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      ‘I’d like to file lawsuits in all 50 states’: Mike Lindell still pushing Trump’s lie

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      ‘I’d like to file lawsuits in all 50 states’: Mike Lindell still pushing Trump’s lie The MyPillow chief and Trump ally has become a popular figure on the right, spending lavishly on lawsuits to ban voting machines and endorsing candidatesAmong the rightwing crusaders promoting Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, wealthy pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell occupies a key niche, spending lavishly on lawsuits to ban voting machines in some states, endorsing big lie advocates for top offices in 2022 and financing an anti-voting machine film, plus related projects.In some respects, Lindell is an unlikely figure to emerge in the hotbed of US politics and the conservative ecosystem. As the chief executive of MyPillow he was once better known for his TV adverts than his extremist politics. But Lindell has become an ally of a still-powerful Trump who is eying a 2024 bid to return to the White House. Lindell has also become a popular figure on the right himself, making several appearances at recent Trump rallies.Dr Oz embraced Trump’s big lie – will Maga voters reward him in Senate race?Read moreBut election experts and voting watchdogs say Lindell’s legal blitz to ditch voting machines, and other drives that sustain Trump’s baseless claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, are deeply flawed and dangerous and potentially further damage voter confidence in elections.Lindell though sounds undaunted, telling the Guardian that he has spent about $30m to retain about 70 lawyers, cyber consultants, private investigators and other staffers for his projects to prove widespread fraud in the 2020 elections, despite mountains of contrary evidence, and expand his crusade to get rid of voting machines.Last month Lindell pumped about $500,000 dollars into an Arizona lawsuit filed by two Trump and Lindell backed state candidates for Secretary of State and Governor, Mark Finchem and Kari Lake, respectively, to obtain a preliminary injunction against voting machines that Lindell has repeatedly charged are defective.Lindell said that he plans to underwrite similar anti voting machine lawsuits in the next few months in many other states including Colorado, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan and Alabama. “I’d like to file the lawsuits in all 50 states,” he said. “I didn’t come all this way not to succeed. We’ve got to get rid of them all.”To further spur his conservative agenda, Lindell has publicly endorsed several candidates for top posts in battleground states including Lake and Finchem, who early this month benefitted from a Trump sponsored fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago that Lindell attended.Lindell is also backing a candidate in Colorado for secretary of state, Tina Peters, a Mesa county elections clerk indicted on 10 counts for tampering with voting equipment in an effort to reveal what she thought were sizable election machine errors, who Lindell headlined a rally for last month. A judge on 10 May barred Peters from running the county elections this year; Peters remains a candidate to be Secretary of state but first has to win a June Republican primary.And in Michigan Lindell has bet on two Trump loyalists, Matt DePerno and Kristina Karamo who, respectively, were endorsed by a state Republican convention to be the Republican candidates this fall for attorney general and secretary of state.To promote his messages more widely, Lindell said he’s recruited ex-Fox News reporter Lara Logan, who claims she was “pushed out” by Fox after making incendiary comments comparing Anthony Fauci to notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, to do a documentary about voting machine fraud and the voting machine companies that Lindell boasts will be “huge”.Moreover to help spread dubious claims of widespread election fraud, Lindell late last year launched Cause of America, a grassroots group whose self-styled mission is to “restore trust in local elections”, which Lindell said he’s subsidizing to the tune of $100,000 to $200,000 a month.Currently, to facilitate the CEO’s pricey lawsuits to get rid of voting machines, which legal and voting experts say face long odds, Lindell has retained a team of lawyers including Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Kurt Olsen, who was was subpoenaed on 1 March by the House committee binvestigating the 6 January Capitol attack by a mob of Trump loyalists.Election watchdogs say Lindell’s lawsuit spending spree is promoting conspiratorial views of voting fraud and has scant chance of legal success, but carries big risks to further confuse voters about the risks election fraud in 2020. Even William Barr, Trump’s own conservative attorney general, admitted in late 2020 there was no evidence of widespread fraud.“This is just another effort by proponents of the big lie to spread unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and undermine confidence in American elections,”Larry Norden, senior director for elections and government at the Brennan Center, said.“Like most other states, Arizona conducts its elections entirely on paper ballots and audits the machine results with a review of those ballots after the election is over,” he added. “ Every post-election review of the 2020 Arizona election, including the partisan review led by Cyber Ninjas, confirmed that Joe Biden won.”Norden stressed too that “hand-counting of ballots in any but the tiniest of jurisdictions is far too time-consuming and prone to human error to be feasible. Even in very small jurisdictions it would require trained election staff working in multi-member teams with oversight.”Other voting watchdogs offer similar views.