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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

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      Trump seized classified documents – but for Republicans the story is Hunter Biden’s laptop | Lawrence Douglas

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      Trump seized classified documents – but for Republicans the story is Hunter Biden’s laptopLawrence DouglasThere was a time when Republican lawmakers took dangerous security breaches seriously but Trump’s actions are unworthy of attention for the likes of Senator Ron Johnson In a Friday appearance on Newsmax, the rightwing media site, Ron Johnson blasted the FBI for not being aggressive enough in following the evidence. Was the great patriotic Republican senator from Wisconsin angry that the FBI had waited too long before searching Mar-a-Lago for illegally stashed documents critical to US national security? Hardly. What agitated Johnson was an alleged whistleblower’s complaint that the FBI had failed to take the “necessary investigative steps after receiving Hunter Biden’s laptop”.Remember laptop-gate? The FBI received the laptop back in 2020 from a computer repair shop owner who claimed the PC had been left in his shop but never retrieved by Hunter Biden. Analysts determined that much of the data was a “disaster” from a forensics standpoint, as the hard-drive had clearly been accessed by persons other than Biden’s son. Nonetheless, after exhaustive studies completed earlier this year, both the New York Times and the Washington Post concluded that some of the retrieved material had been authentic; and while it showed that Hunter clearly tried to trade on his father’s name, it failed to indicate any corruption on Joe Biden’s part.For the likes of Senator Johnson, the laptop remains the story of the hour. Unworthy of the senator’s attention was the release of the redacted affidavit that indicated former president Trump, in defiance of a subpoena, had refused to hand over documents that had the highest security classification and arguably included the names of American intelligence assets abroad. There was a time when Republican lawmakers took dangerous security breaches seriously. But this was back when Republican lawmakers also recognized the possibility of electoral defeat after a fair vote.Senator Johnson was hardly alone in his peculiar priorities. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, attacked the “raid” on Mar-a-Lago as “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves”. Also joining the attack was former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who earlier lamented, “look what the DoJ did … to President Trump, while it slow-rolls and looks the other way on Hunter Biden”. And while Senator Johnson is yet to join Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar in their calls to “defund the FBI”, the Wisconsin senator insists the handling of the laptop affair demonstrates the FBI’s “corruption”; the bureau, he concludes, is “not to be trusted”.If we struggle to characterize the unrelenting efforts of those like Johnson, who defend Trump through systematic misdirection and by attacking the integrity of US institutions of law enforcement, President Biden himself supplied a helpful term – “semi-fascism”. In a speech given last Thursday, the president rightly described “Maga Republicans” as a “threat to our very democracy”.The rise of semi-fascism within the heart of the Republican party underscores the exceptional risks in indicting Trump and bringing him to trial. That some form of indictment will soon follow now seems increasingly likely. The redacted affidavit reveals that in hoarding and refusing to surrender government documents, Trump may have violated three separate federal criminal statutes, which carry penalties from three to 20 years imprisonment. And this investigation is unrelated to the criminal fraud inquiry in Manhattan; the election interference investigation in Georgia; and the Department of Justice’s examination of the election tampering scheme that culminated in the violence of January 6.While many no doubt eagerly look forward to Trump’s day of legal reckoning, dread is the more proper response. When even a Maga-lite lawmaker like the Florida senator Marco Rubio counters the president’s claim of authoritarian strains within the Republican party by tinnily declaring, “If you’re looking for authoritarianism, look no further than what happened under the watch of Anthony Fauci and his allies in the elite establishment,” we know that any future indictment will be greeted by hysterical and violent attacks on the integrity of the US system of justice.And yet the costs of inaction are greater still than the costs of moving against Trump. A failure to indict born of fear of the political risks of doing so suggests that Trump and the semi-fascists have already succeeded in deforming the rule of law in America. Holding Trump to legal account may not succeed; it may trigger civil unrest and redound to his favor. But it may also begin a long, painful process of removing the poison of Maga authoritarianism from our body politic.Those who cherish democracy need to call out the proto-fascist tendencies now seizing the Trump-occupied Republican party.
