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‘Don’t say gay’ bill: Florida senate passes law marginalizing LGBTQ+ people
‘Don’t say gay’ bill: Florida senate passes law marginalizing LGBTQ+ peopleGovernor DeSantis is expected to sign the proposal restricting instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity More
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US Senate unanimously passes bill to make lynching a federal hate crime
US Senate unanimously passes bill to make lynching a federal hate crimeAn earlier version of the bill, which was blocked in the Senate, was passed by the House in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder The US Senate has unanimously passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, a bill to make lynching a federal hate crime. Such efforts had failed for more than a century.Bobby Rush, the Illinois Democrat who introduced the measure in the House, said: “Despite more than 200 attempts to outlaw this heinous form of racial terror at the federal level, it has never before been done. Today, we corrected that historic injustice. Next stop: [Joe Biden’s] desk.”Lynching Postcards: a harrowing documentary about confronting historyRead moreThe New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, Senate co-sponsor with Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican, said: “The time is past due to reckon with this dark chapter in our history and I’m proud of the bipartisan support to pass this important piece of legislation.”Subject to Biden’s signature, the bill will make lynching a hate crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison.According to the Equal Justice Initiative, about 4,400 African Americans were lynched in the US between the end of Reconstruction, in the 1870s, and the years of the second world war. Some killings were watched by crowds. postcards and souvenirs were sometimes sold.The bill heading for Biden’s desk is named for Emmett Till, who was 14 when he was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in August 1955. Two white men were tried but acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury, then confessed. The killing helped spark the civil rights movement.The House passed Rush’s anti-lynching measure 422-3. Three Republicans voted no: Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Chip Roy of Texas and Andrew Clyde of Georgia.In 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis and amid national protests for racial justice, the chamber passed an earlier version of the bill with a similar bipartisan vote.Then, the measure was blocked in the Senate. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said he did so because “the bill as written would allow altercations resulting in a cut, abrasion, bruise or any other injury no matter how temporary to be subject to a 10-year penalty”.Paul also called lynchings a “horror” and said he supported the bill but for its too-broad language.Kamala Harris, then a senator from California, now vice-president, called Paul’s stance “insulting”.Late last year, in another high-profile case, three white men were convicted in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man who went jogging in a Georgia neighbourhood.Will justice finally be done for Emmett Till? Family hope a 65-year wait may soon be overRead moreIn an interview published on Tuesday, Christine Turner, director of the Oscar-nominated short Lynching Postcards: Token of a Great Day, referred to the Arbery murder when she told the Guardian: “There are many what people refer to as modern-day lynchings that may cause some people to take our history of lynching more seriously.”On Monday, in a further statement, Rush said lynching was “a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy.“Perpetrators of lynching got away with murder time and time again – in most cases, they were never even brought to trial … Today, we correct this historic and abhorrent injustice.”He also cited a great civil rights leader: “I am reminded of Dr King’s famous words: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’”TopicsRaceUS crimeUS CongressUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More
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Donald Trump’s power is fading: Trumpism is the clear and present danger now | Rebecca Solnit
Donald Trump’s power is fading: Trumpism is the clear and present danger nowRebecca SolnitWhile the ex-president is beset by legal and financial troubles, his awful doctrine remains a malign and vigorous force in US politics Proclaiming what’s going to happen is a popular way to shrug off taking responsibility for helping to determine what’s going to happen. And it’s something we’ve seen a lot with doomspreading prophecies that Donald Trump is going to run for president or even win in 2024.One of the assumptions is that Trump will still be alive and competent to run, but the health of this sedentary shouter in his mid-70s, including the after-effects of the Covid-19 he was hospitalised for in 2020, could change.Look to external issues too, for whatever the condition of his own health, his financial health is under attack, with businesses losing money and some banks refusing to lend to him after the storming of the Capitol.It’s also worth remembering that he lost the popular vote by millions in 2016 and by more millions in 2020; he never had a mandate. The Republicans are clearly gearing up to try to steal an election again, but their chances of winning one with Trump as candidate seem slim. Currently, he is creating conflict within the Republican party with his insistence on controlling it for his own agenda and punishing dissenters.Another assumption we make when we assess Trump’s prospects is that he won’t be locked up in 2024, or that his reputation, such as it is, won’t be severely damaged even in the eyes of some who voted for him before. Even in the past couple of weeks his standing has shifted significantly. Former attorney general Bill Barr is now speaking up – to promote his book – about how Trump was clearly advised that his claims of election theft had no basis and that his strategies to overturn the results were illegal. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has woken up people around the world (or at least those who were dozing) to Vladimir Putin’s malevolence and reminded Americans of how eagerly Trump allied himself with the Russian dictator, personally and politically. Suddenly a lot of Republicans are trying to scurry away from their own pro-Putin record, which may mean distancing themselves from Trump as well. His 2019 withholding of military aid to Ukraine to try to pressure Ukrainian president Zelenskiy into supporting his lies is also being re-examined under the harsh light of this war.Additionally, Trump is facing many criminal charges, from allegations of financial dirty dealing by the Trump Organization in New York (Trump has called the various probes into the business “politically motivated”), to an investigation into whether Trump and his allies subverted election results in Georgia, where Trump claims election fraud took place. Just last week, the January 6 committee laid out a series of potential charges against the ex-president, including conspiracy to defraud the American people and obstructing an official proceeding of Congress. Trump’s domestic status seems to be shifting rapidly. He is also facing so many lawsuits that both CNN and NBC published indexes of the cases. Last month news broke that Trump had left the White House with classified documents, which he claimed he had a right to take to his home. That could be a felony, though how much appetite the Biden administration has for jailing a former president remains to be seen.Among the large array of civil charges Trump faces are E Jean Carroll’s allegations of defamation over his insult-laden denial that he raped her (he has responded that he was simply responding in the line of “official duties”) and former consigliere Michael Cohen’s case that his return to prison was triggered by Trump after Cohen released a revealing memoir. There are also suits holding Trump responsible for the January 6 insurrection both from members of Congress, and two policemen injured in the mayhem. In February the courts ruled that these civil suits can go forward, and Trump lacks the immunity that would protect him from them. Trump has initiated lawsuits of his own, but a great many have been dismissed, although he is still suing his niece, Mary Trump, for disclosing tax information about him. She in turn is suing him and two of his siblings, alleging that they defrauded her out of much of her inheritance (which they deny).Though the 14th amendment of the US constitution should ban all insurrectionists from running for elected office, it seems unlikely to be applied to 21st-century candidates the way it was to former Confederates. But still, the Georgia and New York charges are serious. All of which is to say that the road from early 2022 to late 2024 is bumpy for Trump. Popular opinion is fickle; George W Bush is Trump’s age and clearly a permanent has-been. Even Barack Obama, at 60, has strolled offstage.But even if Trump is not indisputably in the running, Trumpism is running rampant, and it’s a force to contend with in political races across the US. Trump was a super-spreader of his brand of amoral self-interest that tramples fact, truth, law and rights. The man himself is sulking in his private club in Florida – enduring effectual exile from New York, Washington – and Twitter – but to a degree, his work is done. He has got an already corrupt political party to embrace his tactics and values. The brazen lies of prominent figures in the party show that they’ve abandoned all ethics and standards, and will happily violate the oaths they took to uphold the constitution. Viral Trumpism has already merged with conspiracy theories such as QAnon, with anti-vaccine cults, with white supremacists and neo-fascists, and with the gun-fetishising groups that continue to have an ominous presence in public life.I sometimes think of the American right as a pot on the boil; what’s inside is concentrating as it shrinks. The Republican party has been losing membership for years: a Gallup poll earlier this month reports that 24% of eligible voters are registered Republican, a steady decline over the past 15 years.That’s a reminder that news stories revealing that a majority of Republicans believe something could actually mean that only a small minority of Americans do.There have been high-profile defections and general atrophy in the age of Trump. That’s the shrinking. But then there’s the concentration that renders those who remain more furious, more closed-minded, more ready to jump on any bandwagon that looks as if it leads to power, and even more rigidly committed to an increasingly rightwing agenda, even though – or maybe because – that means minority rule.For progressives, Republican desperation is a good sign, in its way. A popular party doesn’t have to suppress votes and steal elections. A party aligned with the will of the people doesn’t need to lie and cheat. Trumpism seems like a last gasp, a desperate last chance to hang on to what’s slipping away. The old Soviet-satellite aphorism “You can cut down the flowers but you can’t stop the spring” applies nicely.The future of this country is white-minority. Yet the Republican party has done its best to alienate everybody else, while the rising majority of Americans support reproductive rights, climate action and many economic justice measures. The long-term progressive future of the United States seems almost inevitable. But with Trumpism still a force, the short-term future is alarming and unpredictable, and the damage may be lasting; whether it’s the prevention of climate action or the infliction of literal and financial violence on poor and marginalised people.Enemies of authoritarianism and white supremacy have their work cut out, but the task is clear and straightforward: to protect the democratic process, upholding voting rights and free and fair elections, to try to win those elections for progressive candidates, and to articulate and defend the values behind those objectives.Trump is treading water, but this is how resistance to Trumpism works, and how it can prevail if enough people work at it hard enough.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