“These ridiculous lawsuits are designed to continue undermining Americans’ confidence in every aspect of our electoral system, allowing Lindell and his cronies to decry any outcomes they don’t like as fraudulent,” Melanie Sloan, a senior adviser to the watchdog group American Oversight, said.”Hand-counting ballots actually increases opportunities for fraud, but given that Lindell and Finchem were active participants in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, it’s obvious there is no low to which they won’t stoop to foist their candidates on America, democracy be damned.”Lindell though is bullish about winning the class action lawsuits, despite dozens of other lawsuits by Trump lawyers to overturn the 2020 results that alleged fraud and that courts rejected “There’s no reason they won’t succeed,” Lindell boasted, adding that “the likelihood is very high”.Since Trump’s defeat, Lindell’s adamant advocacy that the election was rigged and his legal attacks on voting machines have sparked substantial legal headaches for the Minnesota-based mogul, a 60-year-old former crack addict and born-again Christian who once said Trump had been “chosen by God”.Two voting machine companies Lindell has portrayed as part of an election rigging operation have filed defamation lawsuits against him, and he has countersued at least one of them.Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit in February against Lindell, and a month later a judge declined Lindell’s efforts to dismiss the suit. Another voting equipment firm, Smartmatic, has also sued Lindell for defamation for an undisclosed amount.Further, the House Capitol attack committee subpoenaed Lindell’s phone records from 1 November, 2020 to 31 January 2021 as part of their inquiry, which prompted Lindell to sue the committee, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Verizon to block the panel’s effort.Not surprisingly, Lindell angrily decried Pelosi and the committee’s inquiry as “election deflection. It’s all political and criminal.”Lindell, however, attended Trump’s “Save America” rally on the Ellipse prior to the Capitol attack where Trump urged the crowd to “fight like hell”, and he also attended a Trump rally in Georgia on 4 January where Trump railed without evidence that there was significant fraud.On 15 January, Lindell met briefly with Trump at the White House where the executive said he told Trump of “evidence” he had gathered that the voting machines were rigged.Incredibly to most experts, Lindell postulated that he has evidence Trump won by almost 15m votes with about 82m for Trump to some 67m for Biden, figures nowhere near the official total. Biden won by sabout 7m votes, or 81.2m for Biden, versus 74.2m for Trump.Norden of the Brennan Center noted that 93% of the 2020 votes were cast on paper ballots, including all the votes in the main battleground states, and that post-election audits “confirmed the machine results. The idea that the machines could have been so wildly off and yet none of it got caught by any of the post-election reviews is beyond absurd.”Meadows texts reveal just how tight the Fox News-Trump embrace isRead moreOn another legal front, some watchdog experts say that the lawyers Lindell has recruited to handle the anti-voting machine litigation could face ethics problems.“Lawyers must abide by the rules of professional conduct, which forbid lying to a court, bringing frivolous claims and misrepresenting facts,” said Michael Teter, the director of Project 65, a bipartisan legal ethics watchdog group focused on lawyers trying to undermine democracy.“Mr Lindell may be willing to pay hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to these lawyers to continue the effort that began in 2020 to discredit our elections through bogus lawsuits grounded in falsehoods, conjecture and distortions,” Teter added. “But the lawyers who take Mr Lindell’s money and allow the courts to be abused as part of political theater can, and we hope will, face professional consequences.”Lindell’s legal crusade seems aimed at weakening, rather than improving, the election process, concluded Norden of the Brennan Center. “Everything about this [lawsuit] effort wreaks of yet another attempt by the same cast of characters to undermine the election system.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rights

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      Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rightsFinal tally was 49-51, with all Republicans and one conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin, voting against the measure The US Senate on Wednesday failed to advance legislation that would codify the right to an abortion into federal law, after it was blocked by Republicans.It was a largely symbolic vote by Democrats to mobilize Americans around the issue ahead of a likely supreme court decision striking down the protections enshrined by Roe v Wade. Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortionsRead moreThe Senate roll call was a stark reflection of the partisan divide over abortion rights, with all Republicans and one conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin of Virginia, voting against the measure. The final tally was 49-51, well short of the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.Kamala Harris, the first woman and woman of color to serve as vice-president, presided over the vote.“Sadly the Senate failed to stand in defense of a women’s right to make decisions about her own body,” Harris told reporters, after stepping off the dais. Pointing to the onslaught of laws restricting abortion access in Republican-led states, she said “the priority should be to elect pro-choice leaders at the local, the state and the federal level”.Democrats moved quickly to hold the doomed vote after a leak last week of a draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito in February and confirmed as authentic, indicated that the court’s conservative majority had privately voted to strike down Roe and subsequent rulings. The extraordinary disclosure ignited protests around the country, pushing reproductive rights to the center of the political debate six months before the congressional midterms. A final ruling from the court is expected this summer.Ahead of the vote, a group of House Democratic women marched across the Capitol to protest against the end of Roe, chanting: “My body, my decision.”Democrats, under intensifying pressure to act, saw a political opportunity in forcing Republicans to vote against a bill protecting abortion at a moment when the threat to access is urgent and polls show a majority of Americans want the procedure to remain legal in all or some cases.They hope to use the Republican blockade as a data point in their midterm message to voters: that the GOP has become a party of “ultra-Maga” extremists, on the cusp of fulfilling a decades-long goal to strip women of their reproductive rights.It is an issue Democrats hope will energize young voters disenchanted by the Biden administration and persuade Republican-leaning suburban women to back them again this cycle.