      Lawrence Douglas is the author, most recently, of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. He is a contributing opinion writer for the Guardian US and teaches at Amherst College
      TopicsUS newsOpinionUS politicsMar-a-LagoDonald TrumpHunter BidenJoe BidenRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office | Austin Sarat and Dennis Aftergut

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      Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in officeAustin Sarat and Dennis AftergutRepublicans have put all their chips on extremism. But voters are sending more and more signals that they’re fed up with it Polls and election results over the last week reminded Americans that politics seldom moves in a straight line. As in physics, action produces reaction. Overreach invites backlash.For a long while former President Trump and his cronies seemed to be immune from this rule of political life and from the consequences of even the most outrageous conduct. As Trump himself once famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”And so it seemed. He escaped conviction in not one but two impeachment trials and cowed Republican leaders to fall in line after the January 6 insurrection. He remains the leading contender for the Republican party’s 2024 presidential nomination.Today Republicans are still falling over themselves to prove their loyalty to him by outdoing each other in extremism.On 19 August, a Republican candidate for Florida’s state assembly even took to Twitter to call for violence against federal law enforcement officials. “Under my plan,” Luis Miguel tweeted, “all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other [federal agents] ON SIGHT! Let freedom ring!”In Washington, the US supreme court cast aside almost 50 years of settled precedent to overturn Roe v Wade. Republican-dominated state legislatures rushed to enact draconian restrictions on women’s reproductive rights.This kind of extremism may be off-putting to swing voters. There are signs that most Americans aren’t ready to trade their rights and freedoms for a strongman and his election-denying, rights-infringing, violence-threatening allies. As the Cook Report’s Amy Walters wrote on 26 August: “The more Trump is in the news, the more dangerous the political climate for the GOP.”But let’s start with the supreme court’s Dobbs decision.Dobbs sent shock waves across the political spectrum and has jolted Democratic turnout. On 25 August, Axios reported that immediately after Dobbs, “Democratic primary turnout for governors’ races increased … in five of the eight states holding contested primaries.”Similarly, a report from TargetSmart suggests that in states like Michigan and Wisconsin “where reproductive rights are at stake”, women “are out-registering men by significant margins.”This pattern portends a “pink wave” in November, as women mobilize to defeat pro-life candidates. We saw evidence of this in the 23 August special congressional election in New York, where Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro, 52% to 48% in a bellwether swing district.Ryan’s campaign message was largely focused on protecting abortion rights. His victory follows the striking 2 August referendum vote in Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to ban abortion.Are Republicans being taught a lesson they should have learned from history?When the supreme court gets too far out in front of – or too far behind – the American public by ignoring American sentiment, political backlash results. That happened in the 1850s in the run-up to the civil war and in the 1930s when the conservative court that Franklin Roosevelt inherited struck down a new minimum wage law.It happened again after Roe v Wade, when abortion foes reacted and organized for a 50-year battle that resulted in a reactionary court majority.Republicans may now be reaping what those reactionaries on the court sowed.And it isn’t only that many Americans have been alarmed and aroused by what the court did last June. They are also awakening to the threats posed by Trump’s “big lie” and the election denial it has inspired.Democratic messaging that has called out the “big lie”, along with the meticulously presented hearings of the January 6 congressional hearings, seem to be taking root.Americans are coming to see that, as President Biden has warned, “A poison is running through our democracy … with disinformation massively on the rise. But the truth is buried by lies, and the lies live on as truth.”At the start of this summer’s January 6 hearings, Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney echoed that sentiment: “People must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don’t defend it.”An NBC News poll last week suggests that the American people are indeed now paying attention. It found that more respondents ranked “threats to democracy” as the most important issue facing the country, more important than inflation or jobs.Other polls suggest that candidates who are running as election deniers or opponents of a woman’s right to choose will pay a price in November.Take Pennsylvania, for example. A Franklin & Marshall poll released on 25 August found that the Democratic candidate for the Senate, John Fetterman, is leading Trump-endorsed election denier Mehmet Oz, 43% to 30%. Fetterman is also a vocal abortion rights supporter, while Oz supported overturning Roe.The same poll also shows that the Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, leads the Trump favorite and abortion foe, Republican Doug Mastriano, by 44% to 33%.According to the Washington Post, “In 2020, Mastriano tried to block Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory by introducing a resolution asserting incorrectly that the Republican-dominated legislature had the right to choose which electors’ votes should be counted.” As the Post also notes, “He attended the Jan. 6 riot … where he was captured on video crossing the police line.”This is not to say that in Pennsylvania or elsewhere the Trump fever has completely broken. And polls are not the same thing as an election. But they are signs of hope.Democracy won’t save itself. Abortion rights will not restore themselves. The American majority’s power to defeat Trumpism lies at the ballot box. If Trumpist candidates lose in general elections, over time Republicans may get the message that they’ve placed a losing bet on extremism.There is much to be done by Americans committed to preserving our republic and to saying “no” to Trump. As former president Obama put it in his 2017 farewell address: “It falls to each of us to be … jealous guardians of democracy.” Across America, a majority of voters are ready to do just that.