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Can Texas become purple? That may depend on Hispanic voters | Carlos Sanchez
Can Texas become purple? That may depend on Hispanic votersCarlos SanchezWhichever party wants to rule the state has to understand that the Latino voting bloc is not homogenous Two key congressional races along the Texas-Mexico border underscore what Latino political analysts have been screaming for years: as a voting bloc, Hispanics are not a politically homogeneous group. So Democrats must have a more nuanced strategy to win the bloc if they want to recapture political power in the state, and extend that power to the US Congress.Both congressional districts, which were up for grabs in last week’s Texas primary, begin at the Rio Grande and snake north-east to San Antonio, among the largest cities in state. One of them, the 28th congressional district, which emanates from Laredo, captured the hopes of the progressive wing of the Democratic party. The other, the 15th district, which begins in McAllen, further south, has Republicans excited about the prospects of turning that district Republican for the first time in its history, with the help of newly redrawn district lines.The lessons learned from those two races could be instructive at the top of the ticket in November. Democrats are excited about the prospects of Beto O’Rourke, from the border town of El Paso, upsetting Republican governor Greg Abbott, who must demonstrate his ability to capture the Hispanic vote to be credible on the national stage in 2024.Much of the state’s focus in last Tuesday’s primary was on the potential upset of nine-term Congressman Henry Cuellar by his former intern, Jessica Cisneros, who drew the support of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The two ended up in a runoff election set for 24 May.Cuellar’s race represents a rematch with Cisneros. Cuellar, a native of Laredo who is arguably the most powerful Texas Democrat in Congress, draws the ire of progressive Democrats who note his anti-abortion stance and his negotiations with Republicans, particularly when it came to funding President Trump’s border wall.His challenge was made more complicated when the FBI raided his home and office in Laredo in a federal investigation involving business dealings with the country of Azerbaijan. Cuellar has denied any wrongdoing and he has not been charged with anything.But the timing of the raid placed enormous clouds on his electoral prospects with early voting happening just a few weeks later. He eked out a 767-vote win over Cisneros. Two years earlier, he beat her by 2,690 votes. And while Cisneros, who is also from Laredo, likely benefited enormously from the cloud of corruption over her opponent, where her votes came from is telling.The bulk of her votes came from Bexar county, the home of San Antonio, hours from the border. Cisneros polled under 40% in border counties. All of this suggests that Cuellar’s more conservative approach to politics better resonated with voters along the border.Further south of the 28th district is the 15th congressional district, a Democratic mainstay newly redrawn by the state legislature to favor Republicans. The GOP has dominated state politics since 1994, but the border region from south Texas to El Paso in the far west portion of the state has had an insurmountable blue wall.The 15th had shared in that Democratic tradition and was once represented by John Nance Garner who went on to become Franklin D Roosevelt’s first vice-president. After the 2020 election, in which Trump did exceptionally well in the district, Republicans made the 15th a focal point.That interest grew when Republican insurance agent and businesswoman Monica De La Cruz came within 3 percentage points of upsetting the Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez in 2020. That same year, Trump came within 2 percentage points of Joe Biden in the district – the narrowest margin of any seat held by a Democrat in Texas.Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall after redistricting, Gonzalez left the 15th district to run in another district. When the legislature completed its once-a-decade redistricting process, the 15th was reshaped to enhance GOP prospects even more. In 2020, before redistricting, Biden carried the 15th by 50.4% to Trump’s 48.5%. Redistricting would have flipped those numbers, delivering a victory to Trump.Last Tuesday, De La Cruz coasted to the Republican nomination and drew more votes than the two candidates in the Democratic primary combined.While the redistricting process all but guarantees a Republican advantage in the 15th in November, south Texas overall has emerged as a Petri dish for political analysts trying to unlock the mystery to winning over Hispanic voters just as Hispanics are expected to become the majority in Texas by 2025.Hispanics who live along the border are much more conservative than Texas Democrats overall.One of the region’s open secrets is the large number of DINOs (Democrat in Name Only) that are in leadership positions. Many officials, locals quietly say, run as Democrats whether they believe in the party platform or not because running as a Republican has generally been the kiss of death. But during the Trump administration, Trump trains or caravans of cars expressing support for the former president became almost commonplace in Hidalgo county, the southern anchor of the 15th district. As one Trump supporter told me, it has become easier to come out of the Republican closet over the past few years with growing numbers of people declaring allegiance to Trump