“If we do not take a stand now to protect a woman’s right to choose, then mark my words, it will be open season, open season on our God-given freedoms,” the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a floor speech ahead of the vote. He called “one of the most consequential we will take in decades”.If passed, the bill would have codified Roe v Wade into federal law, ensuring the right of healthcare providers to perform abortions and the right of patients to receive them. But it would also go further, in some cases invalidating state-level restrictions on abortion access enacted after the Roe decision in 1973.As such, Republicans cast the bill as a “radical” attempt to expand reproductive rights that goes far beyond Roe and would legalize “abortion on demand”.“We will stand with the American people, stand with innocent life, and block the Democrats’ extreme bill,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Wednesday.Republicans are betting the economy will take precedence over abortion this November. Polling shows Republicans are well positioned to make significant gains in the midterm elections, buoyed by historical headwinds, discontent with the party in power and widespread concern over the rising cost of gas, food and rent.But there are signs that Republicans do worry about a potential political backlash if Roe is overturned and states move swiftly to outlaw abortion, as many are preparing to do.A day ahead of the vote, McConnell sought to tamp down conservative calls for a nationwide ban on abortion if they take control of the chamber in November, telling reporters: “Historically, there have been abortion votes on the floor of the Senate. None of them have achieved 60 votes.”The two Senate Republicans who support abortion rights, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, opposed the bill, instead urging support for an alternative measure that they say is tailored to reflect the landscape of abortion rights. But many Democrats see their proposal, which is not expected to receive a vote, as too weak.“Unlike some far-left activists, Senator Murkowski and I want the law today to be the law tomorrow,” Collins said on Wednesday, objecting to the lack of protections for religious exemptions in the Democrats’ bill.0In a dramatic shift, one of the only other Democrats in Congress with conservative views on abortion rights, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, said he would support the measure and voted in favor of advancing it. In a statement citing the leaked supreme court ruling, Casey said the “circumstances around the entire debate on abortion” had changed since the last time the Senate voted on the measure.Without a clear legislative path forward, Democrats are turning to the fall elections, urging Americans to elect them as the “last lines of defense” against the end of Roe.Abortion is also likely to be a major issue in races for governor and state offices, as the battle lines shift to the states.The show vote on Wednesday only intensified calls from progressives and abortion rights groups for Democrats to eliminate the filibuster. The long-simmering debate has divided the party, which does not have enough votes to end the rule. It has also energized efforts to reform the supreme court, including controversial proposals such as expanding the number of justices on the bench or imposing term limits.TopicsUS SenateAbortionRoe v WadeUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Supreme court overturning Roe allows 'open season' on American freedoms, warns Schumer – video

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      The supreme court overturning the landmark Roe v Wade decision that protects women’s rights to abortion in the US would create an open season on Americans’ freedoms, majority leader Chuck Schumer has said.
      Schumer was speaking before a vote in which the US Senate rejected legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law 51-49.
      On 2 May, a draft decision by the United States supreme court to overturn Roe was published by Politico, which has been verified as genuine by the justices but it ‘does not represent a decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.’

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      Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rights 49-51 – as it happened

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      Senators have voted 51-49 to reject Democrat-sponsored legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law.The defeat of the Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced after a leaked supreme court draft ruling last week jeopardized almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections, was expected.The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass. But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections. In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.We’re ending the live US politics blog now, but look out shortly for the Guardian’s full coverage of Wednesday’s historic vote in which Democrats’ efforts to enshrine abortion rights into federal law fell well short in the US Senate.The day was dominated by the vote on the women’s health protection act, which Democrats knew was doomed to failure, but which they hope can now be used against Republicans who went on record to defeat the legislation.Here are the day’s highlights:
      Senators voted 51-49 to reject the women’s health protection act, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans.
      Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to abortion rights but promoting instead more restrictive legislation.
      Arizona ended an eight-year death penalty hiatus when it executed convicted murderer Clarence Dixon by lethal injection.
      A New York district judge said he would lift a civil contempt order against Donald Trump for failing to cooperate with a criminal investigation into his business activities if the former president paid $110,000 and met other obligations.
      Joe Biden hailed American farmers as the “backbone of freedom” during a speech in Illinois and announced measures to support the agriculture industry and reduce food prices.
      A judge in Florida struck down new congressional districts drawn by the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, saying they made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.
