Subterms
Mitch McConnell visits Kyiv with delegation of Republican US senatorsSenators meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who praises US bipartisan support for his country More
Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, held a call with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday in which he called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, the Pentagon said.During the call Austin also “emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication”, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.The call is the first time Austin had spoken with Shoigu since February 18, six days before Russia invaded Ukraine.The call came after Republican senator Rand Paul blocked the passage of a $40bn aid bill for Ukraine on Thursday. The bill will be taken up again next week.Russia has shown no signs of halting its aggression. On Friday the UK ministry of defence said Russia was stepping up its attacks near the cities of Izyum and Severodonetsk, in eastern Ukraine, in an attempt to “envelop Ukrainian forces”.We’ll wrap up the blog here, after another busy day in Washington and US politics as a whole. To close on a sobering note, in light of the protests planned across the US tomorrow over the supreme court’s apparent desire to overturn the right to abortion, here’s Maanvi Singh’s report from Oakland, about the challenges which face those protecting that right even in states which support it:Even in abortion ‘safe havens’ finding care can be challengingRead moreWidespread marches are planned for Saturday, in protest of the apparent readiness of the supreme court to strike down the right to abortion. Here’s some preparatory reading from David Sirota and Andrew Perez…Even as the Democrats’ feeble legislative attempt to codify federal protections for abortion rights goes down in flames, many Washington elites are directing their attention and anger towards the same target: no, not rightwing judges reaching their ideological hands into millions of people’s bodies, but instead the protesters peacefully demonstrating outside the homes of supreme court justices who are about to overturn Roe v Wade.Prominent Republican lawmakers, conservative operatives and Beltway pundits are demanding the government arrest demonstrators – and to do so, they are citing a McCarthy-era statute passed to stop people from protesting against the prosecutions of alleged communists. Ignored in the discourse is a past ruling from the supreme court effectively blessing conservative protests at the homes of abortion clinic workers.The largely manufactured outrage is the latest distraction designed to shift attention away from the issue at hand: the US supreme court’s conservative supermajority is about to deny basic reproductive rights to tens of millions of people in roughly half the country.Conservative operatives want Washington reporters focused on inane questions like who leaked the court’s draft opinion, and they want journalists and Democrats to criticize protesters who are outraged by the court’s overriding lack of respect for people’s bodily autonomy. It is part of a larger rightwing movement in recent years to cancel, criminalize and literally crush dissent throughout the country, even as the conservative political noise machine continues to blare Braveheart-esque screams of “freedom!” against so-called “cancel culture”.Read more:Prepare for McCarthy-era crackdowns on pro-choice protesters | Andrew Perez and David SirotaRead moreThe population of the United States is much younger than that of most European countries, but its political establishment is much older. The 2020 presidential election was fought between 74-year-old Donald Trump and 77-year-old Joe Biden – compare that to 53-year-old Marine Le Pen and 44-year-old Emmanuel Macron in last month’s French presidential election. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, is 71, while minority leader Mitch McConnell is 80. In the generally younger House of Representatives, the majority leader, Nancy Pelosi, is 82, making minority leader Kevin McCarthy look like a spring chicken at a mere 57. This is not just a problem for the functioning of the democratic system; it endangers the survival of it.Read more:The Democratic party needs new, younger leadership before it’s too late | Cas MuddeRead moreAriana Grande, Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion, Olivia Rodrigo and Selena Gomez joined a slew of fellow music stars and other celebrities to take out a full-page advertisement in Friday’s New York Times, decrying the looming fall of nationwide abortion rights.“The supreme court is planning to overturn Roe v Wade,” read the ad, referring to the landmark 1973 ruling that in effect legalized abortion across the US. “Our power to plan our own futures and control our own bodies depends on our ability to access sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion.”It continued: “We are artists. Creators. Storytellers. We are the new generation stepping into our power. Now we are being robbed of our power. We will not go back – and we will not back down.”More than 160 musicians, songwriters, actors, models and other celebrities signed the ad, which invited the public to take to the streets on Saturday and participate in planned demonstrations across the US protesting the supreme court’s expected reversal of Roe v Wade.Other notable names include Asa Butterfield, Camila Cabello, Camila Mendes, Demi Lovato, Dove Cameron, Lil Dicky, Dylan O’Brien, Finneas, Hailee Steinfeld, Hailey Bieber, Halsey, Ilana Glazer, Joey King, Kendall Jenner, Miley Cyrus, Paramore, Phoebe Bridgers, Quvenzhané Wallis, Shawn