      Austin Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College and the author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty
      Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022US SenateUS CongressHouse of RepresentativescommentReuse this content More

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      More than 40% of Americans think civil war likely within a decade

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      More than 40% of Americans think civil war likely within a decadeMore than half of ‘strong Republicans’ think such a conflict is at least somewhat likely, poll finds More than two-fifths of Americans believe civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years, according to a new survey – a figure that increases to more than half among self-identified “strong Republicans”.US political violence is surging, but talk of a civil war is exaggerated – isn’t it?Read moreAmid heated rhetoric from supporters of Donald Trump, the findings, in research by YouGov and the Economist, follow similar results in other polls.On Sunday night, the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham predicted “riots in the streets” if Trump is indicted over his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House, materials recovered by the FBI at Trump’s home this month.Graham earned widespread rebuke. On Monday, Mary McCord, a former acting deputy attorney general, told CNN it was “incredibly irresponsible for an elected official to basically make veiled threats of violence, just if law enforcement and the Department of Justice … does their job”.Saying “people are angry, they may be violent”, McCord said, showed that “what [Trump] knows and what Lindsey Graham also knows … is that people listen to that and people actually mobilise and do things.“January 6 was the result of this same kind of tactic by President Trump and his allies.”Nine deaths including suicides among police officers have been linked to the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, when supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden attempted to stop the certification of electoral results.Since then, fears of political violence have grown.Most experts believe a full-scale armed conflict, like the American civil war of 1861-65, remains unlikely.But many fear an increase of jagged political division and explicitly political violence, particularly as Republican politicians who support Trump’s lie about electoral fraud run for Congress, governor’s mansions and key state elections posts.This month, Rachel Kleinfeld, a specialist in civil conflict at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Guardian: “Countries with democracies and governments as strong as America’s do not fall into civil war. But if our institutions weaken, the story could be different.”In the poll by YouGov and the Economist, 65% of all respondents said political violence had increased since the start of 2021. Slightly fewer, 62%, thought political violence would increase in the next few years.Participants were also asked: “Looking ahead to the next 10 years, how likely do you think it is that there will be a civil war in this country?”Among all US citizens, 43% said civil war was at least somewhat likely. Among strong Democrats and independents that figure was 40%. But among strong Republicans, 54% said civil war was at least somewhat likely.TopicsUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Critics denounce Lindsey Graham for warning of ‘riots in the street’ if Trump indicted – as it happened

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      Critics are decrying as “irresponsible” and “shameful” South Carolina Republican Senator and enthusiastic Trump convert Lindsey Graham’s comments that there will be “riots in the street” if Donald Trump is prosecuted.Graham twice made the reference when he went on Fox News’s Sunday Night in America show last evening, the Washington Post reports.Richard Haass, president of the nonpartisan think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, tweeted that Graham’s “prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.”.@LindseyGrahamSC’s prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) August 29, 2022
      Republican Joe Walsh, described by the Post as the former congressman and a tea party adherent turned frequent Trump critic, also tweeted “a message for Graham” that: “Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that. Shameful.”A message for @LindseyGrahamSC:Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that.Shameful.— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 29, 2022
      And the Post added that Trump posted the Fox News interview without comment to his Truth Social platform.I’m handing the blog over to Richard Luscombe now, fresh from his disappointment at Cape Canaveral at seeing NASA’s Artemis rocket not lift off from the Kennedy Space Center, but ready to take you through US political news developments for the next few hours.Thanks for joining us on a very Trump-centric day in US politics. We’re closing our blog now, but here’s a final look at what we were covering:
      Critics decried as “irresponsible” and “shameful” South Carolina Republican Senator and enthusiastic Trump convert Lindsey Graham’s comments that there will be “riots in the street” if Donald Trump is prosecuted.
      The White House said it was “appropriate” that the US intelligence community is reviewing potential national security risks from disclosure of materials recovered during a search of Trump’s Florida residence. But national security spokesperson John Kirby said the White House was not involved in the review.
      The justice department told a federal court in Florida more about its review of materials seized by the FBI during the raid, and also said it will provide a further filing, sealed, with a more detailed receipt of what was seized on August 8.