      A reminder you can follow developments in the Ukraine war in our live 24-hour news blog here.Democrats criticize Republican Senators after doomed vote on abortion After leaving the chamber, the vice president, Kamala Harris, told reporters that the Senate is “not where the majority of Americans are on this issue”. “This vote clearly suggests that the Senate is not where the majority of Americans are on this issue,” ⁦@VP⁩ Harris says after presiding over the failed vote on abortion rights. pic.twitter.com/BrEmO7yqvt— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) May 11, 2022
      A number of Senators from the Democrats also quickly reacted after the expected failure to advance their legislation to protect abortion.Ron Wyden, from Oregon, said the vote was a “punch in the gut” for those who “believe in liberty, privacy and equal rights. Now Americans know which side every Senator stands on.”Angus King, of Maine, said women across the country are worried the Supreme Court “may take away their basic right to make decisions about their own body,” adding “we cannot move backwards”. Senators have voted 51-49 to reject Democrat-sponsored legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law.The defeat of the Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced after a leaked supreme court draft ruling last week jeopardized almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections, was expected.The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass. But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections. In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.Vice-President Kamala Harris has called the vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act and senators have begun voting. 60 Senate votes are needed for it to pass. Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has issued a statement insisting that “I strongly support women’s reproductive freedoms, including the right to abortion”.But she says she also “believes in limited government” and won’t be voting for the Women’s Health Protection Act in the imminent US Senate vote.Murkowski’s statement follows an earlier joint release with Maine Republican Susan Collins, in which they promoted their own reproductive rights act as an alternative.In her new statement, Murkowski says:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The legislation before the Senate today goes well beyond the precedent established in Roe and Casey. It does not include the Hyde amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from being spent on abortions – and has been the law almost as long as Roe.
      It does not include conscience protections for healthcare providers that refuse to perform abortions based on religious beliefs. It explicitly overrides the religious freedom restoration act for the first time. It also allows late-term abortions without any notable restrictions.
      Instead of taking yet another failed vote on a wholly partisan measure, I urge Democrats and Republicans alike to recognize that what Senator Collins and I have offered is in line with the views of a strong majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose but believe that legal abortion should include reasonable limitations. The Senate is edging ever closer to the abortion rights vote. Members are currently finishing a vote on confirming Joe Biden’s pick Alvaro Bedoya to the federal trade commission, and will turn their attention to the Women’s Health Protection Act next, according to C-Span.Joe Biden has just wrapped up an address to agricultural workers in Kankakee, Illinois, in which he promised support for farmers and new measures to make food prices more affordable.The president hailed farmers as “the backbone of the country” and “the backbone of freedom” as he blamed soaring inflation and high prices on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You feed America. You got us through a pandemic and you’re literally the backbone of our country. But you’re also feeding the world. And we’re seeing Putin’s war in Ukraine, you’re like the backbone of freedom.
      America’s fighting on two fronts. At home, inflation and rising prices. Abroad, it’s helping Ukrainians defend democracy, and feeding those who are left hungry around the world because Russian atrocities exist.
      American farmers understand Putin’s war has has has cut off critical sources of food.On Tuesday, at the White House, Biden insisted that tackling inflation was “my top priority”. Despite a small lift this morning with news that inflation had slowed for the first time since August, it remains at a near 40-year high and is likely to remain uppermost on voters’ minds as November’s midterm elections approach.Biden laid out measures he was taking to “lower costs on farmers”, including doubling an investment in fertilizer production to $500m, and looking at extending crop insurance protection “to give financial security to farmers”.By protecting farmers, Biden said, food prices could stabilize and fall.“Every little bit matters,” he said as he went back over previous initiatives to tackle high prices, including issuing a summer waiver for ethanol-rich fuel which he said would reduce gas prices.The AAA, however, was reporting on Wednesday a new record high national average for a gallon of unleaded gasoline at $4.40. The White House released a fact sheet setting out Biden’s proposals to “make food more affordable, and lower costs for farmers”.Arizona ended an eight-year hiatus on executions Wednesday when it put to death a man convicted of killing a college student in 1978. The state halted the death penalty in 2014 following an execution critics say was botched, and difficulties in finding lethal injection drugs, Reuters reported.Clarence Dixon, 66, died by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of 21-year-old Arizona state university student Deana Bowdoin, making him the sixth person to be executed in the US in 2022. Dixon’s death was announced late Wednesday morning by Frank Strada, a deputy director with Arizona department of corrections.Dixon’s death appeared to go smoothly, said Troy Hayden, an anchor for the Fox10 TV news program who witnessed the execution.“Once the drugs started flowing, he went to sleep almost immediately,” Hayden said.Dixon’s lawyers asked to postpone his execution, but judges rejected his argument that he wasn’t mentally fit to be executed and didn’t have a rational understanding of why the state wanted to execute him. The US supreme court rejected a last-minute delay of Dixon’s execution less than an hour before the execution began. In another Arizona death penalty case, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington reported last week that Frank Atwood, convicted for murdering an eight-year-old girl, has two weeks to decide whether to be executed with cyanide gas, the poison known as Zyklon B used by the Nazis to murder millions of people in Auschwitz and other extermination camps, or lethal injection.Atwood’s execution is set for 8 June.Last month, the Texas court of criminal appeals issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, a Mexican-American woman set to be judicially killed for the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah. A state judge struck down new congressional districts in north Florida on Wednesday, saying that the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who drew the lines, made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.