stay in Congress by redistricting, after the New York supreme court said Democrats gerrymandered the map.Nadler, 75, was first elected in 1992. As chair of the House judiciary committee, he led both impeachments of Donald Trump. He was buoyed in the last weeks of the primary campaign by endorsements from the New York Times and Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader.He said he would go back to Congress “with a mandate to fight for the causes so many of us know to be right”, including abortion access and climate change.Maloney, 76, also first elected in 1992, is the first woman to chair the House oversight committee. Known for her advocacy for 9/11 first responders seeking compensation for diseases they attribute to contamination from the destruction of the World Trade Center, she once wore a firefighter’s jacket on Capitol Hill and at the 2019 Met Gala.On Tuesday, Maloney said women in politics still face misogyny, something she said she experienced herself in her primary campaign.“I’m really saddened that we no longer have a woman representing Manhattan in Congress,” Maloney said. “It has been a great, great honor and a joy and a privilege to work for you.”Among other New York Democratic contests teed up by district changes, Sean Patrick Maloney, a senior party figure, saw off Alessandra Biaggi, a progressive backed by the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, by a comfortable margin, 67% to 33% at the point the race was called.Elsewhere, Daniel Goldman, lead counsel in Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, beat Mondaire Jones, one of the first two gay Black men in Congress, and Yuh-Line Niou, another progressive candidate, in a tightly fought race.In the Republican primaries, Carl Paladino – a far-right former candidate for governor who has praised Hitler, made racist remarks about Barack and Michelle Obama and said the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, should be executed – established an early lead over his opponent in a Buffalo-area seat before being reeled in and defeated by Nick Langworthy, chair of the state party.There was also a key special election for Congress, in which Pat Ryan, the Democrat, established an early lead over Marc Molinaro, his Republican challenger in the 19th district. Molinaro made up ground as the night went on – before the race was called for Ryan, 51% to 49%.Ryan will only sit in Congress until the end of the year, as both men will fight other seats in November. But observers were watching closely for clues as to voter intentions less than three months before the midterms.Republicans are favoured to retake the House, as opposition parties often do in the first midterms of a presidential term. But the win for Ryan will be seized upon by national Democratic leaders hoping that recent domestic legislative successes and the excesses of the conservative-dominated supreme court, particularly on abortion, could tilt the midterms contests their way.The New York seat fell vacant when Antonio Delgado, a Democrat, resigned from Congress to become lieutenant governor to Kathy Hochul. Republicans targeted the district as a possible flip, with heavy campaign spending.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022New YorkDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Markwayne Mullin, election-denying former cage fighter, closes on Oklahoma Senate seat

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      Markwayne Mullin, election-denying former cage fighter, closes on Oklahoma Senate seatCongressman who embraced Donald Trump’s big lie seeks to replace retiring Senator Jim Inhofe An election-denying former mixed martial arts fighter who was widely criticised for an attempted freelance mission last year to rescue Americans trapped in Afghanistan has won a shot at a US Senate seat from Oklahoma.Markwayne Mullin, a sitting congressman, beat another Donald Trump loyalist and election denier for their party’s nomination in a special election on Tuesday and will seek to replace the long-serving senator Jim Inhofe in November.‘I’m not Rambo’: Republican unrepentant about attempt to enter AfghanistanRead moreMullin, a plumbing company owner from Westville, and TW Shannon, a former speaker of the Oklahoma House and a bank executive from Oklahoma City, both embraced Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was subject to widespread fraud.The two were the top finishers in a 13-candidate Republican primary in June, but neither topped the 50% threshold needed to win the nomination outright.Mullin, who topped that field with nearly 44% of the vote, earned Trump’s endorsement shortly after the primary. He has something else in common with the former president: an exaggeration of his own sporting prowess.The politician who declared “I’m not Rambo” after his much-ridiculed attempt to enter Afghanistan in the company of a private US security team, boasts on his website a 5-0 record as a professional mixed martial arts fighter.The official record of his short-lived career suggests a different story: a total of three wins, two against the same opponent, and cumulative fight time of less than 10 minutes in under three rounds.In the political ring, Mullin will now seek to replace the retiring 87-year-old Inhofe, a fixture in Republican politics in Oklahoma since the 1960s who has held his Senate seat since 1994. Inhofe is leaving before his six-year term is finished, so his replacement will serve four years.In November, Mullin will be heavily favored to beat the former Democratic congresswoman Kendra Horn, along with an independent candidate and a Libertarian. Oklahoma has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate in more than 30 years.In a state where nearly 10% of