      A Georgia judge ruled this morning that the state’s Republican governor Brian Kemp must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating possible illegal attempts by Trump and others to influence the 2020 election result there – but not until after the November midterm election.
      Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon is leaning towards approving a request by Trump to appoint a so-called “special master” to review the assessment of the materials taken away in the FBI search. Other material had previously been returned by Trump after pressure from the government, but more was found upon the search.
      The DoJ and the Trump legal team square off this week in Cannon’s court, with the government obliged to provide more details about the FBI search and Trump’s team expected to present arguments in a hearing on Thursday afternoon in favor of the appointment of a special master.
      Karine Jean-Pierre took a swipe at Washington politicians for failing to act on the Biden administration’s request for pandemic funding, and hastening the end of widespread free Covid-19 tests.The White House has announced it is halting the distribution of free tests starting next month, and blames a lack of funding. The last day for orders will be 2 September.White House press secretary Jean-Pierre said the lack of progress in the House towards funding a package to support testing, vaccines and therapies had led to “some tough decisions”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We warned that congressional inaction would bring unacceptable trade-offs and harm our preparedness and response and guidance, and the consequences would worsen over time.
      This is an action we’ve been forced to take that will help preserve our limited remaining supply, ensuring we have a limited supply of tests available in the fall.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is delivering her daily briefing and is taking pains to stress again that Joe Biden has not been briefed about, and has had no input in the justice department’s criminal investigation into Donald Trump.The office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) is currently sifting material seized in the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is alleged to have hidden improperly retained classified documents from his administration.Without evidence, the former president has accused Biden, the ODNI, the FBI and anybody else he believes had a hand in the search and seizure, of a political witch-hunt against him.But Jean-Pierre said this afternoon that Trump was off track:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We have been very clear that the president was not briefed in advance of the justice department’s recent actions. We have not been involved. We are committed to the independence as it relates to any matter the justice department has.
      This is an ODNI decision that they have made. The president hasn’t been briefed on any of this. None of us have.Joe Biden will visit the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania next week, aiming to ride a wave of increased popularity and attempting to lift Democrats’ fortunes two months before the midterm election.Biden will speak at Milwaukee’s Laborfest celebration, then go to Pittsburgh where other national labor leaders are appearing at that city’s Labor Day Parade, the Associated Press reports.The president plans to “celebrate Labor Day and the dignity of American workers,” according to the White House.Biden is expected to tout the bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act, which he signed in August.Both states have races for governor and seats in the US Senate.In Wisconsin, Democrats are trying to reelect governor Tony Evers and oust Republican senator Ron Johnson. “We have a good relationship,” Evers said. “I’m looking forward to it.”In Pennsylvania, Democrats are trying to hold on to the state’s open governor’s office and to flip the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Pat Toomey.An “aspiring member” of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Monday to more than four years in prison for storming the US Capitol during the 6 January riot, the Associated Press reports.Joshua Pruitt, 40, came face-to-face with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senate majority leaders as he joined fellow Donald Trump supporters in efforts to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, the court heard.“One look at Pruitt, and the leader of Senator Schumer’s security detail immediately saw the threat and hustled the 70-year-old senator down a hallway, having to change their evacuation route on a dime,” assistant US attorney Alexis Loeb wrote in a court filing.US district court judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Pruitt, of Maryland, to four years and seven months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release.Prosecutors wanted a five-year sentence for Pruitt, a bartender and personal trainer they described as “an aspiring Proud Boys member” whose intimidating figure made him an “ideal recruit” for the group.Democrats’ apparently resurgent fortunes ahead of November’s midterms are pushing Republicans into panic-buying “aggressive” media slots in markets where believe they are lagging.That’s the assessment from Axios, which has looked into Republican campaign spending across the country, including a $125m ad buy by House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s political action committee, the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), in almost entirely Democrat held districts.Of McCarthy’s spending, “$9 of every $10 [is] targeting seats carried by President Biden in 2020,” Axios reports.“CLF is doubling down on offensive spending, even in places where Biden won by double digits two years ago”.First look: Kevin McCarthy’s leadership PAC has reserved another $37 million in TV time — with $9 of every $10 targeting seats carried by President Biden in 2020.It’s a rejoinder to growing talk about Democrats finding a shot to retain the House. https://t.co/5oBNmGgwje— Axios (@axios) August 29, 2022