“I am finding the enacted map is unconstitutional because it diminishes African Americans’ ability to elect candidates of their choice,” circuit judge Lane Smith said on Wednesday, according to the Tributary. Lawyers for the state of Florida are expected to immediately appeal the ruling, and the Florida supreme court shaped by DeSantis could ultimately decide the case.The decision dealt specifically with DeSantis’ decision to dismantle Florida’s fifth congressional district, which stretched from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, was 46% Black, and is currently represented by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat. DeSantis’ new district chopped the district up into four districts where Republican candidates would be favored to win.A coalition of civic action groups and Florida voters immediately challenged the map, saying that they violated a provision in Florida’s constitution that says new districts can’t “diminish” the ability of minority voters to elect the candidate of their choosing. Last month, plaintiffs asked the court to block the districts in northern Florida specifically from taking effect for the 2022 election. Smith ordered the state to adopt a map that maintained a 5th congressional district stretching from Jacksonville to Tallahasee, according to the Tributary.The Florida map is one of the most aggressively gerrymandered maps in the US. Republicans currently have a 16-11 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, but DeSantis’ plan would add an additional four GOP-friendly seats, increasing that advantage to 20-8 (Florida is gaining an additional US House seat because of population growth). It’s an effort that’s seen as a critical part of Republican efforts to retake control of the US House in the midterm elections.In a separate court on Tuesday, DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, won the opening legal round of his fight with Disney over the state’s “don’t say gay” bill that bans classroom discussions of sexual preference and gender identity issues.Three central Florida taxpayers alleged state laws were broken when DeSantis signed a new law dissolving Disney’s self-governing status, which critics said was in retaliation for the company attacking the “don’t say gay” law.But district court judge Cecilia Altonaga threw out the lawsuit, partly because the plaintiffs aren’t personally harmed, the Orlando Sentinel reports.The supreme court’s upcoming decision to reverse Roe v Wade (an early draft of which was leaked last week) doesn’t ban abortions. It leaves the issue to the states. As a result, it will put another large brick in the growing wall separating blue and red America.The second American civil war is already occurring, but it is less of a war than a kind of benign separation analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a formal divorce.One America is largely urban, racially and ethnically diverse, and young. The other is largely rural or exurban, white and older.The split is accelerating. Red zip codes are getting redder and blue zip codes bluer. Of 3,143 counties, the number of super landslide counties – where a presidential candidate won at least 80% of the vote – jumped from 6% in 2004 to 22% in 2020.Surveys show Americans find it increasingly important to live around people who share their political values. Animosity toward those in the opposing party is higher than at any time in living memory. Forty-two per cent of registered voters believe Americans in the other party are “downright evil”.Almost 40% would be upset at the prospect of their child marrying someone from the opposite party. Even before the 2020 election, when asked if violence would be justified if the other party won the election, 18.3% of Democrats and 13.8% of Republicans responded in the affirmative.Increasingly, each America is running under different laws.The second American civil war is already happening | Robert ReichRead moreGood news, of a sort, for Donald Trump out of New York, where a judge has said the former president must pay the state attorney general $110,000 and meet other conditions to purge a contempt of court order, but also that the fine will not grow by $10,000 a day, as it had been doing.The New York attorney general, Letitia James, says her civil investigation of the Trump Organization has found evidence of fraudulent behaviour in tax filings. Trump says the investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt.The judge in the contempt case, Arthur Engoron, said the daily fine on Trump stopped accruing on Friday, when the former president filed affidavits about his search for requested information – and his inability to find four phones which investigators would like to look at. Engoron said the contempt order could be restored if certain conditions are not met.Here’s our report on Trump’s phones, from yesterday:Trump tells court he lost phones linked to alleged fraud by his companyRead more More

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      Trump-endorsed Republican accused of sexual assault loses Nebraska governor primary

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      Trump-endorsed Republican accused of sexual assault loses Nebraska governor primaryCharles Herbster’s loss was a setback for Donald Trump, in his effort to bend the GOP in his direction ahead of possible 2024 run Republicans in Nebraska picked Jim Pillen as their nominee for governor on Tuesday, over a rival supported by Donald Trump and accused of groping multiple women.Charles Herbster’s loss was a setback for Trump, who has issued hundreds of endorsements and staged rallies in support of candidates including Herbster in an effort to bend the GOP in his direction ahead of a possible presidential run in 2024.Herbster’s loss raises the stakes on other high-profile primaries this month in Pennsylvania and Georgia, where Trump has also intervened.Trump’s influence proved decisive in West Virginia on Tuesday, however.In a US House primary pitting Republican incumbents against each other, Trump’s candidate, Alex Mooney, defeated David McKinley, who angered Trump by voting for Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure package and the creation of the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.In Nebraska, Pillen, a hog farm owner and veterinarian, defeated eight challengers including Herbster and Brett Lindstrom, a state senator generally viewed as a more moderate choice.