the population identifies as American Indian, both Mullin and Shannon are members of Native American tribes. Mullin is a Cherokee citizen and Shannon, who is also African American, is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.Campaign finance reports showed Mullin raised about $3.6m, nearly three times the $1.3m Shannon reported.In campaign ads and on the stump, both touted their positions on hot-button issues and vowed to fight Joe Biden’s agenda.Shannon launched an anti-abortion ad in which he labeled Planned Parenthood the “true face of white supremacy”. Mullin, in an ad featuring two of his own children and a montage of the transgender collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas, said: “Democrats can’t even tell us what a woman is.”Also on Tuesday, in the Democratic primary runoff for Oklahoma’s other US Senate seat, the cybersecurity expert Madison Horn defeated Jason Bollinger, an Oklahoma City attorney.Horn, who is not related to Kendra Horn, will face the incumbent Republican senator, James Lankford, who will be the heavy favorite in November, along with a Republican and an independent.TopicsOklahomaRepublicansUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Florida: Charlie Crist wins Democratic primary to challenge Ron DeSantis

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      Florida: Charlie Crist wins Democratic primary to challenge Ron DeSantisFormer Republican governor who became a Democratic congressman edges out Nikki Fried to face the Donald Trump protégé in November Charlie Crist will challenge Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in November after trouncing Nikki Fried, the state agriculture commissioner, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida who switched parties and became a Democratic congressman, fought a campaign touting his experience in office and opposition to the 15-week abortion ban signed by DeSantis.Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign adRead moreIn his victory speech in St Petersburg, Crist promised that if elected he will on his first day in office sign an executive order overturing the abortion law.And he pledged to end the White House hopes of “wannabe dictator” DeSantis, who is tipped as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. DeSantis has signed a raft of culture war legislation in Florida, attacking LBGTQ+ rights and “woke” corporations.“Our fundamental freedoms are literally on the ballot,” Crist said. “A woman’s right to choose on the ballot. Democracy on the ballot. Your rights as minorities are on this ballot.“That’s what’s at stake in this election, make no mistake about it, because this guy wants to be president of the United States of America and everybody knows it.“However, when we defeat him on 8 November, that show is over.”With fewer than 15% of votes left to count, Crist held a commanding lead over Fried, a progressive and the only statewide elected Democrat currently in office, by roughly 60% to 35%. But turnout, particularly in central Florida, was far below that of four years ago, a lack of enthusiasm among Democrats one of the main fears of party officials.In his final pre-election press conference, Crist said he planned to appear at a “unity rally” with his beaten opponent in south Florida later in the week.Their focus will switch to ousting DeSantis, whom Crist has branded Florida’s “absentee” governor for constantly attacking Joe Biden’s policies and appearing to concentrate on out-of-state fundraising for a national campaign rather than problems at home.“He’s campaigning this last weekend in New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and I think another state, but he’s been doing that for a year, maybe more,” Crist said.“We have issues here the governor ought to be dealing with, the housing crisis, we pay our teachers 48 or 49 of 50 states, that’s embarrassing.“And the fact he already has taken away a woman’s right to choose with the law that he signed, the 15-week law that has no exceptions for rape or incest, is barbaric.”During her campaign, Fried attacked Crist’s Republican roots and perceived flip-flops over abortion, and painted herself as the only candidate capable of beating DeSantis. Crist, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2010, has the unenviable distinction of losing statewide races as a Republican, Democrat and independent.But he appears to have been more popular with women voters in this primary, and pointed out that, when he was governor 12 years ago, he vetoed an anti-abortion bill.On Tuesday night, Fried told NBC News she would accept if Crist asked her to be his running mate.“I’ve said to Charlie, both tonight and throughout this entire election, that my No 1 priority is making sure that we make Ron DeSantis a one-term governor and not eligible to run for president of the United States in 2024.“Ron DeSantis is our greatest threat to democracy, so I will do everything in my power, including being on Charlie’s ticket, to make sure that happens in November.“What we did here in this election, is we created a movement for women across the state of Florida. We gave inspiration, we gave motivation, and so whatever it takes to make sure that Ron DeSantis is defeated in November – I’m all in.”DeSantis won the 2018 election against the Democratic challenger, Andrew Gillum, by barely 30,000 votes, or 0.4% of 8.2m cast. But toppling him in November will be a formidable task as Florida has trended increasingly Republican in recent years.The incumbent also has a war chest in excess of $100m, far above what Crist has been able to raise. Even so, Crist remains confident he can win on the issues.