      Biden’s approval ratings have climbed steadily since earlier this year, buoyed by a series of legislative successes including the Inflation Reduction Act, and a perceived backlash by more moderate voters to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade federal abortion protections.Republicans who once assumed retaking control of the House in November was a given appear increasingly fearful that there will be no rout of the Democratic majority, and the rash of sudden spending is an attempt to shore up their support, Axios says.“Democrats hope to harness voter energy around protecting abortion rights to motivate their base and appeal to independents in an election Republicans had hoped would focus on economic anxiety,” the media site says.Critics are decrying as “irresponsible” and “shameful” South Carolina Republican Senator and enthusiastic Trump convert Lindsey Graham’s comments that there will be “riots in the street” if Donald Trump is prosecuted.Graham twice made the reference when he went on Fox News’s Sunday Night in America show last evening, the Washington Post reports.Richard Haass, president of the nonpartisan think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, tweeted that Graham’s “prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.”.@LindseyGrahamSC’s prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former Potus may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are obligated to call for the rule of law.— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) August 29, 2022
      Republican Joe Walsh, described by the Post as the former congressman and a tea party adherent turned frequent Trump critic, also tweeted “a message for Graham” that: “Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that. Shameful.”A message for @LindseyGrahamSC:Yes, if Trump is indicted, there will be violence. I see & hear those threats all the time. But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re too much of a coward to say that.Shameful.— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 29, 2022
      And the Post added that Trump posted the Fox News interview without comment to his Truth Social platform.I’m handing the blog over to Richard Luscombe now, fresh from his disappointment at Cape Canaveral at seeing NASA’s Artemis rocket not lift off from the Kennedy Space Center, but ready to take you through US political news developments for the next few hours.The White House today said it is “appropriate” that the US intelligence community is reviewing potential national security risks from disclosure of materials recovered during a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence, Reuters reports.The director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, told lawmakers in a letter last week that her office is working with the Justice Department to “facilitate a classification review” of documents including those recovered during the August 8 search.Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has told congressional leaders that her department has launched a review “of the potential risk to national security” in the event that Trump compromised secrets from classified Mar-a-Lago documents. pic.twitter.com/lDBeeEwbkO— The Recount (@therecount) August 29, 2022
      The White House is not involved in the assessment of the risk associated with those documents, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.John Kirby just now tells reporters the White House is not involved in the damage assessment DNI is conducting re: classified docs Trump took to Mar-a-Lago. Kirby calls the assessment an “appropriate action.”— Morgan Chalfant (@mchalfant16) August 29, 2022
      Meanwhile:DOJ also tells the court it is conducting a classification review, along with ODNI, of the materials seized from Trump’s home. It also confirms what was reported this weekend: ODNI is leading an intelligence community assessment— Sarah N. Lynch (@SarahNLynch) August 29, 2022
      It’s been a very Trump-dominated morning and we’ll have some updates on other things coming up shortly, as well, while also bringing you any further developments in the various legal cases enveloping the former president.Here’s where things stand:
      The US Department of Justice has told a federal court in Florida more about its review of materials seized by the FBI during a search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private resort and residence in Palm Beach and also said it will provide a further filing, sealed, with a more detailed receipt of what was seized on August 8.
      A Georgia judge ruled this morning that the state’s Republican governor Brian Kemp must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating possible illegal attempts by then-president Donald Trump and others to influence the 2020 election result there – but not until after the November midterm election.
      Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon is leaning towards approving a request by Trump to appoint a so-called “special master” to review the assessment of the materials taken away from Mar-a-Lago after the FBI search. Other material had previously been returned by Trump after pressure from the government, but more was found upon the search.
      The DoJ and the Trump legal team square off this week in Cannon’s court, with the government obliged to provide more details about the FBI search and Trump’s team expected to present arguments in a hearing on Thursday afternoon in favor of the appointment of a special master. This all involves the criminal investigation into Trump hanging onto highly-sensitive official documents after he left office and potential obstruction.
      In the Department of Justice’s filing in federal court in south Florida today, relating to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago and seizure of classified documents apparently secreted there by former president Donald Trump, it has told the court it will comply with the request to provide “a more detailed receipt” for property seized during the search on August 8.The government has promised “a sealed, supplemental filing” on this with the court “as well as a ‘particularized notice indicating the status of [the United States’] review of the seized property, including any filter review conducted by the privilege review team and any dissemination of materials beyond the privilege review team’,” according to the filing. More