based on economic and border security issues.Then there’s the Viva Kennedy factor showing that some aspects of politics can have long memories. In 1960, when John F Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon for president, his campaign began Hispanic outreach through what were called Viva Kennedy clubs. A key conduit for this outreach was a Corpus Christi doctor named Hector P Garcia, who started the American G.I. Forum, a group that fought for equal rights for Hispanic soldiers returning from the second world war.Given Kennedy’s close victory, Garcia and other Hispanic leaders felt that the Mexican American vote had been key to his win. They expected to share in the political spoils that many leaders say never came until Lyndon Johnson became president.Since Biden took office, several Texas Hispanic leaders have spoken privately of having Viva Kennedy sentiments because Hispanics, particularly in Texas, have not fared as well politically as they had hoped with a Democrat in the White House. This feeling is exacerbated by Biden’s missteps on the issue of immigration. While security is important to border Hispanics (the US Border Patrol has long been a ticket to the middle class locally), the rhetoric of immigration can often stray into language that Hispanics find offensive.The perception that Biden has not handled the issue of immigration well leads to a perception that his administration is allowing the issue of xenophobia to fester unchallenged.This sets the stage for this year’s midterm election. De La Cruz moved early last year to take on the incumbent again and was bolstered by Republican leadership at the state and national levels. Last fall, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy endorsed De La Cruz. She also secured Trump’s endorsement.If money is a political barometer, then De La Cruz stands out among the 14 candidates, Democrat and Republican, who filed for the congressional seat. As of 9 February, she raised more than $1.7m, according to the Federal Elections Commission. That’s more than twice the amount raised by the next candidate, Republican Mauro Garza, who raised just over $500,000.Astoundingly, from a historic perspective in this traditionally Democratic stronghold, the top Democratic fund-raiser banked just over $300,000. And the two Democrats from the 15th that appear to be headed into a May runoff to oppose De La Garza raised a combined $220,000.Last week, De La Cruz became the Republican nominee for the 15th congressional district by capturing 56.5% of the GOP vote. Her vote total of 16,801 beat the combined total of the two Democrats that are headed into a runoff.The political strength of Monica De La Cruz, who would become the third Latina and first Republican Latina from Texas in Congress, is worth noting. The heterogeneity of the Hispanic vote cannot be overlooked; the party that better addresses the complexities of this electorate will be the party that has a better chance of controlling the political future of Texas.Carlos Sanchez is director of public affairs for Hidalgo county, Texas. He was a journalist for 37 years and has worked at the Washington Post and Texas Monthly magazine, as well as eight other newsrooms. He can be reached at borderscribe@gmail.comTopicsTexasCartas de la fronteraUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More
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This time McConnell holds few cards to stop Biden’s supreme court pick
This time McConnell holds few cards to stop Biden’s supreme court pick Ketanji Brown Jackson can expect little support from across the aisle but Republicans are wary of overreach before midtermsThe photograph is a study in contrasts. On the left, standing stiffly and staring glumly, is Mitch McConnell, 80, the Republican minority leader in the Senate accused of committing professional fouls when confronting judicial confirmations.On the right, at a slightly awkward distance from McConnell, is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, chosen by a Democratic president to be the first Black woman on the US supreme court, smiling warmly at the camera, her posture more relaxed than the senator’s.Clyburn: supreme court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘beyond politics’Read moreThis was one stop for Jackson this week when she began courting senators from both sides of the aisle ahead of nomination hearings that start on 21 March before a vote in the full chamber.For McConnell, who blocked President Barack Obama’s 2016 nominee Merrick Garland then oversaw the confirmation of three conservative justices under President Donald Trump, there are few options this time. Democrats can confirm Jackson without Republicans in a Senate that is divided 50-50 and where Vice-President Kamala Harris wields the tiebreaker vote.Experts predict that Republicans will use the process to score some political points – just as Democrats did in 2020 when they were powerless to block Amy Coney Barrett’s ascent to the court – but ultimately they will not resort entirely to scorched earth tactics.McConnell and colleagues know that Jackson is replacing a fellow liberal, the retiring Stephen Breyer, and so will not change the 6-3 conservative majority on the court. They are also aware that opinion polls suggest a thumping Republican victory in November’s midterm elections and do not want to risk an overreach that might change that trajectory.