“Today the people of Florida clearly sent a message,” he said. “They want a governor who cares about them to solve real problems, who preserves our freedom, not a bully who divides us and takes our freedom away.”In another much-watched Democratic primary, Val Demings, a congresswoman and former Orlando police chief, easily secured the nomination to challenge the Republican US senator Marco Rubio in November.Rubio’s seat is one of several targeted by Democrats as they attempt to build a majority in the 50-50 chamber and negate their reliance on Vice-president Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.A competitive and crowded Democratic primary for the House seat Demings vacated went to Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old progressive endorsed by the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Pramila Jayapal, a leading House progressive from Washington state.In a tight Republican primary for another central Florida House seat, the far-right extremist Laura Loomer, a self-declared Islamophobe, election denier and conspiracy theorist, narrowly lost to the incumbent, Dan Webster.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022FloridaDemocratsRon DeSantisRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Donald Trump reportedly kept hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago – as it happened

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      Despite rules requiring outgoing presidents to turn their materials over to the National Archives, the US government has retrieved more than 300 classified documents from Donald Trump since he left office, beginning with an initial 150 recovered in January, The New York Times reports.The initial release of documents alarmed the justice department, which feared that the former president may have retained secrets that should have been sent to the government after his departure from the White House. It also laid the groundwork for the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, where they turned up even more sensitive materials.Since he left the White House, the report says government record keepers have been concerned about the whereabouts of the several documents from the Trump administration, including a note Barack Obama left his successor, and letters from North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un. Those concerns eventually grew into the national security investigation that led to the FBI’s search. Here’s more from Times’ report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Mr. Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both.
      The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter said.
      Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.
      The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.
      Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.New details emerged about the federal government’s alarm over the trove of documents Donald Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago, which allegedly included secret materials that were supposed to be in the custody of the National Archives. Meanwhile, voters in New York and Florida are casting ballots in primary elections, which will set the stage for showdowns in the November midterms.Here’s a rundown of today’s events:
      Two men were found guilty for plotting to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
      The Republican senator in charge of winning the party a majority in Congress’ upper chamber went on vacation even as GOP candidates appeared to be struggling in key races nationwide.
      The January 6 committee interviewed Trump’s former national security adviser, according to a report.
      In Colorado, a Republican state senator left the party for the Democrats, saying he couldn’t abide by its stance on climate change or its embrace of 2020 election denial.
      He may be a rival of Trump but fellow Republican and Florida governor Ron DeSantis joined in on attacking the FBI for searching the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort. He also released an advertisement attacking the news media.
      The Internal Revenue Service is launching a safety review after Republicans attacked the agency during their campaign to derail the Biden administration’s plan for lowering healthcare costs and carbon emissions, the Washington Post reports.The plan, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act and signed into law earlier this month after winning passage in the Democrat-controlled Congress, also allocates $80bn to the IRS over the next 10 years. The tax authority has complained of underfunding, but Republicans seized on the infusion of money to claim that armed agents would soon be going through Americans’ bank accounts. In reality, it’s not yet clear how the funds will be used, and only a minority of the IRS’s employees carry weapons, chiefly those involved in criminal investigations.“We see what’s out there in terms of social media. Our workforce is concerned about their safety,” IRS commissioner Charles Rettig told the Post in an interview. “The comments being made are extremely disrespectful to the agency, to the employees and to the country.” Union officials in the story also say employees are worried about their safety amid the rightwing attacks.Here’s more from the Post’s report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In a letter to employees sent Tuesday, he wrote that the agency would conduct risk assessments for each of the IRS’s 600 facilities, and evaluate whether to increase security patrols along building exteriors, boost designations for restricted areas, examine security around entrances and assess exterior lighting. It will be the agency’s first such review since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, which killed 168 people.