Mendes, Tate McRae and Thomas Doherty.Full story:Ariana Grande and other stars support Roe v Wade in New York Times adRead moreThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack made a political and legal gambit when it issued unprecedented subpoenas that compel five Republican members of Congress to reveal inside information about Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.The move sets into motion an extraordinary high-stakes showdown of response and counter-response for both the subpoenaed House Republicans – the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks – and the panel itself.Bennie Thompson, the Democrat chair of the committee, authorized the subpoenas on Wednesday after the panel convened for final talks about whether to proceed with subpoenas, with House investigators needing to wrap up work before June public hearings.“We inquired to most of them via letter to come forward, and when they told us they would not come, we issued the subpoena,” Thompson said of McCarthy and his colleagues. “It’s a process. And the process was clearly one that required debate and discussion.”The decision came after a recognition that their investigation into January 6 would not have been complete if they did not at least attempt to force the cooperation of some of the House Republicans most deeply involved in Trump’s unlawful schemes to return himself to office.But the subpoenas are about deploying a political and legal power play in the crucial final moments of the investigation as much as they are about an effort to gain new information for the inquiry into efforts to stop Joe Biden’s certification in time for public hearings.Full story:Subpoenas of Trump allies by January 6 panel set up high-stakes showdownRead moreWe’re on to the Iran nuclear deal and whether Russia is now an obstacle to resurrecting the pact, which Donald Trump dropped. Russia is an obstacle, Psaki says, given its invasion of Ukraine.Why is the US not calling for an independent inquiry into the shooting of Shireen Abu Aqleh, an Al Jazeera journalist, in the West Bank?The US will provide assistance if Israel wants it, Psaki says. That’s that.Asked about immigration reform, which is stalled, Psaki points out simply that Congress won’t move on it. Biden was elected in part on a promise to work with Republicans in Congress, based on his three decades there as a senator, but that’s all part of the fun.Obviously, in a lot of ways a White House briefing should be this frustrating, in that the press secretary should spend the time parrying questions no matter how many times they are rephrased by the press, and should achieve that parrying by verbal sleight of hand or by simply drowning the inconvenient questions in inexorable verbiage.Which is what Jen Psaki does here, before nodding, closing her binder and leaving the White House podium for the final time, with a simple: “Thank you, everyone.”So it goes.Psaki is asked about Republican attacks over the baby formula situation. “We do like facts here,” Psaki says, flipping her binder, and trying to make the point that perhaps Republican critics of the administration are, let’s say, less keen on facts in such circumstances.Will there soon be a Covid vaccine for the under-fives? Psaki says she as a parent is eager for such a move but Joe Biden “moves at the pace of science”.Psaki is also asked about the absence of meaningful reform on police and policing promised in light of the murder of George Floyd and the national protests that followed.She says the administration is taking such efforts seriously and hopes Republicans will support Biden’s efforts, including $10m for policing announced today, and a police reform executive order “will be a part of that”.Asked about advice for Karine Jean-Pierre, her successor as press secretary who is in the room, Psaki says she will have to “project and convey the positions of the president of the United States”. As a “bit of a policy nerd”, Psaki advises deep engagement on that front too.“You never want to be a meme with one line,” Psaki also says, advising the provision of context in answers. The camera does not cut to Peter Doocy of Fox News, with Psaki the subject of many such memes. Shame.Baby formula is back on the agenda. Psaki notes administration approaches and what it claims are successes.Jen Psaki continues her final briefing as White House press secretary, fielding questions about Americans held in Iran and about Brittney Griner, the women’s NBA star who is being held in Russia. Griner has been “wrongfully detained”, Psaki says, without giving much of an answer beyond saying efforts continue to get Griner home.Here’s our story:WNBA star Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia extended by monthRead morePsaki is also asked about Covid funding from Congress and says, “There is no Plan B”, which seems rather stark as such funding runs out. “More Americans will die needlessly,” she says, if funding is allowed to lapse.Psaki is asked about all the other pressing issues too: the price of living, of gas, the scarcity of baby formula. They all have their roots in the pandemic, she says. And the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. And there are good signs, Psaki insists, including strong economic performance in the US.She rattles through Biden achievements on oil, internet access for the less well off, and so forth, like the pro she is. “Look at the alternative,” she says. “What are Republicans presenting as the option?”A lot of questions are being asked about baby formula. Specifically, when will parents be able to get it.