“We live in the greatest place on the planet, right here in Nebraska,” Pillen said as a crowd chanted, “Let’s go, Jim!”Pillen will be a favorite in November’s general election against a state senator, Carol Blood. Nebraska has not elected a Democrat as governor since 1994.Pillen was endorsed by GOP leaders in the state including the term-limited governor, Pete Ricketts, former governor Kay Orr and former University of Nebraska football coach and congressman Tom Osborne.The allegations against Herbster didn’t stop Trump holding a rally with him.“I really think he’s going to do just a fantastic job, and if I didn’t feel that, I wouldn’t be here,” said Trump, who has denied sexual misconduct allegations of his own.Herbster alluded to the groping allegations in a concession speech.“This is one of the nastiest campaigns for governor in the history of Nebraska,” Herbster said.Last month, the Nebraska Examiner interviewed six women who claimed Herbster groped their buttocks, outside of their clothes, during political events or beauty pageants. A seventh woman said Herbster once kissed her forcibly.A Republican state senator, Julie Slama, said Herbster reached up her skirt and touched her inappropriately at a dinner in 2019.Herbster filed a defamation lawsuit against Slama, saying she was trying to derail his campaign. Slama responded with a countersuit, alleging sexual battery.Nebraska Republicans and Democrats also picked candidates for the US House seat previously held by the Republican Jeff Fortenberry, who resigned in March after he was convicted of federal corruption charges.Mike Flood, a former speaker of the Nebraska legislature, won the Republican nomination while state senator Patty Pansing Brooks was the Democratic pick. Flood will be strong favorite in the Republican-heavy first district, which includes Lincoln, small towns and a large swath of farmland.TopicsNebraskaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Lindsey Graham said Joe Biden is ‘best person’ to lead US, tapes reveal

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      Lindsey Graham said Joe Biden is ‘best person’ to lead US, tapes revealRepublican senator and Trump loyalist made comments in wake of January 6 US Capitol attack to authors of new book Democrat Joe Biden is “the best person” to lead the US, the Republican senator and fervent Donald Trump supporter Lindsey Graham said in tapes released on Monday by the authors of a bestselling political book.This Will Not Pass review: Trump-Biden blockbuster is dire reading for DemocratsRead moreThe South Carolina senator was speaking on and shortly after 6 January 2021 to Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, now authors of This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.On 6 January 2021, shortly before the US Capitol was attacked, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his defeat by Biden in the 2020 election was caused by voter fraud.A bipartisan Senate committee has linked seven deaths to the riot that followed, an unsuccessful attempt to stop certification of electoral college results.“Moments like this reset,” Graham said that day, in a tape played on CNN on Tuesday.“People will calm down. People will say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with that.’ This is a group within a group. What this does, there will be a rallying effect for a while, [then] the country says ‘We’re better than this.’”Asked if Biden could help the country come together again, Graham said: “Totally.”“He’ll maybe be the best person to have. I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?”In the year and a half since the Capitol riot, much of the country, and most Republicans, have stayed mad at Biden. The president’s approval numbers continue to plumb depths similar to those charted by Trump while he was in office.Biden is reportedly mad at Graham, a longtime associate in the Senate who despite saying he was “out” of Trump’s camp immediately after the January 6 riot, soon returned to the fold.In other taped remarks played by Martin and Burns, Graham said Trump “misjudged the passion” of his supporters.‘Short and not especially sweet’: Lindsey Graham called Biden over Trump supportRead more“He plays the TV game and he went too far here,” the senator was heard to say. “That rally didn’t help, talking about primarying” the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, a member of the House January 6 committee.“He created a sense of revenge.”Trump remains the dominant force in the Republican party, endorsing candidates in primaries and seemingly readying another run for the presidency in 2024.A spokesperson for Graham told CNN: “The Joe Biden we see as president is not the one we saw in the Senate. He’s pursued a far-left agenda as president.”TopicsJoe BidenRepublicansDonald TrumpUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans couldn’t pass abortion ban

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      Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans couldn’t pass abortion banRepublican leader says ‘I think it’s safe to say there aren’t 60 votes’ to pass ban should Republicans take control in midterm elections A day before Democrats staged a vote in the Senate to codify into law the right to abortion, a right under threat from the supreme court, the Republican leader in the chamber said his party would not be able to pass an abortion ban should it take control in midterm elections in November. Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortionsRead more“Historically, there have been abortion votes on the floor of the Senate. None of them have achieved 60 votes,” Mitch McConnell told reporters.“I think it’s safe to say there aren’t 60 votes there at the federal level, no matter who happens to be in the majority, no matter who happens to be in the White House.”The chamber is split 50-50 and therefore controlled by the tie-breaking vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Democrats and progressives have urged the party to seek to scrap the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes for most legislation.Such reform seems unlikely. With key Democrats opposed, Punchbowl News, a Washington outlet, reported on Wednesday that the issue was not even discussed at a party Senate lunch the day before.When Donald Trump was in power McConnell, too, came under pressure to scrap the filibuster to advance the Republican agenda.On Tuesday, the Kentucky senator told reporters there were “no issues that Republicans believe should be exempt from the 60-vote threshold”.The measure before the Senate on Wednesday – for which the Democrats do not even have 50 votes, with opposition from some in their own party as well as pro-choice Republicans – is the Women’s Health Protection Act. It would codify Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court decision that protects the right to abortion.Roe has been under imminent threat since last week, when a draft supreme court ruling overturning it, reportedly supported by five