      “For me this is personal,” Rettig wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Post. “I’ll continue to make every effort to dispel any lingering misperceptions about our work. And I will continue to advocate for your safety in every venue where I have an audience. You go above and beyond every single day, and I am honored to work with each of you.”Armed … auditors? The IRS becomes the latest target of GOP misinformationRead moreThe United States will as soon as Wednesday unveil $3bn in additional military aid for Ukraine intended to help it withstand a longer conflict with Russia, the Associated Press reports.The funds will bring Washington’s total military assistance to the country to $10.6bn since Biden took office, and pay for new weaponry that Ukraine will take longer to get to the battlefield.Here’s more from the AP:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Unlike most previous packages, the new funding is largely aimed at helping Ukraine secure its medium- to long-term defense posture, according to officials familiar with the matter. Earlier shipments, most of them done under Presidential Drawdown Authority, have focused on Ukraine’s more immediate needs for weapons and ammunition and involved materiel that the Pentagon already has in stock that can be shipped in short order.
      In addition to providing longer-term assistance that Ukraine can use for potential future defense needs, the new package is intended to reassure Ukrainian officials that the United States intends to keep up its support, regardless of the day-to-day back and forth of the conflict, the officials said.
      NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg noted the more extended focus Tuesday as he reaffirmed the alliance’s support for the conflict-torn country.
      “Winter is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logistics. Therefore we must sustain our support for Ukraine for the long term, so that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation,” Stoltenberg said, speaking at a virtual conference about Crimea, organized by Ukraine.Florida senator Rick Scott is the man charged with leading the Republican party’s campaign to win a majority in the chamber, but Axios is reporting today that he’s on vacation in Italy amid mounting signs that GOP candidates are struggling in key races nationwide.That news of the senator’s whereabouts leaked shows just how upset GOP lawmakers are with Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The party’s candidates are struggling in states where they shouldn’t. Consider the situation in Ohio, which has increasingly trended towards the GOP in recent years but where a Republican Super Pac just spent $28m to support JD Vance’s flagging Senate campaign.The Senate’s Republican leader Mitch McConnell has also taken to repeating that if he has a majority in the chamber next year, he expects it will be slim – not exactly a sign of confidence in the party’s chances.“If House Republicans coast to victory while Senate Republicans fail to pick up the one seat necessary to win a majority, Scott is poised to be the GOP’s fall guy. It would be a rare setback for the Florida politician, who has beaten long odds before and boasts an undefeated record in his own campaigns,” as Axios puts it.Last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis traveled to Ohio to campaign for JD Vance, the Republican candidate for the state’s open Senate seat. Journalists obviously wanted to attend, but there was a catch. In fact, there was more than one.The organizers of the event, Trump-aligned Turning Point Action, put in place a host of restrictions affecting who reporters could talk to and where they could do it. They also required them to share any video shot during the event for promotional use.Normally, the Cleveland Plain Dealer would send its reporters to this sort of event, but in a strongly worded editorial, the newspaper’s editor Chris Quinn pointed to the rules and said none of his reporters would attend. He also warned voters about what DeSantis and Vance’s apparent acceptance of these restrictions said about their approach to press freedom:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely presidential candidate in 2024, scheduled a trip to Ohio Friday to stump for Senate candidate J.D. Vance, and our reporters were not there because of ridiculous restrictions that DeSantis and Vance placed on anyone covering the event.
      The worst of the rules was one prohibiting reporters from interviewing attendees not first approved by the organizers of the event for DeSantis and Vance. When we cover events, we talk to anyone we wish. It’s America, after all, the land of free speech. At least that’s America as it exists today. Maybe not the America that would exist under DeSantis and Vance.
      Think about what they were doing here. They were staging an event to rally people to vote for Vance while instituting the kinds of policies you’d see in a fascist regime. A wannabe U.S. Senator, and maybe a wannabe president.
      Another over-the-top rule was one reserving the right to receive copies of any video shot of the event for promotional use. That’s never okay. News agencies are independent of the political process. We do not provide our work product to anyone for promotional use. To do so would put us in league with people we cover, destroying our credibility.
      Yet another of the rules reserved the right to know in what manner any footage of the event would be used. We are news people. We use footage on news platforms. But this rule set up a situation in which reporters could be grilled on their intentions.
      I’m scratching my head over one other rule, one that prohibited reporters from entering the hotel rooms of any attendees of the event. If someone invites a reporter into a hotel room for an interview, what’s the harm?