“[The] FDA took a step to ensure that babies were taking safe formula,” Psaki says. “We’re going to work with manufacturers, we’re going to import more to expedite this as quickly as possible.”Asked whether the government should push to produce more formula, Psaki says:“The production of baby formula is so specialised and so specific that you can’t just use the Defense Production Act to say to a company that makes something else: produce baby formula.”A nationwide baby formula shortage has forced parents into online groups to swap and sell to each other to keep their babies fed.US infant formula shortage: what you need to knowRead morePsaki’s final White House briefing continues.“I promised myself I wouldn’t get emotional,” she says. She succeeds.Psaki thanks the president and first lady, and some staffers, and then the assembled members of the press.“Without accountability and debate democracy is not as strong and you all play a pivotal role,” she says.Before asking questions the White House press corps, not known for being the most combative of journalists, are each thanking Psaki for her service.Psaki is asked if the president has a reaction to images from this morning of Israeli troops beating people carrying the casket of Shireen Abu Aqleh, a Palestinian-American journalist.Abu Aqleh was shot in the head on Wednesday morning in the West Bank city of Jenin during what her colleagues at the scene said was a burst of Israeli fire on a small group of journalists covering an expected Israeli military raid.“We have all seen those images and they’re obviously deeply disturbing,” Psaki says. “We regret the intrusion into what should have been a peaceful procession,” she adds. The US government has been in touch with both Israeli and Palestinian governments, she says.Jen Psaki is holding her final White House press conference, and she’s arrived with a couple of local officials.There’s a mayor and a chief of police. Psaki says they are sterling examples of how cities can use money from the 2021 $1.9tn Covid-19 relief package – the American Rescue Plan – to provide “historic levels of support to make our communities safer”.Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, says money from the rescue plan – which was introduced to support Americans impacted by the coronavirus pandemic – has enabled the city to retain and hire more police officers.The Detroit chief of police, James White, says money from the plan has helped train law enforcement officers, including crisis intervention training.This comes as Joe Biden plans to urge states and cities to use unspent money from the Covid relief package to fund crime prevention programs and hire police officers. When the plan was introduced in January 2021 – Biden signed it into law the following March – Biden said it would help the “millions of Americans, [who] through no fault of their own, have lost the dignity and respect that comes with a job and a paycheck”.A lawyer for the New York attorney general’s office said Friday that the office is “nearing the end” of its three-year investigation into former president Donald Trump and his business practices, The Associated Press reports. Andrew Amer made the disclosure during a hearing in a federal lawsuit Trump filed against attorney general Letitia James as he seeks to put an end to her investigation.His lawyers argued the probe is a politically motivated fishing expedition.Trump is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the investigation, which James has said uncovered evidence that Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, misstated the value of assets like skyscrapers and golf courses on financial statements for over a decade.James has asked a judge to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit.US district judge Brenda Sannes said she would weigh both issues and deliver a decision in writing. She heard arguments for about an hour via video. She did not give a timetable for a ruling.Trump lawyer Alina Habba argued that James, a Democrat, campaigned for office in 2018 as a Trump antagonist and, as attorney general, has used the office to harass the Republican former president and his company with myriad subpoenas and evidence requests. Habba said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“We’ve produced millions and millions and millions of pages” of evidence…We keep getting subpoenas. They keep looking for things. If they don’t find it, they look again.”Amer, a special litigation counsel for James, countered that the state judge overseeing legal fights over subpoenas issued by the attorney general’s office has found there is a “sufficient basis for continuing its investigation.”That finding, combined with evidence uncovered to date, “really shuts the door on any argument” by Trump’s lawyers that the office was proceeding in bad faith, Amer said.It’s been a lively morning so far in US political news and there is more to come, so do stay tuned. Here’s where things stand:
US defense secretary Lloyd Austin held a call with Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday in which he called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine
In an overt break from Donald Trump, former US vice president Mike Pence will hold a rally on May 23 with Georgia governor – and Trump foe – Brian Kemp, a day before Georgia’s midterms Republican primary
Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, held a call with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday in which he called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, the Pentagon said.During the call Austin also “emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication”, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.The call is the first time Austin had spoken with Shoigu since February 18, six days before Russia invaded Ukraine.The call came after Republican senator Rand Paul blocked the passage of a $40bn aid bill for Ukraine on Thursday. The bill will be taken up again next week.Russia has shown no signs of halting its aggression. On Friday the UK ministry of defence said Russia was stepping up its attacks near the cities of Izyum and Severodonetsk, in eastern Ukraine, in an attempt to “envelop Ukrainian forces”.Bernie Sanders has written an interesting op-ed piece today on his new Medicare for All bill, and it has been published in an interesting place: Fox News.The op-ed appears to be an attempt to reach out to Americans who might not normally hear Sanders’ case for universal healthcare. It focuses on the cost and corruption of the medical healthcare system, as Sanders champions his bill, which has 15 co-sponsors in the Senate. The legislation be implemented over a four-year period and would guarantee health care in the United States as a fundamental human right to all.“Despite spending more than twice as much on healthcare as the average developed country our health outcomes are worse than most. For example, our life expectancy is about 4.5 years lower than Germany’s and we have the highest infant mortality rate of almost any major country on earth,” Sanders writes.Sanders continues:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Now, if Medicare for All was so great, you might ask, why hasn’t it been enacted by now? Why hasn’t the United States joined every major country on earth in guaranteeing health care for all?
Well, the answer is pretty simple. Follow the money. Since 1998, in our corrupt political system, the private health care sector has spent more than $10.6 billion on lobbying and over the last 30 years it has spent more than $1.7 billion on campaign contributions to maintain the status quo. And, by the way, they are “bi-partisan.” In fact, they own many of the politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Here is the bottom line: If every major country on earth can guarantee health care to all and achieve better health outcomes, while spending substantially less per capita than we do, there is no reason, other than greed, that the United States of America cannot do the same.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, will give her last briefing today, before reportedly taking up a tv host role at MSNBC.Psaki’s departure will mark the end of a 16-month stint as Joe Biden’s chief spokesperson. Karine Jean-Pierre, currently the principal deputy press secretary, will be taking over, becoming the first Black person and first out gay person in the role.In joining MSNBC – a move that has not been officially announced, but was revealed by Axios last month – Psaki is following a well-trodden path of White House communications to television pundit.A slew of Donald Trump’s four former White House press secretaries, Kayleigh McEnany has gone on to be a Fox News host, while Sean Spicer has his own show on the right-wing network Newsmax.Multiple rallies are set to take place on Saturday across the country as abortion rights activists take to the streets in opposition to the news that a majority of the Supreme Court favors overturning Roe v Wade, according to a draft ruling leaked on May 2.The so-called “Bans Off Our Bodies” marches will take place across small towns and major cities, including Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Birmingham and Chicago. A coalition of pro-choice advocacy groups, including Planned Parenthood, UltraViolet, Move On and the Women’s March, is helping organize Saturday’s nationwide protests.“This Saturday we are taking to the streets to express our outrage—and our determination,” Planned Parenthood Action Fund executive director Kelley Robinson said in a press statement. “Abortion access is in crisis, and Planned Parenthood organizations are proud to stand with partners and hundreds of thousands of people nationwide to come together and show that we reject the rollback our rights and freedoms,” she added. With tens of thousands expected to turnout across the country, Saturday’s protests could be the biggest women-focussed protest since the first official Women’s March, held in Washington with support marches in other cities on January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president.The brash Republican took the White House despite allegations from dozens of women about sexual harassment and misconduct, which he has always denied, and the emergence on the eve of the 2016 election of a tape of him boasting that he just approaches women he is attracted to and grabs “them by the pussy”. In Washington DC, protestors are expected to march from the Washington Monument to the Supreme Court, which has been heavily shielded with metal barricades since protests immediately erupted after the draft decision was leaked that the supreme court is minded, with its conservative super-majority, to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe decision that established a woman’s constitutional right to seek an abortion in America.Many anti-abortion activists are also expected to turn out in support of banning the procedure.Former US vice president Mike Pence plans to hold a rally for incumbent Georgia governor Brian Kemp on the eve of that state’s midterms Republican primary – in very public defiance of former president Donald Trump who has chosen to support Kemp’s GOP rival.The Georgia primary is on May 24 and Pence will hold the rally for Kemp on May 23. Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Kemp for refusing to entertain his outlandish and untrue claims of voter fraud, has endorsed former David Perdue for the governorship, the former US Senator who lost his seat to Democrat Jon Ossoff in a sensational sweep by Democrats to turn Georgia blue in 2020.Pence has gently gone against Trump in recent months. In March Pence told Republican donors that “there is no room in this party for apologists for Putin”, comments which came a few days after Trump had called the Russian leader “smart” and “savvy”.Pence has also disputed Trump’s nonsense claim that the former vice-president could have overturned the 2020 election.But Pence’s enthusiastic endorsement of Kemp is his most overt pushback against Trump yet. It marks a big change from Pence, who was a famously sycophantic deputy during Trump’s four-year term.Find someone who looks at you the way Pence looks at Trump pic.twitter.com/lRzuEHq3ep— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) February 14, 2020
Beyond the Pence-Trump intrigue, the Georgia governor primary will offer a revealing look at Trump’s influence over Republican voters – and the future of the Republican party.Trump has had some hits with his endorsed candidates for the Senate and the House so far this year, but appears to wield less influence in governors races. Trump endorsed Charles Herbster for Nebraska governor, but Hebster lost this week. The former president has also endorsed a primary contender to Brad Little, the sitting governor of Nebraska, but Little is expected to win easily next week.Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of daily US political news. Mike Pence has made himself a target for the ire of his former boss, by announcing he will holding a rally with Georgia governor – and Trump foe – Brian Kemp.Politico reported that Pence will hold an event with Kemp on May 23, the day before a contentious Georgia primary. Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Kemp for refusing to entertain his outlandish and untrue claims of voter fraud, has endorsed Kemp’s rival, David Perdue.It sets up what will be revealing clash between Pence and Trump, who apparently remains furious that Pence did not do more to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.Trump has campaigned for Perdue, and the former president’s political action committee has pumped money into Perdue’s campaign. But polling from April showed Kemp was likely to defeat Trump’s man in the Republican primary.In a statement, Pence called Kemp “one of the most successful conservative governors in America”, per Politico.“Brian Kemp is my friend, a man dedicated to faith, family and the people of Georgia,” Pence said. “I am proud to offer my full support for four more years of Brian Kemp as governor of the great state of Georgia.” In other news, Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator, single-handedly held up a bill on Thursday which would have pledged $40bn aid for Ukraine. Paul’s blockage delayed passage of the measure into next week – the Senate has scheduled an initial procedural vote on the bill for late Monday afternoon. More
Revealed: supporters of Trump’s big lie work as election officials across GeorgiaOfficials in at least seven counties of crucial swing state found to have promoted falsehood that 2020 election was stolen by Biden The effort to install local election officials who promote Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen has seen particular success in the crucial swing state of Georgia, where at least eight county election officials are promoters of the falsehood, a Guardian investigation has found.The officials span the state, from suburban counties outside Atlanta to rural counties near the Tennessee and Alabama borders. All have substantial power over the administration of local, state and national elections in their counties, often with little oversight beyond scantly attended public meetings and small-town newspapers.They include: one election official who has posted in support of a discredited election conspiracist who believes the alleged presence of bamboo in paper ballots is proof they came from Asia, and thus show interference from China; two officials who tried, on the basis of bogus fraud allegations, to decertify the results of the January 2021 runoff that resulted in the election of the state’s first Black senator; one official who insisted that Georgia’s election laws needed to change if Republicans were going to “have a shot” at winning future elections.All continue to serve in their appointed positions as county election board officials in Floyd, Forsyth, Gwinnett, Hall, Jackson, Lumpkin and Spalding counties. None responded to requests for comment from the Guardian.The investigation looked at seven counties out of 159, meaning the number of election officials who support election conspiracy theories could be much higher.“These disturbing facts bring to light what we’ve known for a while: support for the big lie is growing – the result of powerful political actors stoking a dangerous fire,” the voting rights group New Georgia Project said in a statement.“There is absolutely no place on our boards of elections, or in any of our elected offices, for leaders who refuse to accept the results of fair and certified elections.”Election boards have access to voter rolls, and make rules about polling places, ballots and voter registration. They also make determinations on ballots in which the voters’ intention is unclear.The boards seat between four and five members, usually split evenly between the two main parties with a tie-breaking, “non-partisan” member often chosen by the county commission or a local judge.With 159 counties, Georgia therefore has hundreds of county election board officials, creating and changing election policy on a weekly basis with little other than local activists and press to track them.Among them is Dottie Krull, a 79-year-old Republican on the Lumpkin county election board, located a little over an hour north of Atlanta. Shortly after the 2020 election, Krull began posting about the big lie on her personal Facebook page.