conservative justices, was leaked.On Wednesday, Politico, which published the leak, said the draft ruling by Samuel Alito was still the only one in circulation, with publication expected in June.The Democratic Senate vote is a response to protests that have spread since the draft ruling was published. Many Republican-run states have trigger laws ready to ban abortion at various stages should Roe fall.McConnell said: “If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies – not only at the state level but at the federal level – certainly could legislate in that area.”Total abortion bans would be possible, he said.Polling shows consistent majority support for abortion rights but Republicans say they doubt the issue will damage them at the midterms in November.Divided States of America: Roe v Wade is ‘precursor to larger struggles’Read moreMcConnell’s deputy, John Thune of South Dakota, told the Hill: “Our members are going to continue to hammer away on inflation, the economy, the border, crime.”Democrats hope the vote on Wednesday will prove politically useful.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, told reporters: “Every senator will have to vote, and every, every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party … will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.”Jackie Rosen, of Nevada, said: “We have to take that fear, we have to take that anger that we’re feeling, channel it into action to defend our majority. You have to elect more pro-choice senators. We’re not living in a hypothetical.”TopicsUS SenateAbortionDemocratsUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Republican and more Republican’: Idaho shifts ever rightward

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      ‘Republican and more Republican’: Idaho shifts ever rightward In a state where legislators can boast of membership in the Oath Keepers, the fringe has become mainstreamA peregrine falcon swoops over grazing cows. A giant Stars and Stripes is painted on wood with “Bundy for governor” and “No trespassing” attached. Up a gravel drive, past an upturned wheelbarrow, is a red, white and blue Bundy campaign bus and a sign that declares: “Keep Idaho Idaho.”Ammon Bundy’s compound is situated under rolling green hills and a broad Idaho sky. From his five-bedroom farmhouse, the far-right activist gazes out at his 240 apple trees along with cherry, peach and pear trees. He points to the homes of two neighbors, both military men – and both flying the American flag upside down.“It’s a sign of distress,” Bundy says. “I’m not influencing them in any way but, if there is going to be some type of civil war, I think it will be the military fracturing. I hope not. I believe more in a separation, if it was needed.”The bearded 46-year-old, notorious for armed standoffs with law enforcement that landed him in prison, has no chance of becoming governor of Idaho. But the mere fact that, during a year in solitary confinement, he wrote in his journal about a plan to run for elected office is indicative of a change in the political wind here.Idaho has long been one of the most conservative states in America with its fair share of extremism. Now, critics warn, the extremists are being normalised. Once dismissed as backwoods fanatics, the far right have entered the political arena and identified a path to power.That path leads through a state Republican party that has long exploited tensions between independent-spirited Idahoans and the federal government, which manages two-thirds of the state’s land, and more recently embraced former president Donald Trump’s culture of grievance.Trump beat Joe Biden with 64% of the vote here in the 2020 election. Democrats have not held the governor’s office since 1995 or statewide elected office since 2007. Most elections for the state legislature do not even feature a Democratic candidate.Chuck Malloy, a columnist and former communications adviser to the House Republican caucus, said: “Sure, we have a two-party system: it’s Republican and more Republican. Idaho is shifting more to the right every day.”In the Republican primary election for governor on 17 May, incumbent Brad Little, a stalwart conservative by national standards, is portrayed as a Republican in Name Only (Rino) by his even more extreme challenger, Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin (Bundy dropped out of the Republican race and is running as an independent).McGeachin has sought to grab attention by issuing executive orders banning coronavirus mask and vaccine mandates when Little was out of state only to see them overturned on his return. But the political grandstanding appears to have backfired. Opinion polls suggest that McGeachin is heading for defeat.Little, who can boast of a record $1.9bn budget surplus, could not be described as much of a liberal saviour, however. He made a pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida only for the former president to endorse McGeachin four days later. As the state party’s centre of gravity shifts right, he is shifting with it.The governor recently signed one of the most extreme abortion laws in the country, banning the procedure after a foetal heartbeat is detected and allowing family members of rapists to sue providers. He also signed a bill banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports.Malloy observed: “Little can’t come across as looking pro-abortion in any way, shape or form so he signs this bill and makes the comments, well, I think it’s unconstitutional, but I’ll sign it anyway. He doesn’t want to go into a Republican primary election by being soft on the abortion issue or guns. He’s been picking his fights.”He added: “Democrats can’t be crazy about Brad Little. But to at least some people it’s a matter of do I vote for sane or insane?”Lauren Necochea, chair of the state Democratic party and a state representative, confirmed that she is unimpressed by the governor. She said: “The difference between Little and McGeachin is really more style than substance. She personifies the far-right extremism while he panders to it.”Although Little is likely to retain the governor’s mansion, elections for other offices of state are more competitive between the hard right and harder right. Priscilla Giddings, a McGeachin ally, is running for lieutenant governor, while Dorothy Moon, a member of the far-right John Birch Society, is a contender for secretary of state.Raúl Labrador, a former member of the influential US House Freedom Caucus who once proclaimed “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to healthcare”, is among the candidates for state attorney general.The extremist faction has also been expanding its influence in the state house and senate, recently attempting to block government funding for healthcare and television and to criminalise librarians for “disseminating material harmful to minors”, though the measures were ultimately thwarted.House member Chad Christensen, for example, proudly declares on his webpage his membership of the Oath Keepers, a militaristic, anti-government group whose founder, Stewart Rhodes, is facing charges of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.Scott McIntosh, opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman newspaper, said: “When I moved here in 2006, the Republican party was very much dominated by reasonable Republicans. Brad Little would be in that category. All they were worried about was running a good small state government.