      Anyway, we didn’t accept the limitations, because they end up skewing the facts. If we can speak only with attendees chosen by the candidate, we don’t get a true accounting of what people thought of the event. You get spin from the most ardent supporters.The January 6 committee hasn’t held a hearing in a month and Congress is on recess, but NBC News has details of what their investigators are up to.The panel has interviewed Robert O’Brien, Donald Trump’s national security adviser for the final part of his term, including when the Capitol was attacked:SCOOP: The Jan 6 committee interviewed former national security adviser Robert O’Brien TODAY, 2 sources familiar with the panel’s work confirmed to @NBCNewsThe interview was scheduled for 11:00AM remotely W/ @alivitali— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) August 23, 2022
      The January 6 committee has said it will resume public hearings in September.Speaking of Ron DeSantis, Gloria Oladipo reports that the Florida governor has released a new advertisement attacking the news media:Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday released a campaign advertisement drawing on the movie franchise Top Gun to attack the news media.The ad is the latest stunt by DeSantis to promote far-right talking points before Tuesday’s statewide primary and a possible future run for the Oval Office in 2024.In the parody, posted to Twitter, DeSantis wears a bomber jacket similar to outfits worn by the Top Gun star Tom Cruise in the franchise’s two films and discusses “taking on the corporate media” in an airbase.“The rules of engagement are as follows: number one – don’t fire unless fired upon, but when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force,” DeSantis says in the video. “Number two – never ever back down from a fight. Number three – don’t accept their narrative.”Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign adRead moreWhen they choose their governorship candidate, Florida Democrats will find a familiar name on their ballots: Charlie Crist. A former Republican governor turned Democrat who is now a House representative, he could become the party’s choice to take on Ron DeSantis. Crist spoke with the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland ahead of the vote:Charlie Crist exuded a smooth confidence as he bounded into the room, a conference hall at a teachers union building in downtown Tampa, Florida, earlier this month.He may be facing a primary election to be the Democratic candidate in the next gubernatorial election, but Crist’s focus seems already set on the general in November – and the far-right Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, he hopes to unseat.“He’s the most arrogant governor I’ve ever seen in my life,” Crist said to the assembled teachers who nodded in agreement. “It is shocking, it really is. Enough is enough.”As primary voters in the state cast their ballots today, polls forecast that Crist, a Florida political mainstay, is likely to win by a substantial margin against his closest Democratic opponent, the state’s agriculture commissioner, Nikki Fried.‘He’s a wannabe dictator’: Democrat has DeSantis in his sights in Florida primaryRead moreDemocratic voters in part of New York City today will be asked to choose a House representative from two ageing lawmakers who have become fierce rivals, as well as a young challenger.CNN has published a well-done look at the contenders in the district representing Manhattan’s upper east and west sides. Carolyn Maloney is the chair of the House oversight committee but, as the network found out, apparently doesn’t appreciate oversight from reporters:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Maloney has dodged questions about her comments and her aides have refused to give almost any information about her whereabouts in the closing days of the campaign, arguing that she changes her mind too much to keep track of her. When a CNN reporter tracked her down on Monday at a campaign stop on the Upper West Side to ask her about her comments, she began running down the sidewalk to a waiting car, while one of her daughters repeatedly positioned herself with her hands and legs out in an attempt to block any further questions.Maloney has lately been in the news for comments suggesting Joe Biden won’t run for a second term. The lawmaker has also leveled several attacks against Jerry Nadler, chair of the House judiciary committee, who is seen as her chief rival for the seat:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Maloney has told people privately that Nadler is “half dead” and insinuated he won’t be healthy enough to finish another term if he wins, and people associated with her campaign have suggested that Nadler secretly briefly lost consciousness at a campaign stop last week. (His campaign has said that rather than losing consciousness, he tripped on a subway grate.) She’s also urged voters to read a New York Post editorial that called Nadler “senile” and questioned his grip on reality.She didn’t want to answer questions about that, either:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When asked why she called Nadler “half dead,” Maloney closed the door of the car and waved goodbye. An hour earlier, finishing her only announced campaign stop of the day before the primary, she also closed the door when another reporter asked if she thinks Nadler is senile.CNN reports that, for a New Yorker, Nadler is running a remarkably low-key campaign:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Nadler has not been seen much lately – he had a single public event on Monday, his first since Saturday morning, which is a remarkably sparse schedule for a dense urban district where standing on a street corner can mean meeting dozens of voters in just a few minutes. He’s developed some trouble walking over the years due to arthritis, and he’s been spotted appearing to fall asleep. Commentators noted his lethargic performance at one of the candidate debates.