“I guess we all know why Biden stayed in his basement and didn’t campaign,” Krull quoted a friend as saying. “He knew he didn’t need to.”In Forsyth county, elections board member Joel Natt was present on a conference call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other election officials when he blamed unspecified election “irregularities” as a reason why Georgians of both parties were becoming “less and less trusting” of Raffensperger’s office.In Floyd county, Pam Peters was described by an election conspiracy theorist who spoke to the Washington Post as an “investigative partner.” Days before election day, Peters volunteered for Trump in Rome, Georgia.In Hall county, elections board member Tom Smiley said he took issue with claims that the 2020 election saw no fraud, saying he would amend it to “NO FRAUD DISCOVERED”.Perhaps no elections board official has been the subject of as much controversy as Alice O’Lenick, chair of the Gwinnett county board of registration.O’Lenick has been a vocal supporter of restrictions to poll access and voting rights, her critics say. In 2016, O’Lenick opposed the use of Spanish-language ballots. (The county was eventually forced to include them by the US Census Bureau under the Voting Rights Act.)She has also supported the abolition of so-called “no excuse” absentee voting, in which only the elderly or infirm would be allowed to fill out an absentee ballot; opposed the use of drop boxes, alleging spurious claims of ballot harvesting; served on a task force that recommended sweeping changes to voting rights so Republicans could “at least have a shot” at winning elections; and alleged without providing direct evidence that Gwinnett county saw an uptick in attempted voting by undocumented immigrants.In Spalding county, election board chair Ben Johnson continues to post prolifically about a wide variety of far-right conspiracy theories, including those involving alleged ballot harvesting and Dominion voting machines. In late April, Johnson shared a photo from a Canadian news outlet that had been altered to proclaim that conspiracy theorists “keep getting things right”.In Jackson county, Republican election board officials Larry Ewing and Jeff Hughes, following a campaign by the national conservative group True the Vote, forced an investigation into 211 people who had voted after recently changing their address, in the unsubstantiated belief that up to 2,000 Jackson county residents who had recently changed their addresses could have voted illegally.The pair also refused to certify the runoff election of Raphael Warnock, the state’s first Black senator, until the 211 names were passed on to the secretary of state for further investigation. The results were eventually certified with their dissent.“I can’t stress enough how widespread the election fraud lies have taken hold in the area,” said Pete Fuller, chair of the Jackson county Democratic party. “It’s very disconcerting how effective the misinformation has been.”TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Missouri Senate primary highlights rise of violent rhetoric on the rightIn an era of polarization, candidates posing with guns and using extreme language about opponents threatens more violence On 25 April, the former Missouri governor Eric Greitens, now running for US Senate, posted a video on Twitter of him and Donald Trump Jr, firing semi-automatic rifles at a range.“Striking fear in the hearts of liberals everywhere,” the former president’s son said.Republican Senate hopeful Eric Greitens accused of abuse by ex-wife Read moreIn the accompanying post, Greitens wrote: “Striking fear into the hearts of liberals, RINOs, and the fake media.”Greitens, a former Navy Seal, shared the video even though a woman whom he had an affair with accused him of tying her up and tearing her clothes off without her consent, and his ex-wife, Sheena, accused him of knocking her down and hitting one of their sons hard enough to knock one of his teeth loose, according to an affidavit filed as part of a child custody dispute.She also alleged that he purchased a gun, refused to tell her where it was and threatened to kill himself unless she expressed public support for him.Greitens’ gun-focused messaging is concerning, according to researchers who study links between communication and political violence, not only because more than a third of the mass shooters in recent years also had a history of committing domestic violence, according to a Bloomberg report.But it’s also part of a significant increase among politicians – largely Republicans – in recent years in references to guns and threatening language in campaign ads, according to researchers.That rhetoric contributes to polarization in our society and can translate to physical violence, they say.Given the tense political climate, researchers expect rhetoric from rightwing political figures to continue to coarsen and lead to more violence before the pendulum swings back to a less charged time.