“They’re still here but the Republicans who are getting elected, particularly in the past 10 years, are more interested in coming to the state capitol and pushing transgender rights, abortion, library criminalisation bills that are more culture wars they see going on in other parts of the country that they want to stop from happening here in Idaho.”Perhaps most insidiously, a new far-right generation is targeting and taking over Republican central committees at county level. It means that the election for governor might be less important than it seems since the winner will find themselves tugged to the right by a radicalised state government.Shea Andersen, a marketing consultant who has worked on political campaigns, agreed: “They’ve figured out that the real power in Idaho is not to hold the governor’s seat necessarily – though certainly it would send a great message for them – but any sort of fringe political viewpoint is better served by fanning out and getting your positions represented in more day-to-day operations, whether that is state legislature or county commissioner races or even races for treasurer and secretary of state.”The trend is especially pronounced in northern Idaho, a region infamous in the late 20th century for Richard Butler’s effort to establish a “white homeland” from his 20-acre Aryan Nations compound. Butler was eventually bankrupted by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the compound was burned in June 2001.Chris Fillios, a moderate Republican seeking re-election as a county commissioner in Kootenai county, has observed extremists on the march there. “They have been told, infiltrate at every level: school board, county, city offices, anywhere and everywhere they can, state level, federal level, infiltrate, infiltrate.”Fillios sees a connection with “alt-right” figures such as Steve Bannon, a former chief strategist in the Trump White House. “If we start from the national level and we look at Steve Bannon having identified his so-called 40,000 ‘shock troops’, the most fertile ground that they could find would be northern Idaho. If they can get a foothold here, they could use it as sort of a launch pad for the rest of the country.”A driving force is the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a thinktank that vets legislation and legislators for their conservative and libertarian credentials. Approached for an interview, the foundation emailed a one-word reply: “Nope.” Approached in person at its office near the state capitol in Boise, the foundation’s staff gave a brusque refusal.Tellingly, the foundation’s website asks: “Are you a refugee from California, or some other liberal playground? Did you move to Idaho to escape the craziness? Welcome to Idaho. We’re glad to have you here. You are one of the new Idahoans. The people who came to the Gem State seeking a home that reflects their values: small government and a freer life.”This is a trend that has been called “right flight” as conservatives pour into Idaho from liberal, racially diverse states. It could be seen as part of the grand sorting of American national politics as liberals move to places where they will find like minds and conservatives do likewise, meaning that blue states turn bluer and red states turn redder.Stephanie Witt, director of the Applied Research Center at Boise State University, said: “The newcomers aren’t liberals. They’re as conservative or more conservative than the people who are here.”“I remember one woman I met at a county women’s forum. She was a recent transplant from southern California and she’s just like, ‘We can’t let California happen here.’ She felt like she was really holding a line.”California is the most diverse state in America; Idaho is 93% white. But Tom Luna, the first Hispanic person elected to statewide office in Idaho as superintendent of public instruction, denies that race is a motivating factor. “I don’t see ‘white flight’ as a reason at all for people moving here. I don’t know the numbers but I’ve met a lot of new people that have moved here and I see quite a diversity that identify themselves as Republicans.”Luna is now chair of the state Republican party. He rejects the notion that it has gone rogue. “This is the same party that has led for the past 20 years resulting in now one of the fastest-growing, if not the fastest-growing, state in the country, and one reason is because of quality of life.”But among the new arrivals is Bundy, who grew up in Utah and lived in Arizona before moving to Idaho seven years ago. The father of six children settled on farmland outside Emmett – also the home of Governor Little, a third-generation sheep and cattle rancher – about an hour north-west of Boise.Bundy was infamous for standoffs with federal agents near his family’s ranch in Nevada in 2014 and at the Malheur national wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016, which left one man dead. He served prison time but denies that he was leading armed rebellions and claims he won the “PR battle”.“The federal government has been attacking the land users – ranchers, loggers, miners and other people,” he said in an interview, wearing a checked shirt and paint-flecked jeans and sitting near a baby grand piano. “There’s been this almost theological battle that’s been going on for decades and decades over the land in the west.”He articulates the small government ideology of many far-right Republicans here: “I believe that we should become independent. We’ve got plenty resources and we should be able to stand on our own and not be dependent on the federal government to pay our medical bills and to build our buildings and all of that. But we’re like welfare junkies. We can’t seem to get off of it.”Bundy has been arrested multiple times in Idaho. Once such incident occurred in 2020 because he refused to leave a statehouse auditorium while protesting against pandemic legislation after officials ordered the room to be cleared. Earlier this year he was involved in protests that helped force a hospital into temporary lockdown.The rise of such tactics by extremists, which has included harassing and intimidating Republican legislators deemed too moderate, and storming into school or district health board meetings, sometimes with AR-15 rifles, has raised the specter of political violence in the state’s future.McIntosh of the Idaho Statesman said: “I only see it getting worse. I don’t see a way out of it.”TopicsThe far rightIdahoRepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More