      On Monday, Nadler stood in suspenders in front of the famous Fairway supermarket, in the heart of the Upper West Side, handing out campaign flyers and somewhat sheepishly trying to get shoppers’ attention, saying, “Hi, I’m Congressman Nadler,” to each.The third Democrat in the race is Suraj Patel, who has twice challenged Maloney unsuccessfully, and at 38 years old, presents quite a contrast to the two sitting representatives, who are both in their 70s. Here’s what he has to say:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“The time is different. People feel like the status quo in Washington is broken. And what I’ve learned over the course of the race is people feel like the status quo in New York is broken,” Patel said Sunday afternoon, sipping a beer at a standing table in the Chelsea neighborhood between a full day of campaign stops. “It’s given us the license to both be the serious campaign with policy positions for the future, but also to be the light at the end of the tunnel.”Whitmer responds to guilty verdicts in kidnap plotMichigan governor Gretchen Whitmer has responded to the guilty verdicts for two men now convicted of a kidnapping plot against her.She said: “I ran for office because I love my fellow Michiganders and my home state with all my heart. I always will. I will not let extremists get in the way of the work we do. They will never break my unwavering faith in the goodness and decency of our people.”And added: “Today’s verdicts prove that violence and threats have no place in our politics and those who seek to divide us will be held accountable. They will not succeed. But we must also take a hard look at the status of our politics.”Kristi Noem in ethics fightSouth Dakota governor Kristi Noem is often touted as a rising star of the Republican party as a staunch Trumpist who governs her huge and rural state with a firm rightwing hand.But she has some serious ethics issues to deal with, the Associated Press reports.The AP says: “A South Dakota ethics board on Monday said it found sufficient information that Gov. Kristi Noem may have “engaged in misconduct” when she intervened in her daughter’s application for a real estate appraiser license, and it referred a separate complaint over her state airplane use to the state’s attorney general for investigation.”In a possibly worrying development for Noem (a close ally of Trump sometimes touted as his potential running mate if a 2024 bid emerges) the agency adds: “The three retired judges on the Government Accountability Board determined that “appropriate action” could be taken against Noem for her role in her daughter’s appraiser licensure, though it didn’t specify the action.”More details follow: “The AP first reported that the governor took a hands-on role in a state agency soon after it had moved to deny her daughter’s application for an appraiser license in 2020. Noem had called a meeting with her daughter, the labor secretary and the then-director of the appraiser certification program where a plan was discussed to give the governor’s daughter, Kassidy Peters, another chance to show she could meet federal standards in her appraiser work.”Trump portrait at Smithsonian funded by own PacPolitico reports that Donald Trump’s presidential portrait at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC will be mostly funded by his own Super Pac – a situation unique in the annals of the institution.The news website says:“The $650,000 donation last month from the Save America PAC – an organization controlled by Trump himself – was unprecedented, as no other political action committee has funded a presidential portrait in the past, Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St Thomas said.”It adds:“The Smithsonian has been raising money for commissions of outgoing presidential portraits since George H.W. Bush’s portrait. All presidential portraits in the National Portrait Gallery were paid for by private money through the museum, St Thomas said.”Student loan announcement now imminentAn announcement on forgiving some student loan debt appears to be set for Wednesday, according to the Washington Post political team.Earlier the paper had reported there was a White House “feud” over the issue, saying: “The White House’s close allies are feuding over whether the administration should cancel up to $10,000 in student debt for millions of American borrowers.”It added: “Internal White House discussions have centered on temporarily extending that pause and simultaneously canceling $10,000 per borrower for those below an income threshold, but the president has not yet communicated a decision, according to two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations. Another person familiar with the talks said $10,000 is among the options being considered.”But according to a tweet from WashPo reporter Jeff Stein, Biden has now made his mind up. Stein says: “UPDATE: President Biden’s long-awaited student loan announcement IS coming tomorrow, ppl tell me & @DaniDougPost Parameters TBD but WH has been looking at $10K in cancelation per borrower under $125K/yr”New details emerged about the federal government’s alarm over the trove of documents Donald Trump apparently kept at Mar-a-Lago, which allegedly included secret materials that were supposed to be in the custody of the National Archives. Meanwhile, voters in New York and Florida are casting ballots in primary elections that will set the stage for general election showdowns in the November midterms.Here’s a rundown of the day’s events:
      Two men were found guilty for plotting to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
      In Colorado, a Republican state senator left the party for the Democrats, saying he couldn’t abide by its stance on climate change or its embrace of 2020 election denial.