“Violence is in politics as a violation of the idea that people have an equal say in the political process of choosing their governments and of being able to express themselves freely,” said Nathan Kalmoe, professor of political communication at Louisiana State University and author of Radical American Partisanship. “Clearly this kind of messaging, where you’re calling out political opponents while you’re shooting at a gun range, is a kind of a violent threat.”Since Donald Trump became president in 2016, the number of threats against members of Congress has soared, according to data provided by the Capitol police to news organizations. That year, there were 902 threats against the lawmakers. In 2021, there were 9,600.Republicans are also more likely than Democrats to think civilians may need to engage in combat to save America. A majority of Republicans support the possible use of force to preserve the “traditional American way of life”, according to a 2021 George Washington University Politics Poll. Among Democrats the number was 15%.When asked if a time will come when “patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands”, 47% of Republicans agreed, as opposed to 9% of Democrats.About one-third of Republicans also agreed that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country”, according to a 2021 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute. Among Democrats, the number was 18%.But the use of incendiary speech to rile up supporters in a democracy did not start with Trump.“Certainly, we’ve experienced time periods in the US that were as divisive and as polarized as today,” James Piazza, professor of political science at Penn State University, said. “It kind of goes in waves. And if you look at the type of speech and rhetoric that politicians used in those previous eras of polarization and division, they look a lot like what you see today; it’s dehumanizing speech.”Trump and other Republicans are using threatening language to tap into anger about the shifting demographics of the United States and the sense that a Christian way of life is coming under threat, according to political scientists.“Trump played into that anger and amplified it and went much further than most Republican leaders, especially the most prominent, had gone in very explicitly making these statements, not just the election rejection, but also the other kinds of anti-democratic statements, including hostility towards various racial, ethnic and religious minority groups,” said Kalmoe.One key difference between the Trump era and other highly polarized periods is the advent of social media, which amplifies speech by instantly sending it to millions of people and often strips nuance from a statement, according to Helio Fred Garcia, professor of professional development and leadership at Columbia University and the author of Words on Fire: The Power of Incendiary Language and How to Confront It.“There’s a giant megaphone that is out there,” said Piazza, who authored a study on the connection between political hate speech and domestic terrorism. “There really is a whole new realm of the ability to mobilize people, to radicalize people, to have more fringe voices play an outsized role in national discussions.”Greitens is not alone among Republicans in using such incendiary language. For example, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, recently told Real America’s Voice, a media group, “The Democrats are the party of pedophiles. The Democrats are the party of princess predators from Disney … Their identity is the most disgusting, evil, horrible thing happening in our country.”In interviews, political scientists said such language was occurring mostly but not exclusively on the right. But they struggled to provide examples of Democrats doing the same thing.In 2018, former attorney general Eric Holder, who served in Obama administration, said: “When they go low, we kick ’em. That’s what this new Democratic party is about.”“Immediately the right jumped on him and said, ‘He’s provoking violence.’” Garcia said. “Interestingly, the same people who said, ‘No, Trump isn’t promoting violence,’” criticized Holder.Given the charged political climate, the academics say more violence like – or worse than – the January 6 Capitol riot is inevitable. Piazza said this wave of divisiveness and polarization is reminiscent of the time before the civil war when “you had similar politician rhetoric to mobilize voters and to demobilize and demonize the other side that resulted in political violence”.That said, Piazza does not expect something like the civil war to erupt.“We do actually have pretty strong political institutions in the United States, and we have strong security institutions. The US military is extraordinarily professionalized, and the US military has done an extremely good job of being apolitical,” he said.Garcia also forecasts more violence. He thought the US could return to a more normal place after the end of Trump’s presidency but because Trump still insists he won, Garcia thinks it will take more than eight years and further carnage for the pendulum to swing back to a more normal place.To avoid that, Piazza and others call for more regulation of social media. He is encouraged by bipartisan efforts to hold the companies accountable.He hopes the government introduces regulations so that a politician “trying to rile people up for political gain or attention, or to raise money, wouldn’t be able to get away with that on social media. They would have to really watch what they had to say in terms of demonizing others and engaging in hate speech,” he said.In the meantime, Greitens ranks third in the Republican Senate primary polling but still leads against Democratic candidates, according to FiveThirtyEight. Greitens and his primary opponents did not respond to requests for comment.In the campaign ad, Greitens and Trump switch from the semi-automatic rifles to handguns.It closes with them firing more shots and Greitens saying: “Liberals beware.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsMissourifeaturesReuse this content More