“It would be difficult for the Republicans to stop it and a very strong, aggressive effort to block her confirmation could be perceived as being racially motivated,” said Edward Fallone, an associate professor at Marquette University Law School. “They’re already in a favorable position for the midterm elections and the last thing they want to do is erode that by getting accused of being racist at this time. So they should just stay out of the way.”But that will not necessarily prevent some Republicans using racist dog whistles to rile up the Trump base, as they have before.At a confirmation hearing last November, for example, the Republican senator John Kennedy told Kazakh-born Saule Omarova, nominee for comptroller of the currency: “I don’t mean any disrespect: I don’t know whether to call you professor or comrade.” She replied: “Senator, I’m not a communist.”Fallone commented: “There are certainly going to be the Republican loose cannons but the question would be whether one of the more mainstream Republicans slips up and makes a comment that’s perceived as racist.”There was an early preview of the potential for bigotry this week when, after Biden championed Jackson in his State of the Union address as “one of our nation’s top legal minds”, Tucker Carlson, an influential host on the conservative Fox News network, remarked: “It might be time for Joe Biden to let us know what Ketanji Brown Jackson’s LSAT score was.”LSAT is the Law School Admission Test. Critics noted that Carlson never made a similar demand for the LSAT scores of white justices appointed by Trump.Jackson has served since last year on the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit after eight years as a federal district judge in Washington and worked earlier as a supreme court clerk for Breyer. She is related by marriage to the former House speaker Paul Ryan, now a board member at the parent company of Fox News.Democrats hope to confirm her before the Easter recess starts on 11 April. She was accompanied this week by Doug Jones, a civil rights lawyer and former senator from Alabama. After a 40-minute meeting, the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, told reporters: “She deserves support from the other side of the aisle, and I am hopeful that a good number of Republicans will vote for her, given who she is.”But McConnell has raised questions about Jackson’s short record as an appellate judge, which includes only two opinions so far. “I am troubled by the combination of this slim appellate record and the intensity of Judge Jackson’s far-left, dark-money fan club,” the senator from Kentucky said.It was a clue that the days when supreme court justices were confirmed with more than 90 bipartisan votes are long gone and that most Republicans are likely to oppose Jackson, despite her receiving support from the Fraternal Order of Police and former judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans.Even so, few predict a bareknuckle fight that will dominate national headlines like the confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, who faced allegations of sexual misconduct from his teenage years.Christopher Kang, co-founder and chief counsel of the progressive pressure group Demand Justice, said: “They have nothing to turn it into a battle over. At the end of the day, Republicans still control a supermajority of the supreme court so the substantive stakes are not there for them.“There’s nothing in Judge Jackson’s record that they could turn into a rallying cry on their side either so I do think that it will be a somewhat muted battle. Or perhaps, as too often seen with women of color who are judicial nominees, unfortunately it may end up devolving into some racist and misogynist attacks. But it won’t be based on her record at all.”Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were the only Republicans to vote to confirm Jackson to the appeals court last year. While Collins appears open to voting for Jackson again, Murkowski has said her previous vote did not mean she would be supportive this time. Graham had advocated for a different candidate from his home state, federal judge Michelle Childs, and expressed disappointment that she was not Biden’s pick.But, along with rightwing media, some outside advocacy conservative organisations are attacking Jackson’s nomination.The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) has launched a $2.5m campaign trying to make the case that a “liberal dark money network” helped get Biden elected, pressured Breyer to retire and is now seeking to replace him with “a rubber stamp for their unpopular and far-left political agenda”.Curt Levey, president of the conservative Committee for Justice, said: “The strategy on our side is not to really try to stop her but to try to make some larger points. I think JCN is making a point about dark money groups pressuring Biden to choose the most progressive of the three choices [the other frontrunners were Childs and California supreme court justice Leondra Kruger].”Levey’s own group does not see it as worthwhile to spend money on TV adverts, however. “We can be effective on those larger points but I don’t think there’s any amount of commercials you could run that would stop her from being confirmed.”It is a pragmatic view shared by John Cornyn, a Republican member of the Senate judiciary committee, who is due to meet Jackson on 10 March and does not expect surprises. He told reporters: “She’s not new to us. Given the fact that she’s not going to change the ideological balance on the court … we all have a pretty good idea what the outcome is likely to be.”TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonUS supreme courtUS SenateRepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More
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Ukraine exposes fault lines in Washington: Politics Weekly America
Retired Lt Col Alexander Vindman testified in front of Congress that he heard Donald Trump ask President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens. Trump was later impeached, and Vindman vilified by Republicans.
In a week that saw President Biden give his State of the Union address, and Russia continue its invasion of Ukraine, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Vindman about his thoughts on how this war is informing the actions of American lawmakersHow to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know
You can buy Alexander Vindman’s book here Listen to Politics Weekly UK with John Harris Listen to Today in Focus Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More