      He may be a rival of Trump but fellow Republican and Florida governor Ron DeSantis joined in on attacking the FBI for searching the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
      Ron DeSantis may be a possible contender against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, but that hasn’t stopped him from joining in on criticizing the FBI for its search of Mar-a-Lago.He was on Fox News claiming that the bureau has become politicized, but declined to say whether he’d spoken to Trump recently:Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) baselessly attacks the FBI as the “enforcement arm of one particular faction of our country” after the lawful search of Mar-a-Lago:“I haven’t read the motion in terms of what was going on, but clearly federal agencies … have been weaponized.” pic.twitter.com/jsP1Ot2MZF— The Recount (@therecount) August 23, 2022
      A jury has found two men guilty of plotting to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, according to the Associated Press.Here’s more from their report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The jury also found Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. guilty of conspiring to obtain a weapon of mass destruction, namely a bomb to blow up a bridge and stymie police if the kidnapping could be pulled off at Whitmer’s vacation home.
      Croft, 46, a trucker from Bear, Delaware, was also convicted of another explosives charge.
      It was the second trial for the pair after a jury in April couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. Two other men were acquitted and two more pleaded guilty and testified for prosecutors.
      The result was a victory for the government following the shocking mixed outcome last spring.
      “You can’t just strap on an AR-15 and body armor and go snatch the governor,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler told jurors.
      “But that wasn’t the defendants’ ultimate goal,” Kessler said. “They wanted to set off a second American civil war, a second American Revolution, something that they call the boogaloo. And they wanted to do it for a long time before they settled on Gov. Whitmer.”
      The investigation began when Army veteran Dan Chappel joined a Michigan paramilitary group and became alarmed when he heard talk about killing police. He agreed to become an FBI informant and spent summer 2020 getting close to Fox and others, secretly recording conversations and participating in drills at “shoot houses” in Wisconsin and Michigan.
      The FBI turned it into a major domestic terrorism case with two more informants and two undercover agents embedded in the group.
      Fox, Croft and others, accompanied by the government operatives, traveled to northern Michigan to see Whitmer’s vacation home at night and a bridge that could be destroyed.
      Defense attorneys tried to put the FBI on trial, repeatedly emphasizing through cross-examination of witnesses and during closing remarks that federal players were present at every crucial event and had entrapped the men.
      Fox and Croft, they said, were “big talkers” who liked to smoke marijuana and were guilty of nothing but exercising their right to say vile things about Whitmer and government. More

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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign ad

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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign adRightwing Republican viewed as serious 2024 presidential contender accuses reporters of ‘peddling false narratives’ Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday released a campaign advertisement drawing on the movie franchise Top Gun to attack the news media.The ad is the latest stunt by DeSantis to promote far-right talking points before Tuesday’s statewide primary and a possible future run for the Oval Office in 2024.In the parody, posted to Twitter, DeSantis wears a bomber jacket similar to outfits worn by the Top Gun star Tom Cruise in the franchise’s two films and discusses “taking on the corporate media” in an airbase.“The rules of engagement are as follows: number one – don’t fire unless fired upon, but when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force,” DeSantis says in the video. “Number two – never ever back down from a fight. Number three – don’t accept their narrative.”DeSantis also dons a helmet with the logo “Top Gov”.The ad is intercut with a reel of DeSantis at previous news conferences and other events where he accuses journalists of “peddling false narratives”.In addition to attacking members of the press, DeSantis has embraced almost all conservative social issues in his quest to gain prominence among Republicans ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.DeSantis has largely aimed his efforts at Florida’s education system, promoting Republicans on local school boards and signing bills that censor classroom material.Ahead of Tuesday’s primary race, DeSantis launched a statewide tour promoting 29 hand-picked candidates for non-partisan school board positions that support his education platform.He signed a law in March criminalizing discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms. The “don’t say gay” bill is a policy that critics overwhelmingly say further marginalizes LGBTQ+ communities.Last year, the governor took further aim at trans girls and women, banning their participation from sports in public schools and universities, with critics calling the law “cruel” and “horrific”.After the signing of that bill, Florida became the eighth state in the US to ban trans people from athletic events in schools, reported CNN.DeSantis has also severely restricted race education in Florida, signing a measure in April that bans teachers from instructing on certain topics around race and ethnicity.