Capitol attack panel subpoenas five Republicans in unprecedented stepChair Bennie Thompson says panel has been ‘forced to take this step’ as Kevin McCarthy complains investigation ‘not legitimate’ The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has issued unprecedented subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress, seeking to compel their cooperation with the inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Biden marks imminent ‘tragic milestone’ of 1m US Covid deaths in address to global summit – liveRead moreThe select committee empowered the chairman, Bennie Thompson, to move ahead with subpoenas to the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama.The five congressmen flatly refused to accept invitations to provide voluntary assistance to the investigation, sources said.Thompson said: “Before we hold our hearings next month, we wished to provide members the opportunity to discuss these matters with the committee voluntarily. Regrettably, the individuals receiving subpoenas today have refused and we’re forced to take this step to help ensure the committee uncovers facts concerning January 6th.”The subpoena letters indicate that the select committee is seeking testimony from the five House Republicans about some of the most sensitive details about Trump’s unlawful efforts to overturn the election, including their contacts with Trump.The Guardian reported earlier this week that the panel was moving closer to issuing subpoenas to Republicans in Congress, appalled at their refusal to assist in any way despite prima facie connections to the events of 6 January.What changed for members of the committee, according to sources familiar with internal deliberations, was that they could no longer ignore what appeared to be deep involvement in Trump’s unlawful schemes to overturn the 2020 election results.After the announcement, McCarthy told reporters that “I have not seen a subpoena” and repeated his previous attacks on the committee. “They’re not conducting a legitimate investigation,” he said. “Seems as though they just want to go after their political opponents.” Meanwhile, Perry called the investigation a “charade”.The voluntary cooperation letters outlined in damning detail the reasons that the select committee wanted to depose the five Republicans, as House investigators prepare to wrap up their work ahead of public hearings in June.From McCarthy, the select committee said it wanted to learn more about his communications with Trump before, during and after January 6, including a conversation in which the former president admitted he was partly at fault for the Capitol attack.The panel is keenly interested in what McCarthy believes prompted Trump to make such an admission, the sources said, since it could offer evidence that the former president had a guilty conscience for a possible future justice department criminal investigation.From Biggs, the former chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, the select committee said it wanted to learn more about meetings House Republicans had with Trump at the White House in the days and weeks leading up to January 6.The panel is focusing on a 21 December 2020 meeting that took place in the Oval Office with Trump, the letter indicated, since those attending appeared to strategize ways to unlawfully delay or stop Joe Biden’s certification from taking place and return Trump to power.The select committee also wants to depose Jordan to learn more about that meeting with Trump and other communications he had with the former president, his letter said.In the letter to Perry, the select committee said he was directly involved with efforts to corrupt the justice department and install a pro-Trump DoJ official, Jeffrey Clark, as acting attorney general if he opened investigations into baseless claims of election fraud.The panel also subpoenaed Brooks since he spoke at the “Save America” rally at the Ellipse that preceded the Capitol attack, where he notably wore a bulletproof vest under his shirt, and has spoken publicly about Trump pressuring him to “rescind” his election loss.One notable and unexplained exception from the list was congressman Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former White House doctor, whose name surfaced in text messages among members of the Oath Keepers militia group that stormed the Capitol, some of whom were indicted for seditious conspiracy.Biggs’ possible contacts with far-right activist Ali Alexander are of special interest to the investigation, sources said.The committee is trying to untangle claims by Alexander that he “schemed up putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting” with Brooks, Biggs and Paul Gosar, another Arizona Republican, and his testimony that he spoke to Biggs’s staff and the congressman himself.Alexander obtained a permit to hold a rally at the Capitol on 6 January but that event never took place. Alexander was instead filmed going up the Capitol steps in a “stack” formation with members of the Oath Keepers militia.Thompson said the panel wanted to ask Biggs about his efforts to pressure legislators to create “alternate” slates of electors for Trump in states he lost, as well as an alleged request he made to Trump for a pardon in the days after the Capitol attack.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More
‘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
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
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.’
US politics: latest updates More