“We believe in education, not indoctrination,” DeSantis said during an April press conference.DeSantis also supported the banning of books, including mathematic textbooks, arguing that textbook manufacturers were “indoctrinating” children.He has also sought to curb abortion rights in the Sunshine state.After the US supreme court overturning Roe v wade in June, DeSantis supported a 15-week abortion ban in Florida that was contested and later reinstated.On 4 August, the governor suspended an elected state prosecutor who promised not to enforce the near-total ban, arguing that the elected official was violating his oath of office.DeSantis like other Republican candidates has also moved to investigate election fraud, a priority stemming from former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.Studies have shown that voter fraud is rare, usually happening in isolated instances and generally detected.But in April, the governor established a police force to prosecute voter fraud, with officials arresting and charging 20 people with previous felony convictions for voting illegally despite complexities around voting eligibility after a conviction.TopicsFloridaRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Colorado Republican turns Democrat over ‘existential threat’ from GOP

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      Colorado Republican turns Democrat over ‘existential threat’ from GOPIn letter announcing defection, state senator Kevin Priola cites political and environmental threat from his erstwhile party Announcing his switch to the Democrats, a Colorado state senator said Republican attacks on democracy were not the only “existential threat” posed by his former party.Jared Polis becomes first sitting governor to marry in same-sex weddingRead more“I have become increasingly worried about our planet and the climate crisis we are facing,” Kevin Priola said, in a letter posted to social media on Monday.“The Republican party I joined decades ago created national parks, preserved federal lands and protected wildlife. President Nixon signed the legislation that created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Today, my Republican colleagues would rather deny the existence of human-caused climate change than take action.”Priola said such inaction would affect Coloradans already subject to “a near year-round wildfire season” and “a seemingly never-ending drought”.Republican attempts to block “reasonable climate measures”, meant he could not stay silent, he said.Priola was last elected in 2020, when he won a narrow race in the 25th senate district, in the Denver suburbs. He is due to serve until 2025.Once a Republican bastion, Colorado has been trending left. Democrats already control the state senate, by 20-15 before Priola’s switch.In his letter, Priola discussed dissatisfaction with the direction of the Republican party under Donald Trump, the former president who refuses to accept his defeat in 2020 while indicating he will run again in two years’ time.“Like many Coloradans,” Priola wrote, “I watched the events on January 6 [2021] with horror. I felt that clearly this would be the last straw and that my party would now finally distance itself from Donald Trump and the political environment he created.“Week after week and month after month, I waited for that response. It never came.”Priola commended “brave and honorable” Republicans who stood against Trump after the Capitol attack, including the Utah senator Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman who last week lost her primary after taking a leading role on the House January 6 committee.“Fear-mongering to raise money or motivate voters is nothing new,” Priola wrote, “but it has been taken to a dangerous and destabilising level.“I cannot continue to be part of a political party that is OK with a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election and continues to peddle claims that the 2020 election was stolen.”Priola said he became a Republican thanks to the examples of Richard Nixon – the only president to resign in disgrace – and Ronald Reagan, but would now caucus with Democrats despite not sharing many of their positions.“Our affiliations have become too tribal,” he wrote. “I’ve always been an independent thinker and … I don’t plan to change that. I do not believe either party has a monopoly on the truth.“For instance, my pro-life position, school choice [support] and pro-second amendment stance often run counter to the Democratic party platform.”But, he said, looking towards November elections in which Republicans on the national stage will seek to take back Congress, “we are in the midst of an election that will determine which party controls the [Colorado] senate chamber.“Even if there continue to be issues that I disagree with the Democratic party on, there is too much at stake right now for Republicans to be in charge.”Saying he had decided to “align with truth over conspiracy”, Priola concluded: “We need Democrats in charge because our planet and our democracy depend on it.”TopicsColoradoRepublicansDemocratsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022US domestic policynewsReuse this content More